Movie Review

  • Project: Metalbeast (1995)

    Project: Metalbeast (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2020) While it sounds like the most generic possible premise for a low-budget horror-SF film, “the military end up creating a bulletproof werewolf as part of a super-soldier experiment” actually turns out to be… well, a dull but not catastrophic film. Writer-director Alessandro De Gaetano hardly delivers anything spectacular, but Project: Metalbeast at least manages the basics. Bulletproof werewolf aside, the story is familiar: military research, super-soldier, unauthorized experiments and a monster rampaging through a contained environment—yes, despite weird script structure issues, you’ve seen the rest of this story already. While Project: Metalbeast avoids embarrassment, it still mechanically goes through the familiar motions of an inane plot that really only exists in genre films. The result is just good enough not to be laughable, but hardly exciting enough to keep anyone interested.

  • Graduation Day (1981)

    Graduation Day (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2020) First-generation slasher films had a thing about special days (Friday the 13th, Christmas, Saint Valentine, April Fool’s Day, etc.), which makes sense considering how hard they had to distinguish themselves despite their limited story elements, repetitive structure and fierce competition. Unaccountably, Graduation Day landed on… a graduation day as a motif. Much of the plot alongside the murder scenes has to do with a young woman visiting the campus where her sister died, and a string of brutal deaths accumulating during that time. But who cares? It’s a slasher, and not a very good one at that—you get bad acting, low-budget filmmaking, unconvincing effects (which is a plus in slasher terms) and a dull death sequence every ten minutes until the film is over. Try as you might (and most fans won’t), there really isn’t much more to Graduation Day than this. If you like early-1980s slashers, this is for you—otherwise, stay clear.

  • Mystery Train (1989)

    Mystery Train (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Not everyone likes writer-director Jim Jarmusch’s filmography, starting with myself. But compared to what else I’ve seen from him, Mystery Train is somewhere in the middle, perhaps even itching up toward the upper tier—a mixture of experimentalism in keeping with his early oeuvre. Its narrative is built on three stories about around a Memphis hotel and strangers who are in the city for a specific purpose. The first story is about a Japanese couple constantly arguing while visiting Elvis’s legacy. Another is about an Italian widow spending a one-night layover while waiting for her husband’s body to be brought home. Then, finally, a third aimless narrative is about three small-time criminals. It barely comes together at the end, but this is really a film of atmosphere and small moments and isolation and what it feels to be somewhere that’s not home. The playful chronology and repeating motifs may charm viewers. Casting includes such notable as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Steve Buscemi. Jarmusch fans ought to like this, but that’s not guaranteed for those who fall outside his appeal.

  • Corporate Animals (2019)

    Corporate Animals (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Black comedy is exceptionally difficult to do well, and perhaps the best compliment one can pay to the rather average Corporate Animals is that it manages to make a dark comedy seem fun. It all begins as participants to a corporate team-building exercise get stuck in a cave and the hours become days, requiring the survivors to find new sources of food… including the dead guide at their feet. But there’s more, of course, as the female CEO (Demi Moore, getting better and better in mature antagonist roles) has financial failings, sexual indiscretions and overall nastiness lined up against her. The script is clearly from someone who has spent a lot of time on the Internet, as the humour seems to be tapping into pop-cultural material more often than expected and will probably date faster than one would expect. Fortunately, Corporate Animals doesn’t overstay its welcome. The laughs are dark and often guilty, but still effective. They may be one or two characters who aren’t strictly necessary and could have been trimmed. Still, while it’s not exactly remarkable or hilarious, this is a very watchable film—especially if you’re not expecting much.

  • Canadian Strain (2019)

    Canadian Strain (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) I don’t have any interest in weed (legal or otherwise), but I’m certainly interested in Jess Salgueiro, and her lead performance here as an unusually conscientious drug dealer put out of business by the legalization of recreational cannabis in 2018 is one of the reasons why Canadian Strain works so well. A sharp script also crams a lot of fun on a solid framework. Colin Mochrie turns up as a father who doubles as a cautionary tale, with remarkable comic performances from Naomi Snieckus, Nelu Handa and Marcia Bennett in a film with many good female roles. The film is fiercely Canadian even when it cynically tries not to be (by ironically presenting footage from old instructional videos about the RCMP or the public service, for instance), espousing the value of legality when it’s the acknowledged alternative, and dealing with government bureaucracy as the final victory (rather than blowing it up, as could be the case down south). It’s also a film that is definitely of its times, wringing laughs out of social changes and, in doing so, allowing its audience to accept those social changes as well. But more importantly, Canadian Strain is a funny, no-longer-than necessary film, worth a look—especially given how I suspect it will play for years on Canadian Cable TV. And I now definitely look forward to Salgueiro’s next movie.

  • The Group (1966)

    The Group (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) In adapting Mary McCarthy’s bestselling novel to the screen, The Group runs into a few problems, most of them having to accommodate an ensemble cast of eight women, plus the men who usually make trouble in their lives. Even at 150 minutes, it’s a bit of a challenge—especially since the story spans years from 1933 to 1940 and multiple heartbreaks as the eight women don’t quite achieve their idealistic goals after graduation. It’s not exactly the most riveting of premises, but seeing Sidney Lumet’s name as director drew me in, and the rest of the film gradually grew on me. The film is clearly a 1960s feminist drama—the well-educated, intelligent protagonists have dreams of intellectual lives that are gradually ground down by the demands of marriage, children and household. You could pretty much tell the same story about just any graduate class since then. It does feel melodramatic and overdone by today’s standards, but you can feel how daring The Group could have been to a mid-1960s audience. As you’d guess from the premise, men don’t come across particularly well here—and bring much of the drama. With such a large cast, some of the names are familiar: Candice Bergen, Hal Holbrook and Larry Hangman, most notably. Director Lumet manages the action effectively with the succinct script he’s given—among other things, there’s an interesting visual device of typewritten alumni letter updates typed on screen as context. With such a sprawling melodrama, there was bound to be something interesting for everyone—in my case, having a look at a drunken playwright and a literary agency. Nowadays, The Group would be best adapted as a TV series—in trying to retain the novel’s details, the film does rush through a lot and delivers mere bites of drama. Still, it does have an impact.

  • Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)

    Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Ignore the “Dirty Dancing” title: Havana Nights is a follow-up/prequel/sequel (with a Swayze cameo) in name only—the film’s production history began with a spec script about the Cuban revolution that was transformed and turned into a teen dance movie where dancing erases all other difficulties. Setting a teen romantic dance musical in Batista’s Cuba is not an unpromising idea, but that’s presupposing that it’s executed with some faithfulness to the era. Alas, a low budget and contemporary music limit the period feel of the historical recreation even if the atmosphere tries to blend nostalgic with modern. But in focusing on a romantic plot and merely keeping the revolution in the background, Havana Nights ends up feeling very limited—something that the abrupt ending doesn’t quite satisfy. John Slattery pops up in a small role that suits him well; otherwise, the film belongs to leads Diego Luna and Romola Garai. But no matter how likable they are, Havana Nights is still a pale rethread of many characteristics of the original Dirty Dancing, even with the welcome Latin atmosphere. Even if you take it as a standalone film, it’s still disappointing.

  • Bad News Bears (2005)

    Bad News Bears (2005)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, on TV, June 2020) I’ll admit it—curiosity was my main reason to see the Bad News Bears remake. The original is so deeply stepped into the culture of 1976, from the bicentennial to the fashions to the attitudes and lack of self-censorship, that any attempt at an update would seem doomed from the start. Perhaps the nicest thing I can say about it is that it’s at least competent—Director Richard Linklater knows what he’s doing, and he’s able to give a nice lived-in Austin feeling to the film. Also helpful is Billy Bob Thornton’s grizzled performance as the washed-up, disreputable middle-aged man who takes on the job of trying to coach the worst little league team: even if the remake sands off a lot of edges of the original, much of the character remains intact. Still, this remains familiar formula stuff (even if a more nuanced ending doesn’t take away much)—Linklater for the kids. But when it works, there’s no shame in letting it work.

  • The Hitcher (2007)

    The Hitcher (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2020) The scourge that was Platinum Dunes remaking 1980s horror movies continues unabated with a new version of The Hitcher. While this new take keeps the near-supernatural psychopathic hitchhiker terrorizing a young couple, it amps up the gore (from an already gory original), gender flips the protagonist (which isn’t as interesting as it sounds) and throws in pop songs that are nearly forgotten thirteen years later. Some things, admittedly, are an upgrade—the budget is bigger, director Dave Meyers’ work is slick, the structure has been retooled to allow more action sequences, it moves the Big Splashy Moment closer to the end of the film where it has more impact, and having Sean Bean as the antagonist is almost always a good idea. Still, this version of The Hitcher is pretty much the same movie—a competent update if you’re favourably inclined, even if the move away from the grindhouse roughness of the original isn’t necessarily an upgrade.

  • Ad Astra (2019)

    Ad Astra (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) On paper, Ad Astra doesn’t look like my kind of movie—moody ruminations in space? Eh. But I was willing to cut it some slack, and the opening moments of the film do set an intriguing tone—this is going to be moody ruminations all the way to the end of the solar system, but if you’re going to do yet another riff on Heart of Darkness, you might as well commit to it and hop on board for the ride. In retrospect, I should have listened to my instinct when I started twitching at the “International Space Antenna” that doesn’t even make a credible upgrade to the idea of a ribbon space elevator, or workers dumb enough not to follow basic OSHA tethering procedures when working in space. Or the wonky gravity that portended an entire movie’s worth of bad gravity. But there are a few things that work, and for far too long I kept clinging to those elements. The visuals are terrific, and the frame-by-frame credibility of the setting is astonishing—they really went for plausible-looking gear here, and even if we could quibble for roughly sixty years about how late-twenty-first century space gear will not look like twentieth-century NASA (especially not that even SpaceX suits don’t look like that), this film plays heavily on visual callbacks to familiar material—all the way to a 2001 HAL room nod later on. I brushed off the small chorus of inner voices pointing out one scientific mistake after another—This is Hollywood, after all. But I did start to have my doubts about the Moon rover pirates. Supposedly raiding US Armed Forces convoys in trips across vast swaths of the lunar surface that seem measured in minutes rather than hours. I brushed this off as filmmakers bending to studio pressure to have cool action visual stuff to liven up an otherwise atmospheric film. But even by that stage, uneasiness had set in. While I do like quite a bit of Ad Astra’s surface sheen (and Liv Tyler, and Ruth Negga, and even Brad Pitt has his moments) and while I was willing to play along with the glum Heart of Darkness structure, I was starting to have my doubts about the whole squishy middle layer of the film between intention and visual execution. But then…then the film thinks that the laws of physics allow for rescue stop on a ballistic trip from the Moon to Mars. Which leads to space baboons. That explodes when depressurized. Jesus Heinlein Christ, why does this movie have to be this stupid??!? This isn’t 1983’s Outland. This is 2020 and STEM career paths are considered important enough to warrant national programs. I’m not that smart and I don’t have an astrophysics degree, but there is something absolutely hopeless when a film that claims to be hard-SF becomes an unceasing carnival of scientific mistakes that I can easily point out. The lack of tracks on the Moon. The gravity mistakes. The chronological errors. The goddamn stupidity of the rocket hijacking sequence in which a character manages to climb a ladder aboard a rocket being launched into orbit. This is not a hard-SF film, even by Hollywood standards. This is an emo daddy-issue drama hideously cosplaying as hard-SF while not really liking any of the characteristics that make the genre. It gets worse at the end, what with a visibly rock-filled Neptune ring and—oh why bother I don’t care anymore. Even the main dramatic thread is cut off unceremoniously—while revolving daddy issues by killing off Daddy is unorthodox, it’s also trite enough to feel as if we’re given a big comic slide whistle at the end of the trip. Fortunately, I had given up on the movie at that point. If there’s an Ad Astra anti-fan club, I’m in.

  • Comment faire l’amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer [How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired] (1989)

    Comment faire l’amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer [How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired] (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) In the mid-1970s, a Haitian journalist named Dany Laferrière left dictatorial Haiti to establish himself in Montréal, later writing a provocatively titled first novel that he eventually adapted for the big screen. Laferrière has since become a French-language literary superstar (he’s even a permanent member of the prestigious Académie Francaise, essentially cementing his place in the current pantheon of living writers), but his first novel, especially as brought to the screen, is an endearing mixture of outsiders looking at Montréal, a lusty romantic comedy with light fantastic elements, reflections on being a young writer and an excuse to parade a series of great-looking women on-screen as the object of the characters’ lust—it’s summer in Montréal, the women are lovely and there’s our protagonist looking to hook up and complete his novel (not necessarily in that order). There’s quite a bit of pop-philosophic dialogue on gender and racial issues, a pleasant summertime feel and not much plot along the way. For watchers of the French-Canadian cinema scene, there are many actors with early roles here, a cameo by Laferrière himself and a rather comfortable portrait of Montréal in the summertime. It’s not absent of racism toward our protagonists (with Julien Poulain and a young Roy Dupuis as two of the three racist antagonists), but it’s clear where the sympathies of the film lie. Provocative by design (holy moly, that poster!), the film has kept a bit of an edge thirty years later—while the racial daring has abated a bit (French Canadian society is markedly more racially integrated now, although there’s still a long way to go), the gender content is liable to have a few people grinding their teeth today—the women characters here are avowed caricatures down to their names (Miz Literature, Miz Suicide) and only our two main characters have some sort of significant characterization. Still, it’s the kind of film that it wants to be: I found it funny, insightful and perhaps most of all comfortable most of the time as it talks about women, writing and summertime life in the city. Not for everyone, certainly, but still a worthwhile look for many.

  • Louis 19, le roi des ondes [Louis 19, King of the Airwaves] (1994)

    Louis 19, le roi des ondes [Louis 19, King of the Airwaves] (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) The worst thing that can happen to a satirical comedy is to be surpassed by reality, and while Louis 19 is clearly not the same class of film as Network, they do share the distinction of being markedly less funny or outlandish as when they first aired. Back in 1994, the idea that a perfect everyman would be followed 24/7 by a TV crew as they lived their lives was high-concept stuff—twenty-five years later, it smacks of the worst of reality TV or social media influencers. (If the premise sounds doubly familiar to you, it’s because Louis 19 remains one of the rare French-Canadian movies remade by Hollywood as 1999’s Edtv.) At times, you just want to hug the film’s screenwriter and say, “Oh boy, you haven’t seen anything yet.” It doesn’t help that the film is executed as a straightforward low-brow comedy, straight from formula filmmaking as it wrings out the usual complications out of its premise. Martin Drainville is a suitably good nebbish protagonist, while the rest of the film’s cast is (as if often the case with French-Canadian films) a who’s who of Montréal actors at the time: Macha Grenon has another walk-in role as a sex symbol; Benoît Brière has a remarkable supporting role as a cameraman; Dominique Michelle holds a plum comic role, and so on all the way to the cameos (Literary demigod Michel Tremblay as a TV show presenter!) Fortunately, even with the schematic three-act structure and unsurprising plot turns and post-reality TV staleness, Louis 19 is easy enough to watch, with a few smiles along the way. It still works, and we can still understand how it was the biggest-grossing Canadian film of 1994 in both official languages.

  • Point Blank (1967)

    Point Blank (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Anyone studying how 1967 was the year movies changed from Classical to New Hollywood can add Point Blank to their viewing list, because it’s a film that could not have existed a few years earlier, and yet belongs far more to the cinema of the 1970s. A near-perfect starring vehicle for gray-haired Lee Marvin, it’s a solid piece of neo-noir tempered with European avant-garde style. A dark, moody, violent thriller in which a left-for-dead criminal wants his stolen share of money, Point Blank has a nice sense of late-1960s Los Angeles. Director John Boorman benefits immensely from Marvin’s impassible performance and glum face—it’s hard to imagine anyone else being as good in the same role. The modernity of the film still resonates—determined to place scenes unlike traditional cinema, the plot jumps in time and doesn’t always make easy sense. But that’s not necessarily an issue, considering how much fun it is to watch the protagonist fight gangsters in one scene after another. When a film is as stylish as this version of Point Blank, plot understanding takes a backseat to the moment-to-moment thrills.

  • Great Balls of Fire! (1989)

    Great Balls of Fire! (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2020) There are two surprises in Great Balls of Fire!, the biopic of 1950s rock-and-roll sensation Jerry Lee Lewis (not the actor)—first, it’s a biopic that manages to airbrush a semi-fun portrait of a troubled artist, and two—wow, Jerry Lee Lewis is still alive? But never mind that second surprise (Lewis had his first burst of fame at an early age, explaining his endurance), when the first one is more interesting. If this film exists, it’s partially to explore the dichotomy between great art and problematic artists—or maybe even just a flamboyant performer and a reprehensible personal life. Jerry Lee Lewis’ biggest hits still play quite well, and writer-director Jim McBride is never happier than when it gets to feature Lewis as a stage beast, playing the piano in wild ways and even setting fire to it at one point. Dennis Quaid turns in an electrifying performance as the hyper-showman pianist, credibly portraying an interesting character whose southern poverty roots led to rock and roll, with piano rather than guitar. Meanwhile it’s a bit weird to see Winona Ryder as a thirteen-year-old, and that leads us to the other thing about Lewis—an incredibly tumultuous personal life whose specifics are barely hinted at in the film. What Great Balls of Fire! is ready to tell us is that Lewis married his 13-year-old cousin—his third marriage at the age of 22. The film tracks how the revelation of that relationship killed his career back in the 1950s, but what the film doesn’t even touch is the rest of Lewis’ life—his seven marriages, how two of his wives died while still married to him, his six children (two of them dead before the age of 20), and so many other accusations, arrests and incidents that a full biography of the man would require a miniseries. Instead, though, this film asks us to be happy with hit songs played flamboyantly, a Hollywood romance with his 13-year-old cousin, and presenting Lewis’ life in a way that still makes him a likable figure. The more you will read about Lewis because of this film, the less you will like him—and the film is already conflicted about him in the first place. The title song is still great, though.

  • Down a Dark Hall (2018)

    Down a Dark Hall (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) It’s probably a good thing for Down a Dark Hall that I can say that I’ve had my fill of mysterious-boarding-school-for-rebellious-young-women stories after shrugging off Paradise Hills a few weeks ago. This way, we don’t have to confront this film’s shortcomings—we can just blame it on conceptual overdose and move on.  (…) OK, no, I can’t leave it like that. It’s not that Down a Dark Hall is actively bad—director Rodrigo Cortés is a professional, and he has all of the budget and technical support required to make the film a visually competent production. It’s in the story that fails to impress—a low-octane blend of mystery ending on something a bit dumb and predictable. It’s all darker and spookier than actively horrifying, but it does strike me that the audience for this film is probably teenage girls looking for thrills more than scares, and that’s fine. For everyone else, though, this is more of the same even when it’s trying to be different. There’s also a world of difference in how the film’s target audience is liable to perceive the heroine (ooh, she’s a rebel) compared to everyone else (eh, she’s not really likable). While it’s fun to see Uma Thurman play matriarch, the lead actress is bland and the rest of the film struggles to fill in the gaps left in its gothic atmosphere. At least Down a Dark Hall can be (barely) recommended for anyone willing to dip into the kiddy end of the horror pool.