Movie Review

  • Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story (2015)

    Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) The best documentaries are not always about obvious topics, and so the oddly endearing Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story gives us a glimpse at a couple that occupied two crucial but little-known positions in the studio system. Lillian Michelson was a film researcher, providing archival material and answering questions that enhanced the reality that the film wanted to recreate. Meanwhile, Harold Michelson was a storyboard artist, working with great directors to also bring to life the vision behind several well-known films. Together, they married, worked, raised kids and celebrated (at the time of the film) sixty years of marriage. The blend between Hollywood nitty-gritty detail and romance strengthens both aspects of the film. What’s remarkable here is that, through the Michelsons, we’re not looking at famous directors or actors, but at the crucial behind-the-scenes work required for a team to make a movie. Hollywood history may only remember the names above the marquee, but it rests on the competence and professionalism of thousands of capable craftsmen and artists who helped enable the collaborative nature of moviemaking. In many ways, the film goes about its business like most others—archival footage, interviews with known names, and so on. But it’s the topic that distinguishes Harol and Lillian from other documentaries—such as using very cute storyboard drawings to illustrate the couple’s married life. Looking at storyboards both validates and questions the singular vision of a director—the reality of it isn’t quite so clear-cut as the director coming up with every single detail. Along the way, we get insights into Hitchcock’s process in making The Birds, and a look at The Graduate that outlines the fidelity of the storyboard to the finished him. Appropriately enough for its two stars, the film is frequently very funny, heartwarming and also a bit wistful in contemplating a pair of careers that spanned the end of the studio system into the new Hollywood and beyond. Harold and Lillian is not what I’d call an essential film, but it’s clearly something that will make Hollywood history fans happy.

  • Bulletproof (1996)

    Bulletproof (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2020) In Adam Sandler’s career, Bulletproof still stands away from his comfort zone—sure, it’s a comedy, but it’s also an attempt to melt Sandler’s comic sensibilities with an action movie and the result is closer to a comedy incompetently attempting action than a true hybrid. There are clear signs nearly everywhere that the production did not have the means to execute its ambitions—action, people and dialogue don’t always match, exposing significant production shortcomings. Young Sandler does have some charm, but most of the film can feel like a contest to see just how abrasive Sandler could be. While Damon Wayans occasionally acts as a foil, there’s a limit to just how he and James Caan (playing his usual brand of heavy) can restrain him. Shorter than I expected at 90 minutes, this buddy comedy with antagonistic leads is mildly amusing, which is just about what it was aiming for. Soundtrack trivia: I found Bulletproof’s main theme using cues that sounded distractingly like the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Rollercoaster”… is it just me?

  • Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie (2018)

    Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2020) The title of Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie says it all. At first glance, it’s a documentary about the Barbie doll and how successful it was—a somewhat commonplace approach for hagiography. At second glance, it’s also a documentary that acknowledges the negative messages carried by the Barbie archetype of unnaturally tall and curvy blondes. Which leads to a third glance that wrestles with complex questions of cultural influence, influence and representation. As the title says, are we simply placing too much weight on a plastic doll’s shoulders by making it stand for everything that’s wrong about cultural sexism? The documentary does get candid access to the Barbie creative team at a crucial junction in the doll’s history (trying to remake its image after a sales slowdown), and that does open it up to suspicions of being a corporatist hagiography. The discussion is often framed as Barbie creators reacting to criticism, but Tiny Shoulders does work best at showing how everyone, from the documentarian to the self-reflective interviewees and the Barbie creators themselves, has fully absorbed the debate about Barbie—this is a modern documentary that’s aware of the state of the discussion about its topic. The result is quite up-to-date, and the titular tiny shoulders are revealed as being those of the very humanized self-doubting women (and a few men) entrusted with Barbie’s future. The result is not a puff piece, not an anti-Barbie piece, but somewhere in the informed, nuanced, slightly-sympathetic middle. In the trenches with the Barbie staff, a war-room sequence takes us in the trenches of media response to the relaunch of different Barbie body types in 2014ish, complete with last-minute stress prior to launch. (Among other virtues, Tiny Shoulders will warm the heart of anyone who’s ever been involved in a long-term project.) Alas, the follow-up story to this film is murkier—the curvy dolls earned a huge amount of media attention upon release, but have since then been largely sidelined in favour of a return to the basic body type… even if more diversity has remained. (According to the latest results, Barbie sales have rebounded, plateauing from 2015 to 2017, and increasing from 2017 to 2019… right as the new Barbies body types gave way to a return to form.) Still, Tiny Shoulders offers a revelatory look inside the management of brands at an era where a slight misstep can threaten a multi-generational brand. It’s not necessarily just for Barbie fans.

  • The Stratton Story (1949)

    The Stratton Story (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) I must be overdosing on James Stewart’s movies, because there’s an impression of heavy déjà vu that hangs over the entire length of The Stratton Story and never quite goes away. Stewart as a baseball player? Yup, seen that before. Stewart in a biopic? Seen that before. Stewart playing loving couple with June Allyson? I certainly saw that already. The duality of Stewart is that he can do no wrong playing a humble likable character hailing from the heartland. Yet, at the same time, he never becomes anything else but James Stewart—he doesn’t disappear in the character as much as he makes the character him. This is fun to watch if you’re a fan of the actor, but the problem is that he forces the production to become “a Jimmy Stewart film.” Which may be for the best, given that The Stratton Story is otherwise a by-the-numbers biopic in the classical Hollywood mould, full of homegrown wisdom, conflicts between the family farm and the baseball field, terrible odds to overcome and a comeback hailed as a triumph. It’s easy to watch… but maybe harder to respect.

  • Step Up All In (2014)

    Step Up All In (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) If I’m an unlikely fan of the Step Up series, it’s because it’s the closest that twenty-first century Hollywood (so far) has come to a series of Classic-Hollywood dance musicals. From a somewhat dull and unpromising first instalment, the series has grown into a modern showcase for dancing and spectacular choreography. Sixth instalment Step Up All In isn’t particularly interesting from a plot perspective (dance contest in Las Vegas, blablabla) but that’s not why we’re watching the film—this is about the dances, the numbers, the choreography, maybe even the recurring characters a little. (Moose definitely levelled up by growing up!) This final instalment wisely chooses to bring back as many characters from previous films as it can, which ends up giving a nice send-off to the series. Vegas makes for an exuberant backdrop to the action, and the money has clearly been spent in the lavish choreography of the dance numbers—and the soundtrack’s pretty good too. While I’m an easy audience for this film, Step Up All In is almost pure fun—and I really should make an effort to see the few instalments of the series I haven’t yet seen.

  • The Narrow Margin (1952)

    The Narrow Margin (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) At 71 minutes, film noir The Narrow Margin doesn’t have a whole lot of fat on its muscled thrills. While it takes some of the archetypes of the genre (the widow of a dead criminal making her way across the country to testify at a major trial… also known as just another day in film noir world), it remixes these familiar elements with the romance of cross-country train rides—especially for twenty-first century audiences. While efficient, The Narrow Margin does take its time to build the strands of plot required for its blend of drama, romance, suspense and action. The oppressive claustrophobia of the train setting is used quite well, and there’s a bit of style in the way handheld shots are used to elevate a fight sequence—director Richard Fleischer would go on to direct some far more famous movies. A third-act twist feels surprising and arguably makes some of the late narrative feel hollow. Still, the best part of the film may be Marie Windsor, looking quite attractive in a very unusual, almost Ida Lupino-esque way. But she’s only one of the highlights in a taut, capable thriller that punches far above its weight in twists and turns and good moments.

  • 3 Men and a Little Lady (1990)

    3 Men and a Little Lady (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2020) If you’ve seen 3 Men and a Baby, get ready for the contrived sequel 3 Men and a Little Lady—a big gloppy 1990s-vintage comedy that barely cares about how ludicrous it is. Despite a capable cast, the film suffers from a bad case of sequelitis in which everything is bigger, crazier and yet less interesting than this original. In this case, our three titular men are shocked out of their poly-conjugal arrangement when the mother of the little lady abruptly announces that she’s getting married and moving to England. (Don’t ask why. A sequel is why.) Contrivances piled upon contrivances are this script’s idea of plotting, and there’s no other choice than to ride along until the predictable ending. Nothing in this film feels real, from the absurdly manipulated situations all the way to a marriage that piles clichés on top of another. This is not necessarily a bad thing as long as we know what we’re in for: A script that milks all potential jokes out of a situation before moving on to the next one. While 3 Men and a Little Lady hasn’t necessarily appreciated much in the past thirty years, it does feature some performances from actors whose star power has considerably dimmed since then. Tom Selleck does get a good role, Ted Danson hams it up in a variety of costumes and roles, while Steve Guttenberg doesn’t get much to do… and circa-1990 Fiona Shaw gets insistently coded as unattractive, which is very much up for debate for anyone away from Hollywood. Still, the film is generally watchable, even if it loses a bit of its way in the England-set second half and its madcap wedding comedy antics. But then again—afflicted with such a severe outbreak of sequeltis, where else could it go?

  • Lucky Day (2019)

    Lucky Day (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) While it’s far too early to call curtains on writer-director Roger Avary’s career, the first quarter-century of it has shown a filmmaker with interesting ideas that couldn’t quite get them properly expressed… and that’s in addition to a tumultuous personal life that saw him go to prison for vehicular manslaughter under the influence. Somewhat on-the-nose, his first film after his prison sentence is Lucky Day, which begins with the protagonist… getting out of prison. Said to be a belated sequel to Killing Zoe, the film quickly becomes its own thing—an action-comedy very much in the style of the 1990s wave of black criminal comedies that Avary himself pioneered by co-writing Pulp Fiction. The film is directed with some stylish glee, and Crispin Glover’s delightfully unhinged performance as a fake-French assassin can go a long way in sustaining interest in the film. But as much as my fondness for Tarantinoesque (or should that be Avaryesque?) black crime comedies grows stronger now that they’re not making nearly as many of them as they used to, even I felt that Lucky Day quickly became annoying. It certainly does itself no favour through its constant excessive violence against innocent characters, starting with a cute supporting actress shoved aside for the sake of a bad joke. But it gets worse moments later with cheap CGI gore, and again later, as what could have been a good action showcase in an art gallery becomes a repulsively violent sequence. Coupled with the film’s cartoonish humour, it demonstrates an immaturity and an inability to keep a consistent tone. If you’re looking for the ways in which Lucky Day is a clear step down from Pulp Fiction, it’s this kind of juvenile insistence than an R-rating is inherently better than more broadly accessible fare: you can be funny and rough and dark without disgusting audiences. Glover’s performance is pretty good (it had been a while since we’d seen him in this much crazy glory) but the rest of Lucky Day is dull when it’s not actively repulsive. This being a Canada-France co-production may explain the unusually high amount of French dialogue (most of it obviously not spoken by native or fluent speakers).

  • The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957)

    The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) No matter what you think about the rest of the film, The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown at a title, is wonderful. The premise (a movie star is kidnapped—except everyone thinks it’s a publicity stunt for her next movie in which she plays a kidnapped woman; she falls for the kidnapper) is fine. Jane Russell is more than fine. But the film itself isn’t. Oh, it’s still relatively amusing, and I suspect that time had been kind to it by sheer virtue or encapsulating a late-Golden-age snapshot of Hollywood. Leaden, even at less than 90 minutes, this comedy runs out of steam early on and the dialogue isn’t strong enough to sustain the repetitiveness of the premise. Despite a few funny scenes and moments (the opening is particularly strong and makes the rest of the picture look poorer in comparison), the entire thing feels more laborious than it should – it’s clearly a misfire for director Norman Taurog, otherwise known for much better pictures. Russell has the panache of a movie star, but her co-star Ralph Meeker is not always up to the role as a lovable rogue. (Lovable, fine; rogue, not. ) It doesn’t help that, by being in black-and-white by the late 1950s, The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown sends mixed signals: It’s not the kind of serious drama that was shot in black-and-white at the time, and it doesn’t feel like the kind of 1940s movies it looks like. Still, I had a decent-enough time watching it—although I’m a good game for any film in which Hollywood looks at itself. Despite the dubiousness of a captive falling for her captor, this is the kind of less-than-successful film that could use a remake—I can just imagine studio executives deciding not to pay a star’s ransom based on social media feedback.

  • The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

    The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) You’re more than free to hail Val Lewton for his work on the still-superb Cat People, but there’s a very good argument to be made that The Curse of the Cat People is equally interesting as a showcase of his unusually sophisticated sensibilities. Billed and marketed as a follow-up to the first film, this film doesn’t settle for mere sequel rehash—it becomes an unusually heartfelt mediation on a young girl’s loneliness, executed as an ethereal ghost story. While the end result isn’t perfect (much of it due to studio meddling, this not being what they expected), it’s considerably more impressive than most of the run-of-the-mill horror movies of that time. Horror as seen from the perspective of a child is a special mixture—and one carried even today by filmmakers such as Guillermo de Toro. The Curse of the Cat People is an early example of what is possible with the horror genre as soon as you don’t focus on the scares at the expense of having something to say. Surprisingly sophisticated… unless you’re a Lewton fan, in which case it’s exactly as expected.

  • Double Harness (1933)

    Double Harness (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) Wait, wait, wait—you’re telling me that a Pre-Code William Powell film was considered lost for decades until it was brought back from obscurity by TCM? Strange but true—Loaned to RKO by Warners, Powell played in Double Harness and that film (along with five others) ended up excluded from RKO’s film library when its rights were sold back to the producer in 1946, who then did nothing with them. TCM managed to get those films back in circulation in 2007 and the result is yet another treat for Powell fans. The actor doesn’t step away from his persona too much in Double Harness—he plays a playboy manipulated into marriage, and then courted-for-real by his own wife. It’s a sophisticated romance well in-line with other Powell films, and having Ann Harding as his romantic sparring partner is a welcome change of pace. At 69 minutes, Double Harness is short but steadily amusing, and clearly Pre-Code in its faux-cynical consideration of the relationship between love and marriage. It would have been cruel to deprive the world of this Powell film—admittedly minor, but still a Powell film.

  • Rafter Romance (1933)

    Rafter Romance (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) Even by the multi-decade standards of Hollywood romantic comedies, Rafter Romance’s premise remains built on an impressive contrivance: Due to financial problems, two strangers (Ginger Rogers and Norman Foster) agree to share an attic apartment sight unseen, one by day and the other by night. Despite never meeting, the two end up in an antagonistic relationship by playing pranks on each other. But as these things happen, the two eventually meet and fall in love, while not knowing that they’re sharing space with each other. It’s all quite amusing, if not revolutionary—and at 72 minutes, quite short as well. Part of the film’s charm is that it dates from the Pre-Code era, what with a man and a woman sharing an apartment, some bare legs, good-luck swastika (yes, yes), suggestive language and other things that would not be out of place in a far more modern film. Rafter Romance was, for decades, a lost film—its rights having been ceded to their producer and not kept in the RKO library. It took TCM’s efforts to find, restore and show the film again. While it’s not a great film, it is definitely the kind of romantic comedy that’s well worth having again in the collective film library of the world.

  • Places in the Heart (1984)

    Places in the Heart (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) It’s not that Places in the Heart is a bad film; it’s just that I can probably dissuade you from seeing it simply by listing facts. 1930s rural Texas. Cinematography in shades of brown and yellow. A widow with two children. Classic Hollywood melodrama. A farm at jeopardy of being repossessed. Episodic structure. A blind boarder. A black handyman and the KKK. A final sequence that’s pure fantasy. Oscar-winning screenplay and best actress for Sally Fields. If that sounds like your kind of movie, then go ahead. If anyone else needs coaxing, know that despite the above elements, Places in the Heart comes together nicely. It’s old-time rural drama and very low-key, but it does go off running in several directions, some of them more interesting than others. The blind boarder is an intelligent man played by John Markovich. Ed Harris shows up. There’s a tornado special-effects sequence. It all amounts to something that’s more than the sum of its parts, good or bad. I liked it, slightly, and that’s more than I could have said running down the list of ingredients that make Places in the Heart.

  • Chain Reaction (1996)

    Chain Reaction (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, On TV, April 2020) There is something almost overwhelmingly 1990s about watching Chain Reaction again, nearly 25 years later. We’ve got young avatars of Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman and Rachel Weisz (plus Fred Ward) running around, unaware that their careers would blossom for another quarter-century. We’ve got the usual conspiracy theory nonsense about alternate energy. We have overblown action sequences, the best and most ludicrous of those being Reeves outrunning a nuclear-grade explosion on a motorcycle. (Alas, it only happens fifteen minutes in, not leaving much for the rest.) Director Andrew Davis’ execution is strictly by the books of 1980s–1990s thrillers and has not unpleasantly aged in the interim. The mid-1990s do feel much nicer now from the vantage point of a global pandemic, although much of this comfort is undercut by the decision to set this film in wintry Chicago and Washington, DC—the visuals are considerably grayer and duller than if the film had been set in a sunnier environment. With a quarter-century’s hindsight, I believe that this is still the only major movie to ever feature the word “sonoluminescence.” Otherwise, this is a familiar thriller-type kind of plot—scientists on the run, evil conspiracy to shut down their project, helicopters and chases and big holes in the ground. The plot makes little sense, as it mixes scientific research with shadowy well-financed research projects, but hey—we’re not here for a treatise on the military-scientific complex as much as guns and explosions. I remember seeing Chain Reaction in the late 1990s and not being overly impressed, and a second viewing now doesn’t change my mind much… although I have to admit that its period details are now settling into a nice little patina.

  • Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955)

    Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) From the get-go, Gentlemen Marry Brunettes start with significant handicaps compared to its predecessor Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Howard Hawks is not directing, Marilyn Monroe is not featured, and even the characters of the original film can’t return due to rights issues. At least Jane Russell is back, at least. What follows is a competent attempt at recreating the atmosphere and basic elements that ensured the success of the first film. It sort-of works, but we’re clearly more in a comfortable recreation than an attempt to build anything more ambitious. (Also: blackface.) The core conceit of having two girls gallivanting around Paris is there, as do musical numbers. Jane Russell does well here in a dual role as both the sister and niece of her own character in the first film, but it’s Jeanne Crain who impresses more in another dual role. The musical numbers are fun but rather forgettable, and the comedy is very light. Gentlemen Marry Brunettes is not terrible, but it’s clearly not up to the stratospheric level of the first film, and feels second-rate when measured against the kinds of musicals they were producing in the 1950s. And if you want to compare it to the first film, well — as a gentleman who usually prefers brunettes, in this case I vexingly have to give my vote to the blondes.