Movie Review

  • Arthur Christmas (2011)

    Arthur Christmas (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) Watching Christmas movies after December 26 is a risky thing—at a minimum the air’s gone out of the Christmas spirit, and at worst, well, anyone can be excused for thinking that they don’t even want to hear about Christmas for another eleven months. In other words: that’s the time of the year during which to distinguish the good Christmas movies from those who only run on holiday magic. Fortunately, Arthur Christmas is one of the decent ones, and this surprisingly enjoyable animated fantasy film gets going early on with a detailed depiction of Santa Claus’s Christmas delivery logistics, from Santa using an army of elves as a staging crew, a gigantic ship, an enormous mission control and the refinements we can expect from an ultra-high-tech operation. This, in turn, leads to one of the central conflicts in the film—the contrast between the technology required to achieve a mass toy-delivery operation, and the Christmas spirit that motivates it. Our hero is a clumsy but well-meaning young man, Santa’s least favourite son—not seen as the favourite to take over operations once the old man retires. In the tradition of modern CGI features, Arthur Christmas is a zippy story that uses the possibilities of the medium to show us how a Santa operation could run, then strands the protagonist in multiple adventures to have them prove their worth. The depth of imagination, both visual and conceptual, can be explained by this being from the Aardman animation studio. But no matter the pedigree, Arthur Christmas is an engaging film, and one that most won’t mind revisiting throughout the year.

  • Young Guns (1988)

    Young Guns (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) Not being much of a western fan, it was probably inevitable that I wouldn’t care much about Young Guns. Clearly made with the intention of bringing sexy back to the western genre, it does have the good sense of casting the Brat Pack of photogenic young actors for a nice little shoot’em up. Even today, who wouldn’t be tempted to have a look at young Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen and Dermot Mulroney in the same horses-and-guns movie? Alas, the movie around those actors isn’t quite up to the promise—for all of the then-trendy soundtrack, this retelling of the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid’s life does feel perfunctory. I suppose that here’s a cultural element at play here—Being Canadian, I have little use for outlaw legends along the lines of Billy the Kid, and so that aspect has nearly no grip on my particular imagination. While stylish, Young Guns definitely shows its age and late-1980s pedigree—thirty years later, it looks flashy, dated and a bit ridiculous with its overcoats and lengthy slow-motion moments. I don’t quite dislike the result, but neither do I care for it much—although I suspect that the deliberately accumulated sex appeal of half a dozen guys is wasted on me.

  • Elvis Gratton II : Miracle à Memphis (1999)

    Elvis Gratton II : Miracle à Memphis (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, January 2019) Whew, what a movie. The most useful piece of background information in discussing Elvis Gratton II: Miracle à Memphis is that it was a consciously commercial endeavour, trying to capitalize on the success of quasi-legendary Québécois character Elvis Gratton in order to finance writer/director Pierre Falardeau’s next and riskier project, the pro-independence historical drama 15 février 1839. To this end, this sequel maximizes everything that Gratton stood for—more slapstick, more bigotry, more anti-federalist sentiment, more satirical content. The script wastes no time in establishing a broad canvas for the film’s gags—as a resurrected Gratton becomes a media sensation, an American talent manager takes over his career to enable him to become a rock star, restaurant owner, bestselling writer, real-estate mogul, without compromising the essentially small-time vulgarity of the character. It’s really not subtle nor successful: Gags are quoted verbatim from the previous film with slightly more polish, laugh-free sequences are dragged on far longer than necessary, and the political content is blatantly shoved in viewers’ faces. The episodic nature of the plot enables the film to play without much of a dramatic arc, so much so that the film eventually ends with a discussion between director and star/screenwriter Julien Poulin as they ponder how they’re going to end the movie. Their consensus is to blatantly laugh at viewers, which they’ve been doing anyway. While such a scene does get a few chuckles (along with the film’s funniest character; a smart car openly contemptuous of its owner), Elvis Gratton II: Miracle à Memphis is a wild, uncontrolled film that wallows in the same ignorance that it attempts to criticize. Once again, the character of Gratton becomes not an object of derision, but a folk hero of sorts that tranquillizes the masses rather than unnerve them. Faladreau passed away in 2009, and his beloved separatist movement went into a coma shortly afterward, making the political aims of his films look dated and risible at once. But even if you go soft on the film’s political aims (and I am!), the rest of it is usually nothing more than a dumb comedy with lengthy laughs-free passages. Too bad; I do think that Falardeau had what it took to make a truly incendiary satire. In this case, he chose not to…. Maybe he had his reasons.

  • Elvis Gratton: Le king des kings (1985)

    Elvis Gratton: Le king des kings (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, January 2019) I remember seeing at least a part of Elvis Gratton: Le king des kings as a younger teenager—it was, after all, a shared cultural reference in French-Canada, with a few catchphrases going around middle school. No kid back then cared about the political references that writer/director Pierre Falardeau gracelessly slipped in, making sure to associate its boorish idiotic character with federalism: Everyone remembered Gratton acting like a moron and the slapstick gags and the slangy catchphrases. Watching the film now is a bit different—the political text is intrusive and self-contradictory, while the slapstick is cheap and about as stupid as the character himself. It doesn’t help that the film is a fix-up of three smaller films: the first introducing the character in his full reprehensible sexism, racism, small-minded bigotry; the second one exporting Gratton’s humour to a tropical vacation, while he completely misses the point of a dictatorial regime; and the third one bringing together various gags about winter and Christmas. It ends with Gratton’s death and resurrection, explicitly like Jesus. The episodic nature of the three smaller films is made even worse by the disconnected string of slapstick gags. To be fair, lead actor/writer Julien Poulin created a heck of a character with Elvis Gratton, even though the satirical point of the character was often missed by everyone … as is often the case with outrageous satire. The film does have a few laughs, but I can’t honestly say which ones are nostalgic middle school flashbacks and which ones are genuine—the film does have its share of exasperating moments as well, so any assessment of the film has to be properly mixed.

  • It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)

    It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, January 2019) The 1960s were a strange time for movies, with studios chasing epic films in a decades-long fight to convince TV viewers to make the trip to theatres. It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World is special in that it (along with The Great Race) was a rare attempt to make an epic comedy rather than rely on oh-so-very-serious biblical or historical source material. The result is, indeed a spectacle: As a few strangers hear a dying thief give them the location of a hidden treasure, the rest of the film is a madcap, multi-character chase through the southwestern United States in an attempt to get to the treasure before everyone else. The ensemble cast is a collection of early 1960s comedy stars, even though most of them are now unfamiliar to contemporary audiences. Still, what has not gone out of style is the succession of action set-pieces, impressive stunt work, breakneck editing and far-fetched comic situations in which the characters find themselves. Where else can you witness a plane flying (for real!) through a billboard; a man destroying a service station; or characters stuck on an out-of-control fireman ladder? It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World is admittedly very long—at nearly three hours (with half an hour cut from the first showings!), it would be a test of anyone’s patience, except that the laughs and the fast pacing do keep things hopping quickly: director Stanley Kramer may not have the deftest touch with comedy and specifically verbal comedy, but the result speaks for itself. While the film is easy to like, there are a few things that hold it back from unconditional love—namely, that the point of the film is a greedy chase, and so nearly every character (even the one played by the normally likable Spencer Tracy) eventually succumbs to pure old-fashioned backstabbing greed. The ending does the most of what it can with the cards it’s given, but there’s still an absence of a pure happy ending for anyone that stings a bit. Still, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World is a classic for a reason, and its sheer lengths and density of comic set-pieces make it a decent prospect for a rewatch.

  • That’s Entertainment! (1974)

    That’s Entertainment! (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2018) In the running for the title of the greatest clip show ever made, That’s Entertainment! does have the advantage of great source material to draw from: nothing less than the heydays of MGM musicals, featuring greats such as Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and so many others that it would be exhausting to list them all. Various stars such as James Stewart, Bing Crosby and Elizabeth Taylor introduce some of the archival segments. Helmed by writer/director Jack Haley Jr. from MGM’s library extensive library, the film is a pure celebration of musicals as an art form, and of MGM as a powerhouse studio. Ironically, the film also acts as a tombstone for the classical MGM—filmed on the studio’s backlot, That’s Entertainment! presents the MGM studios right after they were sold off to finance the studio’s debts. As a result, the backdrop behind the presenters is decrepit, rusted, faded, overgrown with weeds, showing Hollywood’s past grandeur in a documentary fashion. The contrast between that and the clip shows is astounding, as we get a quick greatest hits of MGM’s most memorable numbers and fascinating segments about Astaire, Kelly, Esther Williams and Judy Garland. That’s Entertainment! is an absolutely fascinating film, and it deserves its enduring popularity—TCM even used it, along with its sequels, as a perfect lead in to the New Year’s Eve celebrations. Now, I want a good affordable copy of it on Blu-Ray.

  • Cadillac Records (2008)

    Cadillac Records (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2018) It’s not easy to make a successful ensemble musical biography, but Cadillac Records does manage to put together a fun and intriguing look at the life of Lionel Chess and the heydays of Chess Records, a pivotal Chicago-based record company that played a crucial role in rhythm-and-blues, as well as the formation of early rock-and-roll. The ensemble cast clearly has fun playing musical legends, what with Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, Beyoncé as Etta James, Eamonn Walker as Howlin’ Wolf and Mos Def as Chuck Berry, with Adrian Brody as producer Leonard Chess. Writer-director Darnell Martin’s script doesn’t stray far from either the truth or the music movies clichés, but it does have a good narrative rhythm to it. It’s perhaps most remarkable for focusing on a label rather than just a single artist, giving us a glimpse of the relationships between a group of people moving forward in time. The characters are memorable, their stories remain interesting and the music is about as good as it could be. Don’t be surprised to want to revisit Cadillac Records only for the music, leaving it as background ambiance while doing other things.

  • Reds (1981)

    Reds (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, December 2018) I’m starting to be old enough to realize how complex history can be, and how many little-known side stories, tangents and footnotes it contains. Now, thanks to Warren Beatty’s Reds, I know a little bit more about the American involvement in the Bolchevik Revolution of November 1917 and its aftermath. Beatty here produces, writes, directs and plays in a movie about American journalist John Reed, who witnessed those events first-hand, sent news reports and ended up writing a book about it. In addition to Reed’s reporting, the film does spend quite a bit of time chronicling his complex relationship with socialite Louise Bryant (played by Diane Keaton). If it feels like a history lesson, then this is an impression that the film actively courts—by including documentary footage of “witnesses” talking about Reed, Reds blurs the lines between fact and fiction, and further bolsters the epic scale of the result. The other thing that hits hard is the film’s mind-numbing 194 minutes, far too long even for the kind of massive world-changing epic that Reds has in mind. Still, if you can schedule your life around the movie, it’s quite an interesting history lesson that it has in mind—a corner of American history during which the country may have been tempted to back off from savage capitalism, and a milestone of Russian history seldom depicted sympathetically in American movies. It’s easy to imagine parallel realities emerging from America embracing at least some degree of socialism, as this film dramatizes the elements in play in the late 1910s. Now that Beatty has essentially retired (or at least retreated back in a safe corner), it’s easier to evaluate how daring much of his pre-1990s filmography could be, and with Reds he controlled the project from beginning to end. The result is a fiercely intelligent, provocative, unusual piece of work that may overstay its welcome, but nonetheless illuminates a pocket of history that deserves to be told.

  • Yeopgijeogin geunyeo [My Sassy Girl] (2001)

    Yeopgijeogin geunyeo [My Sassy Girl] (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Hoopla Streaming, December 2018) Those who maintain that romance is the universal language will be comforted by the existence of Kwak Jae-yong’s My Sassy Girl, a South Korean romantic drama that hammers the tropes of the genre as blatantly as any Hollywood movie. The story is a bit messy, but it has to do with an unstable (quirky, sassy, fun, abusive—take your pick) young woman barging into a quiet young man’s life and upending it completely. The romance is further heightened by a lengthy separation between the two and a dramatically ironic finale. It starts out funny, becomes poignant later on, and finishes with big romantic guns firing by the very end. Of course the fun is in the details, in the quirkiness of her behaviour, the three movies imagined by the hero, or the atmosphere of a somewhat familiar romantic comedy set in contemporary South Korea. While this is all very cute and quite accessible (the film was one of the highest-grossing movies in South Korean history at the time of its release), I can’t help but wonder how much less fun the film would be if the gender roles had been inverted. But that’s asking too much of a film not meant to sustain such scrutiny. In the meantime, it’s best to just appreciate My Sassy Girl and have fun along the way.

  • Superfly (2018)

    Superfly (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2018) I’m enough of a Scorsese fan to be at least sympathetic to the idea of a film featuring a criminal as a protagonist, but it always helps if there’s at least a nod toward decency and morality somewhere in the mix. Alas, that’s not so in this Superfly remake, which features a gangster going against worse gangsters … and getting away with it. Trying to find even a thematic point in this glitzy celebration of conspicuous consumption, hedonism, fast cars, cool guns and ménage-à-trois shower scene is tough—what we get is the lifestyle, the shoot’em-ups, the car chases, the double-crossing and the escape to a yacht. If you’re looking for the tradeoffs, well, at least one of the protagonist’s girlfriends gets killed and, um, that’s about it. (He seems perfectly happy with the remaining one.) At least Trevor Jackson is fine in the lead role—and who wouldn’t with Lex Scott Davis and Andrea Londo at his side? “Director X” (actually Julien Christian Lutz) distinguishes himself through a decent visual style, made all the way more remarkable in that the production of the film was ridiculously short—something like three or four months from start of production to the end of shooting, with theatrical release three months later. There’s some obvious visual symbolism in Superfly (the heroes drive, shoot and wear black; the villains drive, shoot and wear white) but again there’s not much underneath the surface, and not nearly enough of what would be needed to justify a gangster film glorifying the lifestyle.

  • Weekend at Bernie’s (1989)

    Weekend at Bernie’s (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2018) There’s dumb comedies, and then there’s Weekend at Bernie’s, a film that somehow thought it would be a fine premise to have a corpse carried around and made as if it was still alive. The amount of sheer suspension of disbelief required to buy into this inane concept would power the current American presidency for about ten minutes, but that’s how Hollywood rolls. Focusing on a pair of your men as protagonists allows the film to dip deep into the dumb-guy humour pool, with beaches and bikinis and necrophilia, with a bit of yuppie self-absorption to round things off. It’s remarkably dumb for a black comedy, and oddly insubstantial as well—once the script has gone through the obvious jokes, there’s not a lot left to do for director Ted Kotcheff. I suppose that the audacity has its charm … and that Weekend at Bernie’s must be seen at least once to be believed. (The sequel is even worse.)

  • Eraser (1996)

    Eraser (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, In French, On TV, December 2018) I recall seeing Eraser in theatres, and not being all that happy about it. (The idea of a portable railgun firing “near the speed of light” with no recoil seemed hilarious to me, but laughing alone in the theatre isn’t one of my fondest memories. But then again I placed a lot more emphasis on scientific rigour back then.) In retrospect, though, Eraser had aged decently enough—it does feature Arnold Schwarzenegger near the prime of his career, after all, and the kind of big dumb action movies made in the mid-1990s have grown scarcer in recent years, accounting for a bit of nostalgia. I mean; in how many 2018 releases do we have a parachuting hero bringing down an airplane rushing toward him with nothing more than a handgun? Some rough-looking CGI (alligators and human skeletons!) add to the charm. At the time of the film’s release, much of the release chatter had to do with how the audio and CGI team had to work around the clock right before release to change all mentions of the villainous “Cirex” to “Cyrez” after computer chip company Cirix complained. In terms of star vehicle, Eraser is pretty much what Schwarzenegger could handle at the time—and having a featured role for Vanessa Williams is more interesting when you realize that the film never goes the obvious route of creating a romantic subplot between both of them. James Caan also has a good turn as a mentor-turned-villain. The political machinations justifying the plot are better than average for an action movie, and the coda seem closer to a political thriller than an action film. Eraser is still not a good movie (and it pales a bit compared to other late-1990s actioners), but it has aged into a decent-enough one.

  • Re-Animator (1985)

    Re-Animator (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2018) There’s a self-acknowledged B-movie quality to Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator that makes the movie about ten times as much fun than if it had tried to play things dramatically. Working from an H. P. Lovecraft premise, this is a film that has fun with the idea of hideous resurrection, clearly made in the same horror/comedy vein as Evil Dead 2. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy watch for those who aren’t used to the gore or the casual disregard from decency—Re-Animator is clearly destined to a specific hardened public. In between the gallons of blood, practical makeup effects and unbridled imagination, the hospital sequence that makes up most of the third act is wild enough. Jeffrey Combs has some fun as the lead actor playing the epitome of a mad scientist, and this carries through to the entire production. There are a lot of wannabe horror/humour hybrids, but few of them manage the magic combination of elements that Re-Animator stitches and cobbles together. This being said, it’s worth reiterating that this is not for everyone—it’s best watched by seasoned horror fans who have developed the macabre sense of humour that the film is going for.

  • Easter Parade (1948)

    Easter Parade (1948)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2018) A good musical comedy is timeless, and Easter Parade is better than most. Here we have Fred Astaire as a Broadway singer pairing up with a young singing sensation played by Judy Garland in an effort to make his ex-partner (on-and-off-stage) jealous. That’s really an excuse to string along musical numbers, of course, and Easter Parade plays that game well. Astaire is in fine form, MGM’s Freed unit was near the top of its game and few expenses were spared along the way. I’d like it a lot better if Judy Garland and Ann Miller (who plays the ex-partner) switched roles, but I seem to be in the minority in my overall lack of enthusiasm for Garland. Still, Miller gets at least one good solo number (“Shaking the Blues Away”) and it’s fun to see her as the romantic antagonist. The film’s by-the-numbers plotting lets the musical numbers shine through: the highlights include the Astaire/Garland comedic “We’re a Couple of Swells”, but especially the Astaire number “Steppin’ Out with My Baby”, which mixed optical trickery to show Astaire’s dance moves in slow motion. The early-1910s Manhattan atmosphere is convincing, with all the stops pulled out for the title end number. Astaire, like in most of his movies, is too old for his co-star, but then again which woman, no matter her age, could keep up with his dance moves? Worth watching at any time of the year, Easter Parade is among the best of the MGM musicals, and remains a minor landmark in Astaire, Garland or Miller’s careers.

  • La Florida (1993)

    La Florida (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, December 2018) There are elements in La Florida that don’t require any explanations to its French-Canadian target audience but need quite a bit of unpacking for other audiences. For instance, the connection between Florida and Québec: While Florida occupies a specific place in American culture (equal part Disney, Kennedy Space Centre and two doses of “Florida Man”), it occupies a very different place in Québec’s imagination—it’s the hot sunny state where well-off retirees go spend their winters, deemphasizing the state’s significant problems and playing up its destination as, well, the middle-class Quebecker’s dream. The fun of La Florida is largely found in opposing these two conceptions of the state, as a family of coarse Quebeckers (headed by French-Canadian screen legend Remy Girard) purchases a hotel in Fort Lauderdale with dreams of making it big. Alas, they run afoul of another Quebecker with a stranglehold on the local hotel trade, as well as an American developer (hilariously played by Margot Kidder) with plans for the location. A young Marie-Josée Croze unusually provides the film’s sex appeal in a bikini. The film was a massive success back in 1993 (becoming the highest-grossing Canadian film of the year, regardless of language) and became a bit of a cultural reference in further reinforcing stereotypes about Florida. It’s still worth a look for the actors as a gentle (but predictable) comedy.