Movie Review

  • The Last Hurrah (1958)

    The Last Hurrah (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) Hollywood has long been fascinated by the American political system, and even older films still have something relevant to say about it. In The Last Hurrah, John Ford directs a rumpled Spencer Tracy as he plays an older veteran mayor facing his last election (his “last hurrah,” although the title clearly anticipates a more definitive conclusion) and letting his perceptive nephew tag along for the ride. Perhaps the biggest strength of the film is Tracy’s weary and captivating performance as the engine of a vast political machine — although this is not necessarily portrayed all that negatively as he fights against the blueblood elites and still has the interest of the people at heart. He’s a canny operator, capable of unorthodox power plays such as threatening to install a clearly incompetent person in an important position just to see his family squirm with the anticipated disgrace. The election night itself is portrayed with some skill, as victory ends up yielding to the sum of the various incidents in the film. The Last Hurrah veers into more sentimental territory toward the third act, although it doesn’t quite yield to sappiness at the end. It’s often surprisingly nuanced, even-handed in considering the trade-offs inherent not just in elections, but in governing as well.

  • Life with Father (1947)

    Life with Father (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) When the point of an old film’s popularity is that it’s old-fashioned, I suppose it’s natural to react with very mixed feelings to the result. Life with Father is a film of the past in many ways—a 1947 adaptation of a long-running 1939 Broadway play looking nostalgically upon life in 1880s Manhattan, it’s triple-piled-up nostalgia even before we begin digging into it. As the patriarchal title suggests, it’s an examination of a family with a strong-willed father at the helm, a role that would have been unbearable without the considerable charm of William Powell, completely in his element here. He’s hard-headed, unwilling to listen and impervious to the damage he causes, but the saving grace of the film is how it shows the rest of the family subtly manipulating him into serving their own objectives, taking advantage of his own bluster in order to get what they want. Still, much of Life with Father is subservient to the 1880s and 1940s, all the way to a baptism subplot that seems inconsequential today, but somewhat harms the free-thinking nature of the protagonist. (Significantly enough, film historians tell us that the film’s final line, “I’m going to get baptized,” is a bowdlerization of the Broadway play’s punchline, “I’m going to get baptized, damn it.”) If you’re willing to let slide those things slide, the film does have its charms. In addition to Powell’s performance, we have smaller roles for silent film veteran ZaSu Pitts, a charming turn by a very young Elizabeth Taylor, great matrimonial dialogue between Powell and Irene Dunne, and a few comic set-pieces that still work well. There are times where a film’s appreciation hinges on how much you can surrender to an earlier era’s idea of feel-good movies, and Life with Father is definitely one of those.

  • The Song of Names (2019)

    The Song of Names (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) There are times when The Song of Names threatens to sink into familiar dramatic movie clichés—it plays around with a multi-decade timespan, with long-lasting grudges, with a personal quixotic quest. Like The Good Liar, it even twists itself into a dual-period 1940s/1980s piece that showcases The Holocaust, and you don’t get any more blatantly manipulative than that. By the weepy end, which seems to overstay its welcome by twenty minutes in order to deliver the statement that the story structurally couldn’t avoid postponing, it’s obviously reaching for the usual levers of the sub-sub-genre: personal atonement, remembering the dead, providing closure. Still, especially compared to other films of its ilk, The Song of Names does have its strengths. A good lead performance by Tim Roth, repressing his own feeling until they shockingly come out punching in a car, is a solid anchor. Clive Owen shows up late in a role almost opposite to anything else he’s played (or being typecast in) before. There is a strong mystery that provides a solid narrative drive to much of the film’s first two acts, even if its conclusion seems to run a bit too long in order to pull everything together. The use of music is a central element, as with director François Girard’s previous Le violon rouge. Technical credentials are excellent, explaining the film’s various Canadian Screen Awards. In the end, The Song of Names is good but (to repeat) there’s a big gap between good and great, and it remains on the side of good. I expect that it will play for years on Canadian cable TV channels.

  • Motherless Brooklyn (2019)

    Motherless Brooklyn (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) There’s something to be said for meaty plot-driven movies, and Motherless Brooklyn is the kind of endangered American studio film at the brink of extinction: smart, dense, definitely political (in the progressively engaged sense rather than the cheap-shot sense) a bit too long for its own good and yet remarkably rewarding if you’re willing to put in the time and attention. Written and directed by Edward Norton, it also features him in the lead role, as a private detective gifted with prodigious memory and analytical abilities but afflicted by Tourette’s syndrome. It’s a plum role for Norton, as the usual 1950s tropes are all slightly altered by his portrayal of a savant with social issues. Norton’s writing is crisp and his direction is transparent—but his acting calls attention to itself as we get inside an unusual mind. A rather good cast complements Motherless Brooklyn: Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays an activist with a secret unbeknownst to her; Alec Baldwin is ferocious as an influential city official, Willem Dafoe cleverly plays on his ragged image and Bruce Willis stuns in a rare good later-day performance in a short but pivotal role—for once, he’s not slumming on minimal effort, which I’m crediting to Norton as a director. The film is nominally based on a Jonatham Lethem novel I haven’t yet read, but even a cursory look at plot summaries shows clear differences between book and film: the film goes for neo-noir aesthetics by setting itself in 1950s New York (as opposed to the then-contemporary setting of the 1999 novel), and many subplots differ, all the way to the nature of the ending. Still, Motherless Brooklyn does have a comfortable heft to it: slightly too long for its own good, but still not a bad experience. I wouldn’t take away the scenes that talk about the importance of city planning, or the meditation on power, both municipal and personal (and how the same power can lead anyone to do public good and private bad.). Motherless Brooklyn is not a complete success, but I’ll take a few more of those movies rather than what the studios are churning out in an attempt to chase the summer tentpoles.

  • Against All Odds (1984)

    Against All Odds (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, July 2020) As much as the idea of remaking classic noir film Out of the Past is promising, most will agree that Against All Odds ends up being a curiously inert romantic thriller. Clearly part of the 1980s trend of remaking noir movies, it’s perhaps too successful in loosely updating the material that it ends up feeling more like a generic 1980s thriller rather than carrying anything of its illustrious predecessor. Jeff Bridges is not bad (and bearded) in the lead role, while a young James Woods is quite creepy as the antagonist. Meanwhile, Rachel Ward does better than expected as a femme fatale with shorter curly hair, but she too does mark the film as mid-1980s vintage. The story advances forth through a trip to Mexico and back, sombre sport fixing schemes, assorted criminals and vengeful lovers, but remains middle-of-the road throughout. Workmanlike direction from Taylor Hackford doesn’t help. At a minimum, Against All Odds does hold attention and delivers a story of love, crime and death, but it’s nowhere near its Out of the Past inspiration, and doesn’t feel special in any way.

  • Un + une (2015)

    Un + une (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2020) Some movies leave you with a thumbs up, others with a thumbs down, but Un + une goes for the question mark. It feels stuck in a position where it could become good, or ridiculous, or unintentionally funny, or boring. It’s from veteran French director Claude Lelouch, stars Jean Dujardin (perhaps France’s biggest star of the twenty-first century so far) as a French composer, the beautiful Elsa Zylberstein as a love interest, and even features Christophe Lambert in a veteran actor’s role as a French ambassador. Much of the film is set in India, as our protagonist travels there to score a movie and has an affair with the French ambassador’s wife. The setting is colourfully portrayed, and the first few minutes are an intriguing blend of fiction within fiction. Other things don’t work as well. There’s a significant plot point that has to do with the main characters meeting Mata Amritanandamayi, an important religious figure in India—it feels heartfelt and admirative, but it comes across as a bit extraneous to the movie. (It was notably filmed semi-secretly, the figure participating but not knowing those she embraced were movie actors.) The third act gets, for lack of a better word, increasingly French as infidelity is met with attempted infidelity, then implied conception leading to a years-later epilogue that stops just when things were getting interesting. Am I supposed to laugh at the piled-up incredulity that the film creates, or moved by some kind of love story? Or be cowed into admiration at the presence of a major spiritual figure? Or simply annoyed that this doesn’t seem to lead anywhere?

  • La noire de… [Black Girl] (1966)

    La noire de… [Black Girl] (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) Movies don’t have to be long to pack a wallop, and La noire de… has one heck of a final gut-punch even after just 55 minutes. The story of a young woman who leaves her Senegalese village to go work (under false pretence) for a family in France, it’s an eloquent demonstration of racism and alienation with a very powerful ending even today. Writer-director Ousmane Sembène is absolutely merciless in its depiction of French colonialism, through the device of domestic racism. He can also depend on a raw performance from Mbissine Thérèse Diop in the lead role. La noire de… is said to be the first sub-Saharan film, and it’s quite a statement. You will be thankful that it doesn’t even last an hour: it would be hard to take more.

  • The Lonely Guy (1984)

    The Lonely Guy (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) The mid-1980s were about as good as things ever got in terms of pure film comedy from Steve Martin, and The Lonely Guy is a fairly representative example (I didn’t say the best) of the kind of comedy he was turning going for—familiar yet off-kilter, self-satisfied, ingratiating but quite funny if you’re on the right wavelength. This time, Martin turns to romantic comedy as the clothesline for the silliness in store—focusing on the plight of a newly single guy trying to find love in Manhattan. The difference between 1980s Martin and later-day Martin is that the earlier comedian wasn’t afraid to be more adventurous in his type of humour. Not everything works, obviously, but with director Arthur Hiller, there’s an effort to try a few things, be absurd, play with expectations and even revisit old gags. I found it all quite amusing. I remembered the restaurant “dining alone” scene from childhood, but not the rest of The Lonely Guy.

  • Dead Again in Tombstone (2017)

    Dead Again in Tombstone (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, July 2020) If you’ve seen Dead in Tombstone, you will be wholly unsurprised by Dead Again in Tombstone. Once again, Danny Trejo stars as a not-quite-dead outlaw asked to protect the earth from evil forces in a supernatural western. Another person back for a second ride is noted direct-to-video auteur Roel Reiné, who’s able to maximize the budget he’s given into something looking far better-looking than its class. Essentially, we have pretty much the first film — except without the effect of surprise. It’s still a weird western with supernatural elements and a slightly overstuffed plot. Trejo is still up to his usual good standards, even if he can’t handle the action chops required by the role. There are still some visual flourishes, as Reiné plays with the iconography of westerns. But in delivering more of the same, Dead Again in Tombstone can’t escape a growing dullness of effect.

  • Swing Fever (1943)

    Swing Fever (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) The history of film is rife with unlikely movie stars, and you can watch Swing Fever for one particularly striking example. In many ways, it’s a rather silly musical comedy film in which a country man with supernatural “evil eye” powers comes to the city to sell a music piece, but gets embroiled into a story mixing swing music and boxing promoters. That’s not a bad excuse to see a few swing numbers and some middle-of-the-road comedy. As a wartime film, it’s big on supporting the troops and not challenging anything and featuring simple musical numbers. The rather wonderful Lena Horne plays herself in a disconnected number that is shot like a bluesy music video. But the big surprise here for uninitiated viewers such as myself is the lead actor, playing a character so nebbish that he would be featured as a minor comic character in other movies. But in Swing Fever, he takes centre stage complete with heroics, superpowers and getting the blonde girl at the end. Well, that actor turns out to be Kay Kyser, a rather popular band leader who was under contract for MGM at the time. The star power explains some of the leading role indulgences—in playing his band leader persona, however, much of the effect is lost on twenty-first century viewers. Still, it’s entertaining enough—the mixture of swing music and manly boxing (with some assorted criminal shenanigans) ensured that it was the closest thing to an all-quadrant crowd-pleaser for audiences at the time. Blandly-titled Swing Fever isn’t a great or overly memorable film (although the Horne number is worth a mention), but it’s entertaining enough, and an interesting representative of your wholly average early-1940s movie musical.

  • Voyage à travers le cinéma français [My Journey Through French Cinema] (2016)

    Voyage à travers le cinéma français [My Journey Through French Cinema] (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) As a French Canadian, I know more than the average North American cinephile about French cinema, but I could watch French movies for another decade and not know even a fraction of what Bertrand Tavernier does about the topic. Voyage à travers le cinéma français is his opportunity to tell us about his life at the movies (from post-WW2 childhood to, as a young man, getting beaten up by policemen during a freedom of speech demonstration in front of a movie theatre), his impressions as a viewer, cinephile and critic (founding his own cineclub with friends, later launching their own critical periodical), and also as a practitioner (working for Godard and Melville, among others). Curiously, the story ends before Tavernier’s own respectable career as a director—much of Voyage à travers le cinéma français focuses on French cinema between the 1930s and 1960s. But this isn’t meant to be a history of the field as much as a trip through Tavernier’s recollections and impressions, strongly supported by critical commentary and illustrated by an exceptional number of movie clips from the movies he’s discussing. It does feel like a film study lecture, but an extremely entertaining one, with plenty of personal stories, well-chosen excerpts and quite a bit of enthusiasm for his subject. I don’t usually recommend two-and-a-half-hour-long movies, but this one almost feels too short. It’s easy to feel as if the result would have been better as a series of episodes (which is often how the film feels, as it focuses on specific directors and actors, or moments in Tavernier’s life), and indeed it did lead to an 8-episode TV series two years later. Tavernier himself is a fantastic lecturer and Voyage à travers le cinéma français is a highly personal look at decades of its history, and an often-fascinating collection of memories from a lifelong cinephile.

  • Prophecy (1979)

    Prophecy (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2020) Don’t confuse this 1979 Prophecy with 1984’s somewhat better The Prophecy. In this one, a government health inspector travels to Maine (played by British Columbia) to investigate tensions between loggers and Native Americans, and ends up encountering a monster created by pollution. But what begins as an eco-horror film with some potential ends up going straight to familiar horror clichés. For a few minutes, director John Frankenheimer does seem as if he’s hit upon something interesting: an environmental message, tensions with the indigenous population, city protagonists uncomfortable in the wild forest… there’s even some tremendously unsettling stuff mid-way through, as with unborn infants being mutated by pollution. But then the film crashes down with the arrival of an overly familiar big bad mutated bear antagonist, and a routine finale that never actually mentions important plot points (such as the heroine’s pregnancy) ever again. There’s a swing and a miss in Prophecy—a concept that could have delivered a lot more, but ends up with a whimper of clichés.

  • The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

    The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) The Quatermass brand is, unusually enough for a series of the 1950s, about cerebral science fiction as applied to familiar premises, and The Quatermass Xperiment, the first film of the series (adapted from a TV show broadcast two years earlier), certainly leaves a good first impression. Sure, England is invaded by an alien life-form, but the focus here is on slightly-gruff scientist Bernard Quatermass in understanding, then fighting the extraterrestrial threat. American Brian Donlevy plays the lead in this very British film in interesting ways, all brash and unrepentant and arrogant (and yet somehow likable). The horror undertones of the story grow louder and louder as the story advances. While this film adaptation is reportedly more action-packed than the TV show, it’s also significantly less action-filled than comparable alien-menace movies from the United States. It’s quite watchable, though, and its influence is undeniable: 1986’s Lifeforce seems to take a lot from this film, for instance.

  • Green Mansions (1959)

    Green Mansions (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2020) I usually worship Audrey Hepburn and the films she stars in, but I’m willing to make an exception for Green Mansions. While Hepburn does look very cute with longer straight hair, the film itself hasn’t aged well at all. How could it? Adapted from a 1904 adventure romance novel, it features Anthony Perkins as a rugged adventurer (!) who escapes into the jungle and ends up meeting, and romancing, a native princess played by Hepburn—before some more action-filled adventures. This is already bad enough, but let’s just say that the result is a dull jungle romance. Perhaps the best thing about Green Mansions is its cinematography, which introduced Panavision widescreen lenses and features the Venezuelan jungle in lush green detail. Said to be based on true events, the film is sadly not terribly interesting—and whenever it is, it’s usually to make twenty-first century viewers stand up and say, “oh, come on.” Hey, even goddesses can make mistakes.

  • Puppet Master (1989)

    Puppet Master (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2020) By the later standards of Charles Band’s Full Moon Pictures, Puppet Master (no, not the alien-invasion film, the killer-dolls one) is almost lavishly high-quality. While no great art, it does feature puppets, stop-motion special effects, some strong visual imagery and competent actors all smothered in the vaguely disreputable 35 mm sheen of horror movies intended for theatrical distribution. (It was ultimately released straight to video for additional profit.) The killer-dolls premise does have some kick to it (unlike later Band films) even if the execution is somewhat less interesting. What’s less explainable is not that the premise would (barely) sustain a film, but that it led to twelve sequels and spinoffs, in addition to reinforcing Band’s fascination for similar thematic material for his slate of horror films. But what can I say—in the wild context of 1980s horror films, Puppet Master almost makes perfect sense.