Movie Review

  • Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)

    Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, March 2020) I liked Anna and the Apocalypse, but it’s a shame I couldn’t like it more. A blend of zombie film, senior high school drama, Christmas setting and musical comedy, this is a film that clearly operates in its own specific reality, with gore vying with songs as highlights. We’re clearly so far along the rise and fall of zombie movies by now that it’s a wonder there haven’t been more zombie musicals until now, and this one does nicely, never compromising on either the musical or the horror halves of the result. Ella Hunt is not bad as the titular Anna, although she regularly gets the show stolen from her during musical numbers—Marli Siu delivers a blistering take on saucy Christmas songs with “It’s That Time of Year,” while Ben Wiggins has a strong showing during “Soldier at War.” As a fan of classic Hollywood musicals, however, I’m not quite as happy with Anna and the Apocalypse as I should be, and I suspect that this has a lot to do with the bleak ending. I can’t say I wasn’t forewarned — “Hollywood Ending” is all about not expecting the best. But even so, the final body count is too high, and made even worse by the school’s headmaster being a cartoonish antagonist that could have been removed without much alteration to the rest of the story. Zombies are terrible enough—why throw in a human antagonist? The ending barely showcases any hope, and that seems like a miscalculation even for a horror musical. Still, Anna and the Apocalypse is worth a look, especially for horror crowds looking for something just distinctive enough to be interesting.

  • The Swarm (1978)

    The Swarm (1978)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) Killer-bee movies were a surprisingly robust trend in the late 1970s, with at least three of them on the record—clearly a case of Hollywood taking a new striking idea and then beating it into pulp. None of the killer bee movies are acknowledged as being any good, but big-budget The Swarm actively pushes into ridiculousness at times. Masterminded by master-of-disaster producer-director Irwin Allen, The Swarm follows the then-much-anticipated deadly bees as they make their way north to Texas, and proceed to outwit all humans. To be fair, and this is part of the film’s unique “charm,” the human characters are all singularly stupid here—up to and including panicking hard enough to (somehow) a blow up a nuclear power plant. Who needs killer bees when kids think it’s a good idea to set bees on fire, when train drivers cause derailments at the slightest sign of panic, when military officers think it’s a good idea to torch Houston? In keeping with other 1970s disaster movies, the cast is a remarkable mixture of new faces like Michael Caine (struggling helplessly against the material), and Classic Hollywood veterans, such as José Ferrer, Slim Pickens, Henry Fonda, Fred MacMurray, Richard Chamberlain and Olivia de Havilland. Such an undignified mark on their resumés… although they, too, must have hoped that the film would be as successful as Allen’s previous disaster movies. Alas, it wasn’t so: Audiences were indifferent to The Swarm, and critics were savage in their appreciation — although the film has since gained a bit of a cult status due to its risible nature. (It was, in many ways, the end of Allen’s career: he never as big of a budget nor recaptured the popular imagination after that.) The Swarm may be a bad movie, but it does remain quite a bit of fun to watch—you can’t help but blink at the inanity on screen and wonder how it got made with such expansive means. It doesn’t end once the credits roll: Just as you start to relax, thinking that you’re over the worst of it, the film hits you with the dumbest, most offensive disclaimer imaginable under the context: “The African killer bee portrayed in this film bears absolutely no relationship to the industrious, hardworking American honey bee to which we are indebted for pollinating vital crops that feed our nation.” Ooof! I watched the film with a friend, and at the end of it said, “I’m glad you were with me through this, because later I will be able to ask you if this really happened.”

  • They Were Expendable (1945)

    They Were Expendable (1945)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) Hollywood’s World War II years were thick with propaganda films. It seems as if every conceivable part of the US armed forces had a movie or two made about them, usually showing the American soldiers as good people fighting the good fight on behalf of the good people at home. Most of them do have some intrinsic interest for military buffs—even sanitized and simplified for mainstream audiences, these movies usually delight in showing us the way the armed forces operated, and many feature historical footage of real military training or operations. They Were Expendables squarely fits in this category: it’s a look at the introduction of PT boats in the Pacific theatre, featuring John Wayne and Robert Montgomery as clashing officers with different views on the usefulness of those ships—Montgomery as a true believer in the capabilities, while Wayne is cast as the voice of skepticism at the sight of those light, fast boats. The special effects are not bad for the time, as they blend studio footage with what was shot in Florida (a credible stand-in for the Philippines, where the story takes place). While They Were Expendable does have its share of battle scenes, perhaps the most interesting material happens at the PT boat base in repairing and maintaining the ships. Director John Ford seemed to enjoy this movie because the entire film is detailed, credible and enjoyable to follow. Its weakest part, unfortunately, is John Wayne—the film seems to spend far too much time deferring to him, giving him the spotlight and a love interest. (Hilariously enough, the credit sequence is studded with military acronym to represent the service record of the director, actors and crew… except for John Wayne, who never served in the armed forces and so has nothing but his name on-screen.) It’s really interesting that They Were Expendable manages to transform a rout (at the time of the story conception in 1942, the Americans had retreated from the Philippines, vowing to return) into a triumphant film… but this is neither the first nor the last Hollywood production to pull off such a trick. Still, this is a film that still holds some interest today. Thanks to future president John F. Kennedy’s service, there would be other PT boat movies (most notably PT-109), but none with as much credibility in showing the way men dealt with those new ships—part of it has to do with how They Were Expendable takes a break from the battle to talk about operational issues.

  • American Gigolo (1980)

    American Gigolo (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2020) What I find interesting about American Gigolo is not only the multiple layers of interpretation that critics have assigned to the film over the years, but that I can almost see what they’re talking about. While it can be summarized in a deceptively simple fashion (a character study of a good-looking but an emotionally stunted man earning his living as a gigolo and framed for murder), you can read a lot into the depths of the film. Maybe it’s about sexual anxiety; maybe it’s about repressed homosexuality; maybe it’s about American capitalism reducing all relationships to a transaction; maybe it’s about the harsh reckoning of the post-hedonistic 1970s; maybe it’s about the loneliness of people without strong social ties; maybe it’s about Southern Californian post-scarcity malaise. Writer-director Paul Schrader has often been a leading obfuscator of his own work, encouraging various profound interpretations facilitated by scripts that leave a lot unstated. Since American Gigolo doesn’t move particularly quickly nor has a lot of moment-to-moment fun to offer, critics are free to let their thoughts wander trying to make sense of it all. Or, maybe, it’s just what it feels like: a dour, self-flagellating, sad meditation with a bit of pulp melodrama to make it all more interesting than just a superficial look at a man having sex with rich women and living a high-end lifestyle. Richard Gere became a superstar on the strength of his full-frontal performance here, so that’s one meaningful legacy for the film. So: jot down American Gigolo as being rich in alternate meanings for your next contentious movie podcast—you can see a whole lot of different things in it, and who’s to say that you’re wrong?

  • Bye Bye Birdie (1963)

    Bye Bye Birdie (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) Unfortunately, Bye Bye Birdie’s first impressions are not all good. As a musical, it’s not that great even if adapted from a stage production—the songs are arrhythmic, not funny and (title song aside, by sheer force of simplistic repetition) not particularly memorable either. But it does fare better as a high school comedy that also acts as a satire of the music industry at the time, even if it takes some time to rev up: a lot of gags depend on a near-expert knowledge of early 1960s teenage pop-culture preferences. (Sure, the Elvis impersonation carries through, but many other references are now puzzling.) Fortunately, the over-the-top satire of 1963 teenage pop-mania does eventually become amusing, even if the premise about a singer going to kiss a teenage girl would not fly today. This being said, there’s one thing that this film exceptionally well: showcase Ann-Margret, who’s a constant joy whenever she’s on-screen. Some interesting special effects during “Put on a Happy Face” are also noteworthy. While Bye Bye Birdie is far from being as good as it could have been, it’s still joyful and easy to watch—a representative slice of early 1960s pop-optimism as incarnated by Ann-Margret herself.

  • Them! (1954)

    Them! (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) The 1950s, as the clichés go, were the defining decade for monster B-movies — one step removed from Science Fiction and one step closer to both gentle horror and unintentional comedy. But the 1950s were also the decade in which the Science Fiction genre leaped from the page to the screen. While Them!’s silly title and premise (giant ants invade!) suggest that it’s going to be a silly creature feature, the film proves to be much closer to true Science Fiction than to accidental horror-comedy—an interesting hybrid of those two streams of 1950s SF. The film’s first half, to be sure, is pure and genre-defining big-bug monster stuff: Nuclear tests produce giant ants, and the world at large gears to fight the menace. It’s in the second half—and specifically its well-handled execution thanks to director Gordon Douglas—where Them! becomes closer to a higher grade of Science Fiction: once mobilized, the armed forces and scientists react cleverly to stamp out the menace. The special effects aren’t too bad, considering the period. If there’s a single point to be made here, it’s that Them! is not like the later flood of schlocky monster features that copied its high points without belabouring the details: it’s rather good, well-made and works as serious Science Fiction more than unintentional horror-comedy.

  • The Letter (1940)

    The Letter (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) If you’re looking for a defining sequence from Bette Davis’s career, you could do a lot worse than the opening moments of The Letter, in which she viciously unloads a gun into a man we don’t know yet. Explaining how we got to that point (and whether the titular letter undermines her claims of self-defence) is the bulk of the narrative, which adapts a play from W. Somerset Maugham and heads to Malaya for an exotic setting. An early film noir, The Letter is merciless in its conclusion and in describing the corruption of its protagonist. A moody atmosphere from director William Wyler completes the package. Davis is exceptional here, taking on a protagonist’s mantle with typical skill and determination. It’s easy to see why The Letter is held in high esteem today, and how it influenced the film noir subgenre in the decade that followed. I defy anyone to watch the opening scene and not go “All right, tell me more.”

  • When Worlds Collide (1951)

    When Worlds Collide (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) The scientific basis of When Worlds Collide is garbage, but the film itself is interesting in a few ways. The most striking of these is that it’s an early example of the disaster movie subgenre, with the Earth being threatened by a collision with another celestial object. (Hence the garbage thing—in adapting an early Science Fiction novel from 1933, the film posits a rogue star with an accompanying planet where survivors can land and colonize, which is patently absurd. But while modern SF has a more refined bestiary of celestial objects with the potential to hit our planet, the premise of Earth being slated for destruction remains irresistible across the ages—descendants of When Worlds Collide include 1978’s Meteor, 1998’s Deep Impact and Armageddon, as well as 2009’s near-spiritual remake 2012. So, it is rather fun to go back to the 1950s and see how they did it, with the special effects of the time and the specific period detail. The melodrama and social/political conditions of the time may not have impressed reviewers at the time, but they’re now a charming time capsule—you could try a retro-themed version of the same story today and still not quite capture what the film does. If nothing else, the film’s producer George Pal thinks big and sets up the kind of spectacle that Hollywood would increasingly turn to as the 1950s advanced and television started being a competition for audiences. (It’s significant that 1950–1951 represents the birth of the Science Fiction genre at the movies, in between this, Destination Moon and The Day the Earth Stood Still.) Now, the specifics of the film are certainly to be quibbled with—I vehemently disagree with the idea that 99% of the population needs to die to save the rest, even if the film features plenty of biblical references in “support” of this idea. (Also, the odds are that the film’s happy ending is momentary—alien microorganisms will kill everyone within weeks—but let’s keep the illusion intact!) The point of seeing When Worlds Collide is that it is quaint, dated and yet timeless in Hollywood terms. Good or bad almost doesn’t mean anything here—the spectacle is what’s always worth watching.

  • The Paperboy (2012)

    The Paperboy (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2020) There’s something disappointing about films that could have been solid hits being transformed into pricklier creations due to a lack of discipline. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the bones of The Paperboy, for instance—In 1969, two journalists travel from the city to a small town in Florida to investigate a murder and possible miscarriage of justice. Add to that the atmosphere of backwoods Florida, the threat of locals banding against the meddling outsiders, the eccentric characters met along the way and you’ve got the makings of a small but interesting crime drama. Part of the trick, however, is staying focused and being clever about just how eccentric the characters are going to be. And while The Paperboy is not quite a disaster, much of what’s wrong about it can be summed up with this: If you’ve ever wanted to see Nicole Kidman urinate on Zac Efron, then this is the film for you. In the hands of writer-director Lee Daniels (then fresh off a major socially conscious hit with Precious, which raised expectations for The Paperboy to unreachable levels), the film oscillates between a sordid murder mystery in a sweltering Florida town (where it’s at its best) and a series of trashier, more impressionistic moments. The surprisingly downbeat ending is disappointing, and there’s a sense that the film mishandles actors who probably wanted to work with Daniels more than they cared about the script. Kidman is stuck in an unglamorous, ungrateful role, for instance, and Matthew McConaughey (in retrospect) had a bit of a bump in the road here during his McConnaissance, even if it was squarely in his then-intention of trying new things. Sure, The Paperboy can be watched without too much trouble—that is, if you’re willing to forgive some weirder plot turns and scenes.

  • Foreign Correspondent (1940)

    Foreign Correspondent (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) As I make my way down Alfred Hitchcock’s filmography, I’m now way past the classics and into his lower-rated, lesser-known work. Most of the time, I can understand why the work is not included in his highlights—atypical, less mastered, not quite exploiting his own strengths as a director. Foreign Correspondent is recognizably not one of Hitchcock’s best works, but it’s easily in the second tier: suspenseful, thrilling, fast-paced and quite funny at times, it’s recognizably a Hitchcockian film. Following a journalist as he gets embroiled uncovering a spy ring in Europe on the eve of World War II, it’s a one-thrill-after-another suspense film with a romantic component and a striking conclusion. Joel McRae is up to his most likable self as the two-fisted newspaperman, while Laraine Day is lovely and spirited as the love interest (back when Hitchcock didn’t obsess over blondes) and George Sanders is also quite likable as the sidekick to the pair. There are a few centrepiece sequences in here—the much-anthologized “walking through a sea of black umbrellas” sequence shows Hitchcock at his visual best, whereas the final sequence set aboard an airplane brought down over the sea is still hair-raising and a masterpiece of 1940s special effects. The end sequence reminds us that the film belongs to the WW2 propaganda subgenre, with a stirring call to arms delivered in a way that would be echoed in later real-life war broadcasts. Foreign Correspondent remains a pretty good Hitchcockian film—not a classic, but certainly one of his better efforts and one in continuity with his entire filmography.

  • Alligator (1980)

    Alligator (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) As B-grade monster movies go, Alligator is remarkably good—and while this may not translate into a good movie on most scales, it does make for pretty good entertainment. Taking the urban legend to heart, this film follows the adventure of a police officer and a herpetologist as they fight a gigantic alligator turned loose in the sewers of “Chicago,” and turned to gigantic size by some pharmaceutical research shenanigans. Alligator does take a while to rev up, but by midpoint the film is able to show (in relatively low-budget fashion) a city gripped with terror and marshalling a grand police response. The highlight of the film is clearly the upscale party sequence in which the alligator eats municipal oligarchs, guests, servants, and cars alike. What’s interesting throughout the film is that the script by John Sayles (then a budding filmmaker, not the indie darling and script doctor he’d later become) constantly messes around with assumptions of the genre in utterly deadpan fashion, throwing various tangents (a nasty journalist, a big-game hunter, corrupt executives, etc.) and reining them in with a reasonably good sense of story structure. On the execution side, Robert Foster is quite likable as a jaded policeman fighting against the monster. Alligator is not particularly great even as a monster film (there’s a significant distance between it and Tremors, for instance), but it’s watchable enough and clever enough to significantly eclipse much of the genre. It’s particularly good for late-night B-movie fans.

  • Pride and Prejudice (1940)

    Pride and Prejudice (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) One of the appealing characteristics of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is how it charmed readers and filmmakers throughout generations, meaning that we can compare and contrast adaptions dating back to early Hollywood history. Now, there are Austen devotees that can give you lengthy explanations about the merits and issues of the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice with far more detail and passion than I can. I’ll do my own best by underlining the cast (the lovely Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier in the lead role, with notables such as Edna May Olvier and Marsha Hunt in supporting roles), the lavish nature of the MGM production and the fact that none other than Brave New World’s Aldous Huxley contributed to the screenplay. It’s not necessarily a problem if the costumes here are all about the 1940s conception of a historical drama than actually being exact to the period—it’s the kind of thing that adds to the charm of a particular take on the material. Most importantly, Austen’s bon mots and comedy of manners have been adapted rather well to the screen, creating not only a hit back then, but also a nice little classic adaptation that still holds its own against more modern takes on the same source material.

  • Destination Tokyo (1943)

    Destination Tokyo (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) Not even Cary Grant in the leading role can raise Destination Tokyo’s profile above being a straight-up propaganda picture. Assembled in efficient wartime hurry, the narrative invents a dangerous submarine mission to plant spies near Tokyo in preparation for the Doolittle Raid. As one of the first big wartime submarine movies, it boldly invents what would become clichés of the form and indulges into blunt anti-enemy rhetoric –most notably by claiming that the Japanese devalue their women. If you can put aside Destination Tokyo’s straight-up propaganda value and methods, it’s not badly done: the portrait of life aboard a submarine is credibly portrayed in the buildup to the straightforward action sequences (even if the quarters are somewhat more spacious than in real life) and the Oscar-nominated script does fine with characterization. Destination Tokyo is also notable for decent-for-the-time special effects using a scale model in a water tank: they’re not all that credible today, but they certainly make their point. Grant is remarkable not simply for lending his usual charm to the production, but playing an out-of-persona dramatic role as a military man far removed from his usual romantic leads. But any prospective viewers should be reminded once more that Destination Tokyo was made to boost patriotism and recruitment at a time when the United States was at war against the Japanese with no idea about how it would end.

  • Night and Day (1946)

    Night and Day (1946)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) As far as Hollywood biopics of famous composers go, Night and Day has three things going for it, even if the third is a double-edged sword. It’s in colour, it has good songs recognized as classics, and it features Cary Grant in the lead role as Cole Porter. But while Grant raises the profile of the film, no one ever mentions this film as one of his great roles: he’s not much of a singer, his screen persona is so distinct as to be unable to disappear in a specific role, and it’s not clear what he brings to the role that another actor couldn’t. Once past the songs, the colour and Grant, there’s not a whole lot left. Even Night and Day’s official TCM logline recognizes that it’s “fanciful”—which is code for saying that the openly gay Porter is here portrayed as straight, that nearly every biographical fact of his life has been altered and that the film doesn’t really care about accuracy—just reading his Wikipedia article is enough to make you realize just how “fanciful” the film is. Otherwise, Night and Day also sticks close to its Broadway-friendly topic by remaining resolutely theatre-bound, in subject matter and in staging. It’s all very old-fashioned even by 1940s standards, and that may not work for many newer viewers. Some forced comedy can’t quite shake the cobwebs out of this rather dull film, and its strengths can’t dispel its well-earned reputation as one of the least accurate Classic Hollywood biopics ever made.

  • Deadly Blessing (1981)

    Deadly Blessing (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2020) Writer-Director Wes Craven has had a very strange career. His filmography includes everything between horror-defining classics and some of the ordinary derivative filmmaking imaginable. Deadly Blessing is closer to the bottom of the barrel, although not quite the worst. The story is pure farmhouse horror, as a widow and two visiting friends have to fend off the aggressive behaviour of a local sect of totally-not-Amish farmers. It’s all quite unusual in terms of what passed for slasher horror back in the early 1980s (the rural setting is distinctive enough) and while Craven’s execution still had some young-filmmaker energy, the sum of it all doesn’t quite make up something worth remembering. Weird ending, too; when is a slasher not a slasher, it perhaps should foreshadow that it’s not a slasher. Amusingly, Sharon Stone stars (not very well) in a very early role, while Ernest Borgnine doesn’t cover himself with honours with a histrionic performance as a sect elder. Some individual moments are interesting (the bathtub-snake sequence strongly suggests another bathtub scene in Craven’s later Nightmare on Elm Street) but Deadly Blessing as a whole is more dud than success—although, as any Craven fan knows, there are far worse movies in his filmography.