Movie Review

  • Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

    Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) If you stopped watching Kiss Me Deadly twenty minutes before the end, you’d probably be forgiven for thinking about the film as a well-done example of the muscular hard-boiled detective, and nothing more. Aside from the occasional odd mention of scientists being involved in the nebulous plot uncovered by our protagonist, little would prepare you for the right turn taken by the film minutes before the end, as the anxieties of the nuclear age crash dead into the foundations of film noir. Ralph Meeker plays legendary private detective character Mike Hammer with relish, especially as he slaps, punches, maims or otherwise brutalizes a long string of uncooperative witnesses. The story gets going with a chance meeting with a woman escaped from an asylum (played by no less than Cloris Leachman), but before long we’re zigzagging throughout mid-1950s low-rent Los Angeles in search of clues, revelations and occasional clashes with villains. One highlight is a lengthy shot set in a boxing ring, highlighting the film’s noir credentials. This being said, Kiss Me Deadly is late-period classic noir, right before it evolved into self-aware neo-noir: it’s very much playing according to specific aesthetics, and that’s probably why it felt empowered to take a radical turn into techno-thriller territory by the end of the third act. It’s an explosive choice, and one that does much to distinguish the film from many similar other films. Other than that, we can also see other examples of technology creeping into the traditionally conservative setting of film noir: Hammer has a reel-based wall-mounted telephone answering machine in his apartment, for instance, and you can almost feel the coming rush of the sexual revolution in the relationship he has with his secretary. You can read a lot of thematic richness in the film’s final minutes, and one wonders how much of the ending of the first Indiana Jones film comes from some of the most striking images from the penultimate sequence. Kiss Me Deadly is one of the most intriguing films to come out of the classic noir era, but you really have to watch it until the end to understand why.

  • All Joking Aside (2020)

    All Joking Aside (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) Considering my fascination for stand-up comedy, I’m probably going to see every single film about stand-up comedians sooner or later. While All Joking Aside often feels similar to Standing Up, Falling Down in studying a close mentor relationship between aspiring and experienced stand-up comedians, it quickly becomes its own film. Raylene Harewood makes for an incredibly appealing heroine as a young woman with family issues, health concerns and a drive to become a stand-up comedian in a notoriously unforgiving field. Brian Markinson is her foil as a bitter washed-up veteran who wasted his potential and lost his own family along the way—they meet when he heckles her during her first open mic and it’s a long way to building the intergenerational friendship that the film eventually relies upon. You can make a case that All Joking Aside plays it too safe—but I don’t think that you can fault the film for it. It’s meant as a moderately realistic take on stand-up comedy apprenticeship, and I appreciate that it doesn’t take too many wild leaps of absurdity or aggression along the way. Like many other films about stand-up comedy, it’s not all that funny when it’s not taking place on a stage: it focuses a lot on the pains and trials of the comedians in between the punchlines. The result is amiable enough—Harewood is a promising actress, and Markinson does credibly step into the shoes of a once-legendary comedian. It makes for a nice package—familiar, for sure, well telegraphed in its plot beats but likable all the way through.

  • Spinster (2019)

    Spinster (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2019) It takes a while to get used to Spinster’s specific brand of melancholic humour –a romantic comedy that explores the virtues of staying single and aging gracefully despite all the encouragement to the contrary. Chelsea Peretti plays a Halifax-based caterer who, at 39, discovers herself single and unsatisfied with her life, but not necessarily eager to jump back into another relationship. Thanks to a cast of strong supporting characters, Spinster spends a year in her life as she puts it back together, but not necessarily with a significant other. The awkwardness of the comedy means that it’s lighthearted but seldom funny—the down-to-earth cinematography also reinforces the low-stake, low-intensity nature of the script. Peretti does well in the lead role, carrying the film on her shoulders with some aplomb as soon as we get used to the specific rhythm of the film. There isn’t much to the film that screams about it being from the East Coast until the very end—for a while, I thought it was set in Toronto through sheer inertia of believing every English-Canadian film is set in Toronto. Still, it’s an amiable film, more of a journey of self-reconstruction than anything more conventional.

  • Working Man (2019)

    Working Man (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) There’s a difference between interest and entertainment (or even satisfaction), and watching Working Man is a clear illustration of that. Before working hard at dismantling fairytales, this is a film that starts in very low-key fashion, as a blue-collar worker shrugs off being laid off by still going to his closed-down factory every day, cleaning up the place until a colleague with the required audacity manages to get the power back on. Before long, this colleague has put back the old crew together, telling them that if they can power through the rest of the inventory, they can sell their stock and attract investors. So far so good—despite the resolutely gritty and low-energy tone, it’s the kind of film we’ve often seen already, a feel-good myth for a society in its post-industrial phase. It’s immensely forgettable, and then comes the third act: the idea that some things are too good to be true, and that the Pied Piper leading the march can be delusional. That’s when Working Man becomes more interesting than entertaining: in-keeping with the naturalistic cinematography and soft-spoken characters, the film gets a bad case of fantasy dismantlement in which everyone learns a lesson and nobody gets the triumphant ending that they want. It’s a gutsy choice, and it does bring to mind older movies à la Norma Rae, embracing blue-collar labour activism, unflashy lives and serious character drama. It’s fortunate to be able to depend on some key actors—Peter Gerety plays an impassive protagonist, but he gets the right notes. Billy Brown has a trickier character whose likable bluster becomes something much darker later on, and anyone wondering what Talia Shire has been up to should have a look at her solid supporting performance here. Working Man is not spectacular, intentionally irritating and very much a throwback to 1970s cinema. It’s interesting… but don’t expect to like it very much.

  • Wendy (2020)

    Wendy (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) In retrospect, I should have just stopped watching Wendy after five minutes, so quickly does the film establish its tone and technique in a way that I fundamentally dislike. I’m not against the central concept of the film—reimagining Peter Pan in a gritty semi-realistic contemporary take halfway between magical realism and low-budget filmmaking. Writer-director Benh Zeitlin impressed many with his debut feature Beasts of the Southern Wild, and you can see the similarities here. Alas, the way Wendy is handled immediately rubbed me wrong, with languid pacing, twee-ethereal music, an irritating lack of medium shots and insistent innocence-of-childhood themes that quickly grate. I don’t like the original Peter Pan story all that much, so it could have gone either way—I have no attachment to the original story and would have enjoyed a different take, or it could have stuck too closely to the worst aspects of the original story. Unfortunately, while there’s some interest in seeing how the film recreates the familiar elements of J.M. Barrie’s story, it does stick to the aspects of it that annoyed me the most, almost going the Lord of the Flies route as it describes kids without adult supervision. Add to that the dirty handheld cinematography and I was clawing for the exits long before the film concluded (which, thanks to the interminable pacing, takes forever). It happens—most movies aren’t made for everyone, and it can happen that it strikes you wrong. Still, I did not enjoy my time with Wendy, and I’m going to be happy not every seeing it again.

  • Dolittle (2020)

    Dolittle (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) You can watch up to a few minutes’ worth of Dolittle without feeling that anything is wrong, but then, at semi-regular intervals comes the Dumb Thing. That Dumb Thing can take many forms, whether it’s a bit of amateurish staging, a flow of very contemporary slang uttered by talking animals (and I’m not merely talking modern slang in a Victorian context—I mean 2010s slang) or dubious comic ideas, such as performing a two-fisted colonoscopy on a dragon. Yeah… Considering that this is the third disappointing Dolittle film in three generations, it’s quite possible that there’s a curse of some sort on the property—or that, in attracting actors with a healthy ego in the lead role, the projects doom themselves from inception. If forced to choose, I’ll still pick this one as the best of the three—from a contemporary perspective, it’s not as plasticky or atonal as the 1967 Rex Harrison one. Nor is it as aggressively stupid as the 2001 Eddie Murphy version. On the other hand, its imagination seems severely stunted compared to the fantastic creatures of the Harrison version, and it’s not as clearly made for kids as was the Murphy version. But it has top-notch special effects for the animals, and a rather likable Robert Downey Jr. playing a variation on the ultracompetent overconfident persona that his current career phase has focused upon. Still, the succession of Dumb Things grates quite a bit, especially when they’re coupled with clear signs that the film was directed by committee and most likely redone in post-production: Much of the live-action dialogue is uttered without seeing the actors’ faces, the editing is unusually herky-jerky (often compressing what feels like minutes of action in a few dozen seconds), and the directing often doesn’t have crucial connective tissue: It makes for a very strange, subliminally upsetting viewing when the film can’t even achieve narrative fluency despite what looks like a very, very expensive production. Most of those suspicions are confirmed by rumours, then documented articles about the film’s unusually troubled production history (shades of the 1960s version right there!), including as many as three well-known directors involved in principal photography and extensive reshoots. We’ll probably know more about the film in a decade or two, but, in the meantime, we can probably tip a hat to the heroic efforts of those involved in Dolittle’s post-production odyssey, considering that they managed to turn out something that, for entire minutes at a time, feels watchable. Well, aside for the two dozen Dumb Things.

  • The Rare Breed (1966)

    The Rare Breed (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) It takes some audacity to even think about making a western about livestock, but that’s what The Rare Breed goes for. James Stewart here plays an adventurer hired to ensure the safety of a lovely widow (Maureen O’Hara in her red-headed glory) as she brings a prized British heifer out west for breeding purposes. There are a few complications, including a lustful rancher, competing clans, budding romance and intergenerational tensions. It all culminates in a happy ending tempered with a little bit of sadness. Steward here has a tough outdoorsman role more akin to his many 1950s westerns, albeit tempered by age and a slightly softer attitude toward women and cattle: If you’re lived this long without seeing Stewart carry a calf in his arms, then this is the film for you. The focus on cattle warms my former farmhand’s heart, and still feels unusual for the western genre, despite cattle being such an important part of the wild west. (But cattle don’t carry guns, so that doesn’t make them as interesting to filmmakers.) Otherwise, I’m somewhat muted in my appreciation for The Rare Breed—I like Stewart, the bull, the ending and O’Hara, but the rest of the film feels a bit inert to me compared to the high points. Ah well—at least it concludes with cute calves galloping around.

  • Carmen Jones (1954)

    Carmen Jones (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) A recent refresher about Dorothy Dandridge’s rather sad biography made it essential to view her career peak Carmen Jones. Despite a long history of systemic racism, Hollywood has, from time to time, made features with all-black casting. Carmen Jones is one of them, and it’s unsurprising that it would come from noted iconoclast Otto Preminger. Adapting the classic Bizet opera (perhaps the only opera featuring two numbers that regular people can hum) to the WW2-era was already something, but setting it in an all-black cast was the kind of decision to make people stand up and notice. The result has aged remarkably well as a period piece: It helps that the film opens with a scorcher of a number in “Carmen” as Dandridge vamps her way across a mess hall and takes aim at the lead male character, setting in motion the tragic events that follow. Dandridge fans know that Preminger’s interest in Dandridge was far from purely professional, and that may have helped in elevating her terrific lead performance in Carmen Jones: she looks nothing less than fantastic here even if her voice is dubbed, playing a femme fatale in a non-noir context. (That said, the film noir comparisons may not be all that far off: The entire story is a tragic cautionary tale about fate destroying you, with the hero experiencing a downward spiral eventually bringing him to that beloved noir common ground of a boxing hall.) The other big hummable number is the classic “toreador song,” here called “Stan’ Up an’ Fight” and led with gusto by Husky Miller. Dandridge often overshadows her co-star Harry Belafonte, but he’s equally impressive as the protagonist led to perdition—although, once again, the very idea of him being dubbed over is amazing to modern viewers used to his long musical career. It’s not a perfect film—what’s the progressive appeal of an all-black cast if they’re portrayed as “shameless vixens” and weak men destroyed by lust? Still, I’d rather have a Hollywood with Carmen Jones in its archives than without—considering that we’re still dealing with representativeness issues today, any tiny step forward is not to be discounted from today’s perch. From a more conventional perspective, I’m not a big fan of much of Carmen Jones: many numbers drag, and the film is not equally interesting. But Dandridge is terrific and so is Belafonte—and the big numbers are delightful.

  • Follow the Fleet (1936)

    Follow the Fleet (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) I’m watching Fred Astaire films in rough decreasing order of acknowledged importance, and it’s not a bad approach—his persona is best defined by his most popular films, and once you start plumbing into the lesser-remembers ones, you can hit some weird variations on his usual characters. I’m not going to forget a drunken Astaire smashing a bar in The Sky’s The Limit, but there’s something almost equally strange in seeing him play what’s supposed to be a rough-hewn Navy sailor in Follow the Fleet: Astaire’s persona was pure ballroom, not boiler room (although, yes, I also remember that scene in Shall We Dance), and it’s a very curious choice to structure a film (a peacetime film, no less!) around him being a swabbie at the service of Uncle Sam. Somehow, Ginger Rogers makes her way into the plot as a gifted hostess employed in a San Francisco ballroom -at least until Astaire barges in and gets her fired. There’s a B-romance as well, but we’re here for Astaire and Rogers and, fortunately, Follow the Fleet delivers on the dance front: There’s a ballroom duet sequence early in the film to reassure us that they’ve still got it. Later on, the action moves to ship decks in time for an Astaire solo tap number with sailors surrounding him. The third act has the big guns: A piano solo from Astaire, a deliciously funny duet (“I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket”) in which Astaire and Rogers intentionally dance out of step and then—as a big finale—an anthology-worthy return to pure class in “Let’s Face the Music in Dance” where we once again have a glamorous version of the duo doing their best in front of a very stylized art-deco backdrop. Nonetheless, Follow the Fleet isn’t quite better than the sum of its parts: while there are some great moments, the film as a whole seems less funny, less tight (at 110 minutes, many of them dedicated to a lacklustre narrative) and less purely enjoyable than other 1930s films featuring the duo. I still liked it based on its individual numbers, but I also liked their other films of the decade better—most notably Top Hat, The Gay Divorcee, Swing Time and Shall We Dance. But even a substandard Astaire still has moves impossible to duplicate by anyone but Astaire: let’s treasure what we’ve got.

  • El ángel exterminador [The Exterminating Angel] (1962)

    El ángel exterminador [The Exterminating Angel] (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) Much as I go back-and-forth on Luis Bunuel’s movies, I went back-and-forth on The Exterminating Angel throughout its duration. After a mystifying introduction to the characters, the premise reveals itself: our dozen high-society characters are suddenly unable to leave the living room of the mansion in which they’ve gathered. Why they can’t leave is unimportant, which is completely in-keeping with the kind of surrealism that Bunuel practised, but somewhat at odds with contemporary audiences more used to a genre explanation, as perfunctory as it is. (I sometimes think that the best thing that genre literature brought to the world was a way to anchor metaphors into some kind of rationality, even in fantasy fiction. Zombies may be a great way to discuss the mindless conformity of the modern world, but they are also interesting in their own right as mortal threats, and it’s that duality of genre fiction that makes it both accessible and profound depending on the level sought by creator and audience.) Knowing that The Exterminating Angel will never explain its situation, the film is free to go through the motions of its plot, as its subjects are in extended captivity: the lies, the loathing, the contempt, the violence—as mayhem plays out in a gilded living room, it’s obvious that this is meant to have deeper levels of interpretation. If you’re not interested in playing Bunuel’s’ game, however, the film is only intermittently interesting. By the time it concludes with the ill-justified freeing of its characters, it’s both interesting and not interesting at the same time: in the nebulous fog of surrealism, something happened but it seems ripe to be swept under the rug with few repercussions nor any reason to care. The premise of The Exterminating Angel has been reused many times in many other places, but the original could use a bit of tightening up as well.

  • Fashions of 1934 (1934)

    Fashions of 1934 (1934)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) This may sound a bit sad to those who don’t like movies (although what’s the point in caring what these people say?) but one of the greatest things about having an encyclopedic knowledge of film and favourite actors is that you can sit down to watch a film without any idea of who’s in it, and be pleasantly surprised at who appears on screen, almost as if they were friends or something. (Look up Dunbar’s number and wonder at how many of those 150 spots are taken up by actors’ personas.) So it is that I sat down to watch Fashions of 1934 without any expectations other than this was going to be one of those solid 1930s musicals. But then William Powell and Bette Davis both walk on-screen, and you know you’re going to have a better time than expected. Now, let’s not go overboard: Fashions of 1934 is, at best, a representative film of its genre and era. It’s decently funny at times, does showcase contemporary fashions, moves briskly at 78 minutes and throws in a few kaleidoscopic dance numbers from Busby Berkeley. The musical numbers are spectacular (with a special mention to the bit in which dancers with feather fans transform themselves into a gigantic flower and then seamlessly changing into a maiden emerging from a foamy sea), the dialogue can be quite amusing and Powell is up to his usual standards. The Pre-Code nature of the film is best seen in the saucy jokes and the scantily clad dancers (oh, and mention of pornographic pictures for sale on the streets of Paris)—those would disappear months later with the imposition of the Hays Code. When you throw in all of those elements, the one thing that strikes out is Davis herself—Fashions of 1934 was so early in her career that it features a misguided attempt to make her a blonde-haired sexpot: her vivaciousness shines through what little dialogue she has, but even the film seems to forget about her for minutes at a time. The script is a bit scattershot, and it’s clear that it’s far too focused on its musical numbers—especially in its last third—to allow Powell or Davis to develop their screen persona. Still, it’s an enjoyable watch: not an essential example of its era, but a look at what Warnes Studios could do in the musical genre as a matter of everyday business. Powell and Davis are just icing on the cake even if they’re not used to their fullest extent.

  • Chain Lightning (1950)

    Chain Lightning (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) I have often written that the Science Fiction genre offers surprisingly few rewards to its creators for being right about the future: if you somehow happened to predict the future with 100% accuracy, it would feel like history and thus be completely unremarkable to those encountering the speculations years later. 1950’s Chain Lightning is a work of engineering fiction more than science fiction, but it still managed to be somewhat accurate in predicting the following decade of development in aeronautics… something that goes completely unremarked by modern viewers. In watching the result, we twenty-first century viewers are more likely to completely ignore the triumphant spirit of fast-paced jet development and instead focus on Humphrey Bogart playing a test pilot living at the very edge of human capabilities. A contemporary take on The Right Stuff’s first act, Chain Lightning remains interesting, either by its focus on the growing mystique of test pilot, or in seeing Bogart somehow try to fit his streetwise tough guy’s persona to the confines of an airplane cockpit. I don’t quite think he pulls off the trick, and much of the problem goes to a very technically minded script that chooses to focus on technology rather than make use of an actor like Bogart in character interactions. I am conflicted: I like techno-thrillers and actively relish long passages of exposition, but then again, the number of movies that Bogart did is limited and seeing him misused in a feature that can’t be bothered to take advantage of his strengths is really disappointing. Nonetheless, Chain Lightning is not a bad watch for fans of aviation movies… and having even a substandard Bogart is still better than no Bogart at all.

  • Teen Wolf Too (1987)

    Teen Wolf Too (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2020) I’d like to be harsh on Teen Wolf Too and point out that it’s a bargain sequel that barely puts in the effort to riff on its predecessor’s legacy, but there’s something to it that, even in retreading the original Teen Wolf, still feels charming and somewhat novel. The Big Idea of the original film—that you would transform into a werewolf and still be popular with your friends and social group—is still somewhat heartwarming, and doesn’t feel overused. The slight tweaks meant to accommodate the sequel—the lead character of the first film replaced by his cousin, heading to college rather than high school, and using the manly sport of boxing rather than simply basketball—are somewhat meaningless. What’s perhaps more interesting is in the middle portion of the film: Never mind the over-explaining introduction or the somewhat boring climax taking place in a boxing ring, the middle shows our protagonist discovering that he’s got the lycanthropic trait, enjoying it a little bit too much, and then reigning it in under the influence of another hidden lycanthrope played by Kim Darby. (A much better film could have followed this subplot, but this one doesn’t.) It’s a familiar act, but executed with sufficient energy. You can also see the film as an early starring turn by an almost unrecognizably young Jason Bateman. Teen Wolf Too is not that good of a film, but the spirit of the original remains quirky enough to be likable in small doses.

  • Destination Murder (1950)

    Destination Murder (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) Sometimes, you don’t need polish, coherence or high production values to have a good time: Destination Murder is, by most standards, a substandard film: it has dollar-store production values, a script that barely makes sense, quirks of dialogue that are more endearing than effective (“Armitage!”), and a density of plotting that makes its 72 minutes feel somewhat longer. But as a film noir… it holds its own. Cheaply made by B-movie specialist Edward L. Cahn, Destination Murder can rely on a fast-paced script and actors who do what they’re expected from beginning to end. The story, at it is, has to do with a young woman going undercover in a club in order to investigate her father’s murder. Who her father was and what he did to get killed should warrant some attention but doesn’t—we’re off to the investigation and as bits and pieces of another noir movie seem to intrude (including a blonde femme fatale who gets taken out of the plot far too soon), Destination Murder races to a conclusion without bothering to make sure that it didn’t take disqualifying shortcuts. It’s incoherent, bewildering and quite a bit wild… which, in some ways, reflects the down-and-dirty ethos of the film noir, interested in thrills and not really in explanations. Destination Murder is not the kind of polished experience but it has a certain charm of its own. Just make sure this is what you’re looking for.

  • Arcade (1993)

    Arcade (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, November 2020) There’s no doubt that Arcade is a terrible film, and I find myself hesitant to cut it any slack for being a film about immersive videogames that came out at the dawn of the CGI era. It’s clearly terrible-looking—anyone who was around back in 1993 will instantly recognize the low-end awkward CGI that is meant to be the showcase of the film, as our teenage heroes immerse themselves in a form of virtual reality. (This being said, the CGI was not bad for the time and budget.) Other than Megan Ward and Seth Green in small roles, John de Lancie is the only recognizable name here as a scientist who realizes that his creation has taken a life of its own thanks to some terrible decisions. (Note to self and anyone else: using an abused dead boy’s brain cells in your AI development is really just asking for trouble.) But even if you’re feeling generous on the special effects, the rest of the film is not particularly good—while the script is an early piece of juvenilia from David S. Goyer (who would go on to write much, much better material), it’s directed by infamous B-movie mogul Albert Pyun, so the results are roughly what we’d expect. There are no surprises, no scares and no big ideas in Arcade, even accounting for a 1993 production date: even if some of this material might have felt fresh during the first year of Wired magazine, it’s all hopelessly trite now, and more of a period piece than something worth watching for itself.