Movie Review

  • Grey Gardens (2009)

    Grey Gardens (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) Mere hours after I watched the 1973 documentary Grey Gardens on TCM, its more modern fictional adaptation played on HBO—an ideal occasion to do some comparative analysis. Both films are about two old women (mother and daughter, respectively aunt and cousin to Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onasis) living together in a vast but decrepit house in the Hamptons. Rather than the unfiltered cinema-vérité of the original, this adaptation provides a scripted narrative for the actresses, hopping between the glory days of the pair and the aftermath of their downfall. While it may not be as striking a cinematic artifact as its predecessor, nor capture the story as nakedly, it’s a great deal more interesting to 2020 viewers than the original thanks to material attempting to explain what is happening. (This is true all the way to repeated CGI fly-bys showing the differences between the house in 1936 and 1973.) Having seen both movies practically back-to-back, I can testify that this reconstitution nails the visuals of the original film with an uncanny fidelity, especially when it recreates the shooting of the documentary. The hand of fiction is comforting here, allowing the insertion of additional material to heighten the dramatic impact and ensure that it all makes sense. Jessica Langue and Drew Barrymore star (with Jeanne Tripplehorn playing Jacqueline Kennedey) and even I have to admit that Barrymore has a great role here. Also of interest: the film’s insistence on providing a happy ending… of sorts.

  • Grey Gardens (1975)

    Grey Gardens (1975)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) It’s not because Grey Gardens is a striking documentary than it’s a pleasant one. While its subject matter of older women with mental issues living together in a large unkempt house is not unique, the reason why the film attracted a fair bit of attention over the years is because those two women are relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, somewhat discarded and left behind by the rest of their family. The women come from old money, are articulate, and yet not quite there—their living conditions are deplorable, the house is falling apart and their recluse nature is off-putting. The first half of the film is tediously cinema-verité, with minimal intervention from the director or the crew, simply showing the terrible living conditions of the pair. The crew does show up later in the documentary to interact with the women, which only highlights their social issues. I suspect that Grey Gardens hasn’t aged particularly well, in large part because of the higher prevalence of material today about reclusive hoarders (including a considerable amount of reality TV) but in larger part due to the fading mystique of the Kennedy-Bouvier family. For twenty-first century viewers, Grey Gardens is liable to lead to a singular impression—this is miserable, so when do we get out of here?

  • Floyd Norman: An Animated Life (2016)

    Floyd Norman: An Animated Life (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) Chances are that you don’t know Floyd Norman, but chances are also that you’ll think of him very fondly after watching the great documentary biopic Floyd Norman: An Animated Life. While Norman worked his entire life in the field of animation, he is not someone who’s easily identifiable—he was never credited as a director, bounced between studios (but is better known for the animation work he did at Disney) and was known as a strong personality within his field, even if it took time before he was given due credit as a veteran of the artform. While one of his claims to fame is having become the “first Disney African-American animator” in 1956, Norman talks about his Southern California upbringing as one relatively free of racial tensions. It’s when you put together these strands of personal history, and combine it with his grander-than-life personality, that Norman emerges as a fascinating subject for a biography. Generously illustrated through animated segments, it showcases a very funny, very witty guy at age 79. His troublemaker moments at Disney are covered in gleeful detail, along with more troubling matters of agism. The intersection of what he’s known for—the art of animation, the reality of life within Disney, advancing black rights—are what makes An Animated Life interesting. Directors Michael Fiore and Erik Sharkey don’t pull punches in discussing his divorce, remarriage (to someone as funny and interesting as he is) and anger issues. Talking heads asked to contribute to the documentary include some major animation figures such as Paul Dini and Dean DeBlois. Anyone eager to learn more about the nitty-gritty of animation work will be even more pleased with the result. The question “why a documentary about Floyd Norman?” gets obvious answers the longer the film goes on—and his obscurity at the top of the producer-director totem pole becomes an asset when the film avoids mythologizing the influence of those positions and focuses instead on the realities of the craft of animation. Terrific subject, great documentary—don’t miss An Animated Life if you have even the slightest interest in the past few decades of American animation.

  • The Citadel (1938)

    The Citadel (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) King Vidor was one of the major directors of the silent age but while his star dimmed significantly when the movies started talking, he still managed to create a few great sound movies. One of them is The Citadel, an adaptation of a then-red-hot novel railing against the medical establishment (plus ça change…). Here, a very likable Robert Donat takes on the role of a medical student who enters the workforce and finds out that the profession isn’t quite as idealistically satisfying as what he’d expected. Part drama, part coming-of-age, part medical thriller, part romance, part courtroom theatrics, The Citadel is a rather enjoyable blend of different subgenres in its story of a heroic doctor in a small mining town who diagnoses tuberculosis at a very inconvenient time for the mine. The plot clearly doesn’t stop there, but that’s the fun of it—Vidor’s surprising instincts leading him naturally to a novel-length story with twists, turns and significant changes for its protagonist. It’s hardly perfect (notably too long in its second half before reality comes back) but Rosalind Russel is there and Vidor demonstrates his touch for character-based drama. For classic cinephiles, The Citadel does fit right in with the other medical dramas of the 1930s.

  • The Games Maker (2014)

    The Games Maker (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2020) In other hands, with a slightly different spin, with less wide-eyed honesty and with lesser actors, The Games Maker would have been insufferable. As it is, it’s merely mediocre, which is still an improvement. Set in a fantasy world where board games are a dominant form of entertainment, the film follows a boy who, after being suddenly orphaned, ends up in a boarding school where his game-making talents are recognized. Considering that the fantasy adventure that follows this premise has kingdom-remaking impacts, you may be forgiven for making a list of all previous fantasy works from which this film borrows, whether it’s the Harry Potter atmosphere, Lemony Snicket narration, board game mania, whimsical set design or chosen-one narrative in a board games-obsessed universe. Still, it’s not a bad or boring watch, even if the production values and choices made by writer-director-producer Juan Pablo Buscarini are sometimes suboptimal. There’s a sense that however freely inspired The Games Maker is, there’s a good-natured wide-eyed conviction at the way it goes about telling its story. Some set-pieces are kind of interesting, and the opening sequence already sets the very specific tone the film is going for. I liked it, even though I suspect that the natural viewing public for this film is closer to the pre-teen set.

  • Stuber (2019)

    Stuber (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) Formula breeds complacency and complacency breeds contempt and so it’s not too hard to see buddy-movie vehicle Stuber as anything but a generic product placement for its headliners. Dave Bautista plays a supercop who recruits an Uber driver (Kumail Nanjiani) for a night of explosive action—kind of a Collateral except supposed to be funny. Still, the elements here are pure 2010s R-rated comedy, with big pop songs and pop-culture references and excessive gore that instantly date this as a 2019 period piece. (Whether it will be dated well or dated badly is something for the future to determine.) At least the action star is credible and the funny star is funny: Bautista looks the part of an action-movie cop, while Nanjiani does the sarcastic foil quite well. Still, Stuber is a very manufactured experience—even if some of the supporting characters and details can be amusing, the film sticks so much to the template that even its self-awareness about it simply reinforces that it’s not taking chances nor making the obvious any fresher. It really doesn’t help that it endorses some vexing matters, from a rogue cop to manslaughter however justified. Sure, you can watch it and be entertained, but the moment you start scratching at the surface (which you may have the time to do a few times considering the uneven pacing), it proves as hollow as Hollywood producers congratulating themselves on their originality.

  • Hostiles (2017)

    Hostiles (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2020) On paper, Hostiles has some exceptional elements to play with—written and directed by Scott Cooper, starring Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike and Wes Studi, with a story that follows an army officer escorting a Cheyenne chief across dangerous territory in the 1890s. In intent, it’s determined to be a revisionist western, with an adequately nuanced look at the Native American characters. Bale, Pike and Studi are as good as ever, while Cooper gets some great landscapes to showcase along the journey. Plus, there are pre-stardom roles for Timothée Chalamet, Jesse Plemons and Jonathan Majors. But while the result is a respectable dramatic western, it’s not a great film, nor is it as great as it thinks it is—and this is hardly the first Cooper film to suffer from that kind of hubris. The elements are there, but something is missing from the result. Maybe fun, maybe humility.

  • The Addams Family (2019)

    The Addams Family (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video On-Demand, April 2020) While I had a hard time letting go of the 1990s Addams Family movies in trying to fairly assess this newest animated version, I please to report that The Addams Family is, all things considered, not too bad. Going back to the original comics for inspiration rather than trying to compete with the classic live-action version, this take gets a lot of mileage in juxtaposing the endearing macabre weirdness of the Family against the clichés of happy upbeat small-town Americana. Crafting a convincing pro-quirkiness message, The Addams Family is firmly in favour of our cynical heroes. Part of this has the film insisting a bit too much on the family members’ constant violent attempt to murder each other, at least until they’re under attack by outsiders. Animation-wise, it’s pretty good—nearly every shot has a sight gag or something interesting to look at: some of the best jokes come from opposing the notion of cute to the Addamses’s sense of style. In terms of character design, Morticia and Wednesday are fine (this is Wednesday’s film most of the time) and so are the not-quite-human characters, but Gomez is a noticeable step down after Raul Julia’s turn. Not everything works well—the copious use of pop music is more in-line with other animated family films than the Addams style, and there’s a case to be made that the film retreats to a very safe idea of the original dark source material. But that’s not much of a knock—This Addams Family will play very well in the family-friendly spooktober weeks leading to Halloween.

  • Beethoven’s 2nd (1993)

    Beethoven’s 2nd (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2020) What do you put in a sequel to a movie about a big dog? Puppies, obviously! And a date rape sequence! Wait, what? Yes, that’s right—Beethoven’s 2nd is just about as misguided as the first film in blending both the expected and the what-the-hell in the same movie. Most of the highlights persist—including Charles Grodin as the overwhelmed voice of reason, who becomes the butt of most big-dog jokes. It would be completely innocuous family entertainment if it was for a few nails-on-blackboard dissonant moments. Having a teenage boy threaten his girlfriend with date rape is strikingly inappropriate for a film aimed at primary school students, and while we’re at it, the portrayal of a divorced woman as a shrill harridan (Debi Mazar in what’s not one of her best roles, although maybe not the best wardrobe) is not exactly winning anyone over either. The puppies are cute, at least (“for now!” warns Grodin) and some hijinks are funny, but otherwise Beethoven’s 2nd is largely forgettable—well, other than the truly weird stuff thrown into it.

  • Hell Night (1981)

    Hell Night (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2020) Look, I’m more eager than most to watch a horror film in which characters must spend the night in a haunted mansion, but I’ll sneak out the moment it becomes a slasher. Alas, Hell Night came out in 1981, when there was scarcely any place left in theatres for non-slasher horror… so here we have a slasher. Nothing fancy: A group of pledges, a vast decrepit house and a killer repeating a spree killing. It starts promisingly (and Linda Blair does look very cute costumed as a Red Riding Hood) and then sustains its interest for a while as pranks substitute for real killings. But then the real killings start. While acceptably competent for a film of its subgenre, Hell Night is still quite dull. Whatever it thinks are innovations are mere variations, and it takes a slasher fan to appreciate the rest. Still, I’ll allow that as far as slashers go (and early-1980s exploitation slashers in particular), Hell Night is better than most. Whether or not that’s enough depends on your tolerance for them.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, November 2021) Regurgitated from the lowest depths of the slasher craze of the early 1980s, Hell Night is about as ordinary an example of the subgenre as you can get. The good news is that it could have been much worse – there’s no real bottom to the quality of the time’s slashers, although time has a tendency to filter out the worst. But neither is Hell Night clever, witty or even interesting. One of the few flickers of interest has the dull killer-killing-coeds plot being set in an expansive manor during a costume party, bringing some gothic elements to the result. There’s also horror icon Linda Blair looking as cute as any final girl can look as she runs from the crazed killer in an extended, almost exhausting finale. But that’s roughly it for the compliments, and they’re slim distinctions in a corrupt subgenre that is happy re-creating the same highlights in one movie after another. Hell Night doesn’t do much to distinguish itself throughout much of its running time: college-age characters, spooky setting, flashes of titillating sex scenes, false scares and gory deaths. The cast is slowly whittled down to one, and then it’s off to the credits. Director Tom DeSimone doesn’t do all that badly, balancing some atmosphere in between the violence. Still, Hell Night is the kind of film that only slasher fans will enjoy – it doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from the clichés of the genre, and seems satisfied merely showing up.  (So why did I see it a second time, you ask?  Here’s the final condemnation: I forgot I had seen it before and wrote the review before realizing it was already in the database.)

     

  • The Sky’s the Limit (1943)

    The Sky’s the Limit (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) You won’t find The Sky’s the Limit ranked very high on any list of Fred Astaire’s films, but fans may find it interesting to see him playing something slightly different than usual. The most distinctive aspect of it is that the film in unabashed wartime propaganda, and that Astaire plays a military pilot! Not a very dutiful one, mind you—he escapes his own morale-boosting tour to go have fun in New York City, meets a girl and the film gets back on the tracks of Astaire’s usual romantic comedies. While the songs and dances are sparser than usual, Astaire’s character is written, as usual, as a persistent stalker when it comes to pursuing girls. To make up for fewer musical numbers, the romance is more front-and-centre than usual, even if the match between Astaire and Joan Leslie (both of them playing characters with their first names) doesn’t quite gel. The film gets better during the pair’s first ta-dancing duet, but eventually the romance hits its usual third-act wall. This temporary break-up leads to the best sequence in the film—and one of the highlights in any serious Astaire anthology: the “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” number, in which Astaire’s drunk character lashes out at his frustrations at a hotel bar by tap-dancing and kicking glasses and bottles at the mirrored bar wall. It’s a shocking, violent, and completely off-persona sequence for Astaire at the time, even though it portends Astaire’s wide-ranging post-musical acting career. The film could have ended on that note, but there are still a few minutes for a wholly unsatisfying happy ending that feels trite considering the rest of the film. The Sky’s the Limit is, to be sure, an interesting film for Astaire fans asked to accept him as something else in a film that doesn’t particularly use his talents very well in service of wartime propaganda. But it’s not a particularly good film. For fans only, and even then—steel yourself the moment you see Astaire acting drunk.

  • Dèmoni 2… l’incubo ritorna [Demons 2] (1986)

    Dèmoni 2… l’incubo ritorna [Demons 2] (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2020) If you haven’t seen the first Dèmoni, don’t worry too much if Dèmoni 2… l’incubo ritorna plays in front of you—the links between the two films are built on atmosphere and plot more than characters or events leading to the sequel. Once again, we are in an enclosed space, as something transforms people into bloodthirsty demons (i.e.: zombies). Except that, rather than being in an old movie theatre, we’re in a big modern high-rise apartment, and instead of a film creating the zombies, it’s a TV broadcast. Also written by Dario Argento and directed by Lamberto Bava, the rest of Demons 2 plays along similar lines: people trying (usually unsuccessfully) to defend themselves, gore effects, shiny-eyed demons, and the like. There is some playfulness in the way some expectations from the first film are overturned, so if you’ve got a mind to talk yourself into a double-bill, that will make it even better. Otherwise, this sequel, which was rushed into production to make it to theatres almost exactly a year after the original, doesn’t benefit from any substantial improvements in budget, scripting or execution: it’s pretty much the same thing with more demons and more people to kill. Great 1980s elements, though. Its too-scattered approach is good for showcasing gory effects and bloody kills, but not so much for plotting or character development. Still, while not quite as fun or focused or enjoyable as the first time around, Dèmoni 2… l’incubo ritorna is clearly in the same vein, and more enjoyable than other giallo or cannibal Italian horror films of the early 1980s.

  • The Art of Self-Defense (2019)

    The Art of Self-Defense (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) There’s a deliberately awkward meeting between Fight Club and the anxious generation in writer-director Riley Stearns’s The Art of Self-Defense. Jesse Eisenberg temporarily steps away from his alpha-nerd persona to take on a nebbish accountant who ends up joining a dojo for self-defence. The protagonist’s suffering through the first half of the film is gradually transformed into a more disturbing aggressivity throughout the film’s second half. While billed as a comedy, The Art of Self-Defense is more excruciating than funny—it’s strikingly unpleasant to watch even with the dark humour, off-kilter tone and ironically upbeat conclusion. It does get better toward the end, as the comedy clicks and the inevitable conclusion plays out—but it’s still not a walk through the park. Eisenberg eventually proves himself the single best choice for the role, but we may ask—to what purpose? The examination of aggressive, toxic masculinity is not really enhanced by any subtle point, or countered through humour: it’s just there, blatant and unenlightening. Fans of cringe comedy may get more out of it, but The Art of Self-Defense will either bore or repel most viewers.

  • Big Business (1988)

    Big Business (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2020) As high-concept comic premises go, “mismatched twins” is pretty good so how about “two pairs of mismatched twins”? How about having one very upper-class set, and one very working class? How about them not only reuniting, but doing so in the context of big business shenanigans? Wheee! Add to that concept such gifted lead performers as Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin and the only two possible questions are “How much money will this make?” and “How can this fail?” Alas, the answers to that second question are what we’re here to discuss. It’s not that Big Business is a bad movie—it’s got enough chuckles along the way, two powerhouse performances for four, a savvy blend of archetypical plot devices, and some nice late-1980s sheen. It’s just that for all of its potential, Big Business feels… oddly lacking. The constant near-misses turn into steady annoyances, the idiot plot keeps dragging long after even the most idiotic idiots have understood it, and the story doesn’t quite get to the next level with its third act. Delaying the twinset’s reunion so late in the film doesn’t just mean more frustration throughout—it means that there’s less time to see all of them react to one another and join forces. The archetypical ingredients should have led to something bigger and better than this. I mean, sure, do watch Big Business for the fun of seeing Midler and Tomlin in dual roles… but you’ll wonder why it’s not better than it is.

  • Beethoven (1992)

    Beethoven (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2020) At least the logline of this film writes itself: “Family adopts a very big dog, mayhem ensues.” Written by John Hughes under pseudonym, Beethoven is so clearly and directly aimed at family audiences that its single-minded determination to crack that market is almost admirable. A multiplicity of subplots further widen the appeal, ensuring that at least someone will get something out of at least one plot strand. (Fittingly enough, I most identified with the harried father—a suitably comic performance from Charles Grodin.) Given this, it seems almost churlish to point out that the film ekes a mediocre result. The same forces packaging the film for maximum audience sympathy also prevent it from going anywhere interesting. There is one exception, and it’s a bad one—one scene is surprisingly bloody for a family film, and that’s not even getting into the wisdom of putting animal experimentation in a family film in the first place. On a happier note, this film is amazing for a few young up-and-coming actors getting supporting roles, whether it’s David Duchovny as an arrogant venture capitalist, or both Stanley Tucci and Oliver Platt as hoodlums. None of this makes Beethoven that much better, but at least it’s something to watch while the youngsters are happily cheering the dog along.