Movie Review

  • Flower Drum Song (1961)

    Flower Drum Song (1961)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) In racial sensitivity terms, I expected the worst from 1961 musical romantic comedy Flower Drum Song, but was surprised at how much of it still holds up decently today. Oh, it’s certainly not immune to criticism: Its central love triangle inelegantly recreates some Asian stereotypes, the characters are sometimes written in blunt archetypes and the fantasy portrait of San Francisco’s Chinatown is in unrealistic Technicolor. But considering that even sixty years later, it’s still one of the rare Hollywood movies featuring a mostly Asian cast (albeit of mixed nationalities) with male Asian romantic leads, it’s not a bad idea to look at the positive. It does feature racialized characters defined by their own personality traits, with a minimum of condescension, and they all have agency to pursue their own choices. While I may have issues with the film’s length, the way it presents the immigrant experience with far too many references to white-American cultural makers, or the uneven nature of its musical content, it still leaves a striking impression. If I’m less enthusiastic about the film, it’s largely because it’s from a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, and I don’t particularly like these kinds of musicals as much as others. Still, there are good moments: Nancy Kwan is great (despite being dubbed) in “I Enjoy Being a Girl,” there is a rather dazzling mixture of musical elements in “Chop Suey” (despite lyrics that I find questionable), and “Gliding Through My Memoree” is a truly amusing bit of countercultural appropriation. Still, much of the film’s interest is in the ethnic details rather than the increasingly tedious romantic hijinks that end up forming the film’s last third. But overall, the film remains a high point of Hollywood openness to the Asian-American community—and one that, sadly, would remain as such for decades: considering the fuss that attracted 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians, there’s still quite a bit of work to do there.

  • Overdrive (2017)

    Overdrive (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, October 2020) I’m a very good audience for car-centric action movies, and since we only get a Fast and the Furious instalment every other year, I have to bid my time with something in the meantime. Something, in this case, is Overdrive, and it’s not much of a stretch to call it a Fast and Furious derivative: Written by the screenwriters who have worked on the series (albeit on 2 Fast 2 Furious, easily the worst of the bunch), this film takes us to Marseilles, where a team of half-brothers specialize in stealing expensive cars for rich people. The plot gets underway when they are caught in the cross-fire between two very rich men: Agreeing to steal cars from one to the other, their scheme quickly becomes more complex with moves and counter-moves that all pay off in the last third of the film. Scott Eastwood stars in the film (making extra funnier the constant references to his character’s father), along with the always-attractive Ana de Armas and Freddie Thorp in a role meant for comic relief. Still, the stars here are the cars to be stolen, and the various action sequences that pepper the narrative. Ably directed by Antonio Negret from a production put together by notables such as Pierre Morel (of Taken fame), this is a lower-budgeted but still entertaining attempt at showing fast cars zipping by. The climactic sequence is set on the twisty roads near Marseille and includes some good moments along the way. Still, it’s not much compared to the best examples of the genre: Overdrive struggles with middling actors, bland dialogue, extremely familiar narrative engines and a tendency to fall in love with the cars it managed to bring on set. But if you’re looking for a decent-enough car thriller, this is better than many other examples: it’s entertaining enough to be worth a quiet unassuming look.

  • From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999)

    From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) Considering that much of what was great about the first From Dusk Till Dawn was its out-of-nowhere genre twist midway through, it’s almost a given that any follow-up will not be able to get that impact, yet From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money does keep the pretence running a bit too long. After a meaningless prologue (featuring Bruce Campbell and Tiffani Thiessen), the film spends too much time assembling its band of criminals going after a bank heist before derailing the plan with the sudden intrusion of the good old vampire bar. Danny Trejo has a small role to keep up appearances, then we’re off to the bloody stuff. While the film’s level of interest fluctuates throughout, it does work itself to an interesting climax during the robbery itself, as our protagonist (a rather likable Robert Patrick) finds himself stuck between robbing vampires and opposing police forces in an isolated Mexican bank. The numerous vampire gore gags that follow are the reason why the film is worth a look for fans of the first instalment, and it’s where director Scott Spiegel seems to have the most fun as well. It doesn’t make Texas Blood Money a good movie (and I can think of many ways, most of them incompatible with the film’s low-budget, which would have made the result more interesting) but at best it’s an entertaining watch for those who want just a little bit more of the series’ modern western approach to the vampire myth.

  • Filière 13 (2010)

    Filière 13 (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) French-Canadian cinema has an addiction to cop comedies, explained by their relatively low costs, high audience appeal and ease of execution when many French-Canadian actors have a comedy background. There’s usually one every year or so, which is a lot considering that barely a dozen French-Canadian movies ever get high-profile releases. Just have the characters run around Montréal in goofy situations interspaced with stunts or gunplay and you’ve got enough to get audiences in theatres. But not all of them are equally successful, and Filière 13 is a far cry from such successes as Bon Cop Bad Cop or De Père en Flic: While helmed by veteran actor Patrick Huard, this mixture of police action and comedy feels like an awkward mashup rather than a truly satisfying hybrid. The issues start with the script, which can’t quite figure out what story it’s telling: the film starts by showing us three policemen with serious mental health issues (headaches, heartache, and panic attacks), then sidelines two of them in a meaningless stakeout, while the third one gets increasingly stalkerish in his behaviour toward his ex-wife. But everything feels like a subplot until the stakeout characters go for full police overreach and fixate their sights on a white-collar criminal—at which point the real plot of the film kicks in midway through –and even then, in ways that aren’t fully satisfying: The cowboy cop trope is overused to the point of making us care less and less about the characters skirting the edge of sociopathic behaviour. Whatever effective treatment of mental health issues is sidelined in favour of reprehensible behaviour and strikingly unpleasant comic set-pieces: there’s a homophobic sequence here that would have been offensive and out-of-touch even a decade earlier, and the comedic aspect of it (which could have worked in other circumstances) is made worse by what is supposed to be a serious character’s reaction to it. Women don’t get plum roles in Filière 13, with nearly all of them being portrayed as sources of conflicts, and the remaining one played by Anik Jean, being cute to the point of unbelievability. Still, the men don’t do any better: Claude Legault, Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge and Paul Doucet have intriguing characters that are then completely steamrolled by the script. Even André Sauvé (no relation) is a bit of a drawback as a psychologist written so broadly as to be unlikable. In other words, Filière 13 seems to ape a better movie’s building blocks without quite knowing how to put them together—in doing so, it actively manages to do worse than following the usual formula. It’s no wonder it sank without a trace: there have been much better examples of the form before and after.

  • Curse of Chucky (2013)

    Curse of Chucky (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) Whatever progress Seed of Chucky may have made in transforming the series in a satirical self-aware comedy/horror hybrid is almost completely gone in Curse of Chucky, which goes back to the schlock horror roots of the series and loses a lot of interest along the way. This time around, Chucky finds a way to get into the life of a disabled woman, her mother, sister and niece—the results aren’t pretty, and they’re almost entirely without self-conscious irony. We’re left with just a standard-issue slasher with 2010s technical polish. Only a late-movie cameo by Jennifer Tilly ties it all back together, but it’s too late by then: Chucky’s insufferable quips have done enough damage (misogyny doesn’t help), and the throwback to the straight-up horror is more repetitive than amusing. But you can’t even blame this shift in the direction of the franchise being taken over by lesser creative talents: writer-director Don Mancini is once again at the helm of Curse of Chucky, so he presumably knows where he wants to go here—creative fatigue may be to blame given, well, where do you go after six instalments of a premise that’s not exactly expansive? Visually, there are a few interesting things about this instalment: the opening credit sequence isn’t bad, and there are a few other findings here and there. It also takes a surprisingly long time for the plot to actually start, and the epilogue is protracted far too long. But even those distinctions are not quite enough to make Curse of Chucky more than a perfunctory instalment in a minor franchise—it doesn’t have the gonzo weirdness of its immediate predecessor, which is what was most interesting about it. But then again—maybe getting away from Seed of Chucky enabled the previous film to offer a series conclusion on its own terms.

  • Extra Ordinary (2019)

    Extra Ordinary (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) My expectations ran low in watching Extra Ordinary: Seven months in these pandemic times, the tap of high-budget Hollywood movies has been turned off even on cable channels such as Canada’s Crave, and what’s being shown instead of blockbusters is a mixture of smaller-budgeted, foreign or Canadian efforts. You can never completely guess what you’re going to get, although I appreciate the exposure to smaller, more daring movies. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much more than a few minutes for Extra Ordinary to establish its unique tone. Set in a small Irish town, it features a homely woman still feeling guilt over the death of her father, a renowned psychic investigator. Eschewing any funny paranormal business despite unusual aptitudes, she tries to focus on being a driving instructor… until a handsome man steps into her car and asks for help in getting rid of his deceased wife’s intrusive ghost. Further trouble comes brewing when a local one-hit wonder musician makes a deal with the devil for his next album, and starts looking at virgins to sacrifice. The plot is not that funny, and that’s because much of Extra Ordinary’s initial moments are spent building a universe of small haunted garbage cans, ghosts leaving messages saying, “YOU MUST PAY… THE CAR TAX,” or hauntings trying their best to even get the attention of the living. Aside from the occasional explosion, the comedy here starts out gently, with a good-nature looniness that gradually evolves into crazier and coarser material—by the end of the film, we’ve reached the logical and raunchy end point of the “can’t sacrifice her if she’s not a virgin,” train of thought without the film having lost its good-natured whimsy. It’s really a pleasant surprise, and much of the credit goes to the writer-director pair Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman, as well as Maeve Higgins as the sweet centre of the story. (Barry Ward is also good in a role that eventually requires a bit of rapid character-switching.) The special effects are numerous and used effectively, while the film often makes effective use of pseudo-archival footage as a narrative device. Extra Ordinary flies by at 94 minutes, and ramps up effectively from silly small-town psychic to a demonic portal to hell climax. It’s quite a nice surprise, and a very good genre effort that explores semi-fresh territory with irreverent humour.

  • The Call of the Wild (2020)

    The Call of the Wild (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) I did not expect an adaptation of Jack London’s classic novel of Gold Rush adventure to pack in so much CGI, but once you commit to full CGI in order to get pixel-perfect performances out of your animal characters, you might as well commit to what’s nearly a fully animated film. Not even heading over to the Yukon for location shooting, The Call of the Wild updates London’s story to include pulse-pounding special effects showcases, a dog that looks completely generated by computer, and a script tuned to modern sensibilities. It does sound awful to say that the dogs don’t feel real, and that’s true—but it would be selling the movie short to stop at that, because what you do gain from this trickery is a movie that moves quickly and has precise control over its visuals. Directed by animation film veteran Chris Sanders, the film does find its best moments in very real and human performances: Harrison Ford as a hermit that comes to care again about the world through his dog, but also Omar Sy as a French-Canadian postal worker and a welcome appearance by the striking Care Gee. Still, it’s an adventure story, and an episodic one at that—the overall dramatic arc is for the dog protagonist to free himself from humans, and that’s the point of it. I probably would care a bit more if I was a dog person, but even as it is, I had a good-enough time with The Call of the Wild. It’s far from a perfect film and it does struggle in trying to define its audience, but it moves quickly at times, and can be worth a look if only for the not-quite-perfect visual effects.

  • Twelve aka Charm City Kings (2020)

    Twelve aka Charm City Kings (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) In many ways, Charm City Kings is a very familiar story about a young man from disadvantaged circumstances measuring the easy pickings from a life of crime versus the harder payoffs of going straight. There’s been plenty of similar films, such as A Bronx Story or Boyz n the Hood. This one distinguishes itself early on with some motorcycle stunting, as it introduces us to a black boy whose brother was killed in a police raid and who idolizes his motorcycle skills. Getting a motorcycle is the ultimate goal—everything else will follow. Torn between the influences of a friendly police officer and that of a local hoodlum, our protagonist has to decide what path he’s going to take. Cue romantic subplot, overwhelmed single mom, dubious friends and so on. It’s a familiar story, sure, but executed with some deftness—the motorcycle elements make some moments move faster than comparable films. The rest is executed well enough, although my empathy for the protagonist fell off a cliff at some point after a spectacularly dumb decision—if he’s going to rush into trouble after so many warnings, why should I care about what happens to him? Consequently, the ending wasn’t as satisfying as I would have hoped for—I simply wasn’t rooting for him, and thought that he’d revert to crime at the slightest opportunity. But Charm City Kings is still not a bad film—there’s some joy in seeing new young talents brought together to produce a result like this, and the more voices taking a look at America from other perspectives the better.

  • The Tingler (1959)

    The Tingler (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) With producer-director William Castle, the gimmick was the thing, and what’s most remembered from The Tingler isn’t as much the silly story as the tales of theatre seats rigged with small devices that would vibrate at carefully selected moments in the film, echoing the on-screen theme of sensing fear and screaming to drive the monster away. The gimmick is carefully set up in the film’s first two minutes, as Castle introduces himself on-screen and delivers a portentous monologue that sets the tone and the topic of the film. After that, it’s up to Vincent Price to take up the slack with his soothing voice, playing a mad scientist who identifies a parasite living near human spinal cords that kills from fear… unless the victims can scream themselves hoarse. The plotting is ludicrous (and that’s without even mentioning the then-legal use of LSD by Price’s character as an experiment to scare himself silly), but there is an undeniable body horror moment at the idea of having a fear-fuelled parasite inside our bodies, and by the time the film makes its way to an actual movie theatre, the fun of Castle’s gimmick is back in full force. There are a few jolts along the way too: Other than the disgust of seeing a rather good parasite puppet move around the set, there’s also a scene with bright red blood flowing in the middle of a black-and-white film. Price is terrific as usual, and the added social satire of having married couples plotting to kill each other adds a bit of thematic content to the blunt high-concept. The result may not be sophisticated, but if you’re already attuned to Castle’s brand of gimmicky horror (start with House on Haunted Hill and 13 Ghosts), The Tingler is good fun with a bit of an added kick to it.

  • Body and Soul (1925)

    Body and Soul (1925)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) My naïve understanding of black American cinema prior to digging deeper in film history was that blaxploitation had started it all, but it took until the late 1980s until black filmmakers came on the scene with their own stories. That is profoundly mistaken, and I’ve been trying to atone for this misconception by seeking out the films of Oscar Micheaux who, in the silent era, would produce films as vital and reflective of the African-American condition as anything produced later on by Spike Lee and his cohort. Within Our Gates is a terrific example of silent cinema that still has the power to shock today, and I was also impressed with The Symbol of the Unconquered as a black western with the KKK as antagonist. Body and Soul is very much in the same vein, although it turns its attention inward, focusing on a mother trying to keep her daughter from making bad decisions—even if the temptation here is a preacher who is secretly an abusive thieving murdering alcoholic. Narratively, Body and Soul is a bit of a mess—the ending is a blatant “it was all a dream” cop-out, and the film can’t quite figure out if it’s the story of the daughter, the mother, the evil preacher or his beatific twin brother. On a technical level, much of the film is as rough as any other 1920s film—static camera, rough inserts, overlong title cards and so on. But there are occasional flashes of brilliance as well: there’s a sequence in a cabin in which the antagonist comes to rape the heroine, and it’s filmed with a great deal of style, the image narrowly focusing on his shoes as he enters the cabin as a way to build suspense, and then (“Half an hour later,” the title card bluntly says) leaving the cabin with little guilt. It’s a sequence that remains with viewers long after the silliness of the plot harms the overall film. Still, Body and Soul remains a fascinating viewing experience: it features rural black characters living dignified lives decades before, say, Sounder. It’s almost entirely absent of white characters, and it shows Micheaux with greater command of his craft as a filmmaker than his first features. Perhaps more regrettably, it’s one of the few silent films from Micheaux to have survived until now—might as well appreciate what we now have.

  • It (1927)

    It (1927)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) Awareness is knowing that an It Girl refers to the starlet of the moment—the one who may develop into a major talent. Knowledge is knowing that the expression derives from the 1927 film, and originally referred to Clara Bow. Expertise is seeing the film and realizing that the “It” of the title is that elusive magnetism that some people have and some don’t… which brings us closer to the more familiar definition. Sometimes called the first concept film, It adapted a then-popular novella by Elinor Glyn (who shows up briefly in the film, as characters comment on her magazine piece) to take advantage of cross-market popularity. The story isn’t all that complex, as it features a rich man falling for an attractive shopgirl and dealing with the social complications that this entails. But the story is far less important than, well, the It girl herself—Even nearly a century later, Clara Bow remains an incredibly striking presence, one that (with a more modern haircut) would still get heads turning today. (Ironically, she would retire six years after It, and spend the rest of her life away from Hollywood.) As a romantic comedy, It is serviceable, but it’s best seen as a splendid illustration of the power of personal magnetism—any film that features charisma as its central narrative hook must have a star that can follow through, and Clara Bow was indeed the It Girl of the time.

  • Warlock: The Armageddon (1993)

    Warlock: The Armageddon (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, October 2020) Oh no! Another sorcerer coming to our world to end it! What do they get out of it? Isn’t it lucky that we always have someone ready to fight him? Wouldn’t we be better off if they had their way once in a while? Such are the questions that pop up unbidden during the lengthier stretches of Warlock: The Armageddon, a rather dull film occasionally enlivened by imaginative sequences. It’s really not worth watching for its over-familiar plot: As a warlock (Julian Sands, whose presence greatly exceeds his acting talents) roams the United States in search of the magical doodads what will enable him to summon Satan and end the world, older protectors train their young recruit in order to stop the warlock dead (again). This is basic stuff, regurgitated from low-grade horror clichés. But where Warlock: The Armageddon does slightly better is in the more memorable sequences that pepper the humdrum narrative: the antagonist makes his entrance in a disturbing and more effective than expected birthing scene that clearly shows that the film was scripted by a man. One of the deaths makes effective use of a skylight. There’s a rather good sequence showing the antagonist being vulnerable to the spells of his opponents at a distance. Every so often, Warlock: The Armageddon has zingers of interest, even if the overall quality of the result really isn’t worth crowing about. Still, I’ll take it—many horror movies can’t even achieve even one effective sequence, bet alone a handful. Plus, there’s Sands hamming it up, as a warlock coming to free the devil—they simply don’t make them like that any more.  Thankfully.

  • Airheads (1994)

    Airheads (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) I wasn’t expecting much from Airheads—another rock and roll comedy about dumb characters? Meh. But I hadn’t paid attention to the main cast nor the specifics of the plot before watching, and there was no way of guessing ahead of time the strange alchemy between its elements. But by the turn of the first half-hour, I was curiously invested in the adventures of our three rocking protagonists, unsuccessful musicians who end up, almost despite themselves, taking an entire radio station hostage. Much of the interest of the film these days will have to do with the lead trio of actors assembled to play the protagonists: Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi and Adam Sandler in an early pre-stardom role. The film does make the most out of its comic premise, escalating the situation even further with the hostages cheering for their captors when it becomes clear that the radio station is headed to a format change to easy-listening music. Lesser-know comic actors populate supporting roles from Chris Farley, Ernie Hudson and Joe Mantegna as a rock DJ. The soundtrack is stellar, beginning with “Born to Raise Hell” on the opening credit sequence. The supporting characters all have funny details to contribute, and the restricted setting of the film, once it’s done with the throat clearing, does add an interesting atmosphere. Airheads is not meant to be a good or particularly ambitious film, but I found it easy to like and surprisingly engaging once it gets started.

  • Open Grave (2013)

    Open Grave (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, October 2020) Good directors can manage to elevate any kind of dross, while bad directors can find a way to suck the life out of even the most promising material. I haven’t yet seen enough of Gonzalo López-Gallego’s work to say if Open Grave is a fluke, but it manages to mishandle what could have been an interesting take on the zombie genre in any other hands. It begins as a man (Sharlto Copley) wakes up amnesiac in a mass grave. Clawing his way out, he discovers a group of equally-amnesiac people, some of whom he suspects knowing. It quickly becomes clear that there’s a zombie apocalypse unfolding, and there’s too much medical equipment lying around to pretend that they’re average people. Sadly, that’s roughly Open Grave’s peak moment—everything after that is duller and duller, blander and blander, longer and longer. Your only reward for making it to the end of the film is how the sight of a gigantic open mass grave can actually become boring by simply going on, and on, and on until we’re actually clamouring for the end credits. The film is too mean-spirited to be effective, as it sinks so deeply into darkness that it becomes impossible to care about any of it. Still, I can see how amnesia could have its benefits, especially if it’s enough to make anyone forget about Open Grave.

  • Sleepwalkers (1992)

    Sleepwalkers (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) On the shelf of Stephen King movies, Sleepwalkers distinguishes itself for being the first to have been directly written by King for the screen (rather than having written the source material, or adapting his own short stories as he did for Maximum Overdrive). The result isn’t particularly distinguishable from countless other mid-budget efforts—although it does have its quirks. Featuring an incestuous mother-son duo of energy vampires, the story takes place somewhere in the Midwest, where the pair is once again on the prowl for a young woman to drain her lifeforce. The one plot flip that does add much interest is that they fear cats, leading to the feline forces acting as support to the heroes as they fight the villains—it’s good fun to see the cats play to the good side for once, although that does come at a price: I don’t recall a film that kills as many cats as this one does on its way to its conclusion. Feline body count aside, Sleepwalkers does have its issues. The film’s self-awareness comes across strangely at times, with odd bits of comedy clashing with its more traditional intent to scare. King himself makes a tertiary role appearance as a defensive cemetery caretaker, while Ron Perlman is conspicuous the moment he shows up and Alice Krige does look good as the hundred-year-old villain. (Other cameos include Joe Dante, John Landis, Clive Barker, and Tobe Hooper.) The plot itself will only make sense if you’re not paying attention, with the younger member of the evil pair leaving a conspicuous trail of violent deaths well before being able to target his prey—isn’t he supposed to know better than this? Still, the Sleepwalkers’ big finale is the fun part of it, with cats clawing at the villains until the heroine manages to put an end to this nonsense. Meow!