Movie Review

  • Spellbound (1945)

    Spellbound (1945)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Youtube Streaming, November 2018) Lost among the moniker “master of suspense” is the stone-cold fact that Alfred Hitchcock could be downright weird when it suited his purpose. In his quest for unpredictable thrills, Hitchcock’s career is crammed with ludicrous plot devices, unbelievable psychological quirks, formal experimentation and frequent return to basics. Some of his best and worst films are far away from reality, meaning that there’s little relationship between their eccentricity and their success. Sandwiched between the far more prosaic Lifeboat (1944) and Notorious (1946), Spellbound shows Hitchcock diving deep into psychoanalytical plot devices (something that would come up again later in his career) and coming up with surreal results. Literal surrealism, in fact, since there’s a dream sequence midway through the film that was designed by none other than Salvador Dali. The man-on-the-run plot feels familiar to Hitchcock fans (echoed in, say, North by Northwest), but it allows stars Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman to develop some pressurized chemistry. The details of the plot are less important than the meticulous details of its execution, and the way the film becomes just a bit more straightforward in time for its conclusion. There’s a memorable moment near the end that still jolts viewers through a combination of an obvious practical effect and a flash of colour. This isn’t one of Hitchcock’s finest films, but it’s nowhere near the bottom either—although it’s perhaps more fascinating as a prototype of later Hitchcock movies and a reunion of some very different artists than a wholly pleasing thriller in its own right.

  • Around the World in 80 Days (2004)

    Around the World in 80 Days (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, November 2018) You’d think that a “remake” taking on not only a classic Jules Verne novel but also the legacy of an Oscar-award-winning 1950s epic movie would struggle to distinguish itself, but that’s not really the case with the 2004 version of Around the World in 80 Days, for reasons both good and abysmal. Let’s not pretend that this is a good movie: By taking the guts of the Verne novel as overlay on an unusually dumb kids’ movie featuring the “comedy” of Steve Coogan, it quickly and firmly establishes itself as a waste of potential from the very first few minutes. The accumulation of steampunk anachronisms and low comedy means that it’s hard to take the result seriously, and the various hijinks that follow only confirm this experience. The result is pretty much what we’d expect, the only flashes of wit being either upstream (Verne’s source material) or downstream (acting, special effects, set design) from the script. And yet, there is something to see here, mostly because Around the World in 80 Days is an exemplary representative of the big-budget bomb subgenre: so much money has been thrown on-screen that it’s hard to look away. Since the film co-stars Jackie Chan and features a bit of his classic blend of action and comedy, a few sequences still stand out as watered-down but still effective examples of what Chan could do in his prime. Then there’s the casting, which brings together western comedy and eastern action in combinations never seen anywhere else: Jim Broadbent, Kathy Bates (as Queen Victoria!), Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Cleese, Rob Schneider, Luke and Owen Wilson, but also Maggie Q, Karen Mok and none other than Sammo Hung as Won Fei Hung. That’s … amazing. The mixture is far less involving than the individual parts that form it, but the film is definitely worth a look if you want to see those actors and ideas thrown together. The result certainly underperforms, but it’s a ride.

  • Mostly Sunny (2016)

    Mostly Sunny (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2018) You can find the darndest movies playing on cable TV channels late at night, and Mostly Sunny is one of them. It is, after all, the story of Sunny Leone, a Canadian-born, American-raised woman of Indian ethnicity who became a well-known pornographic star … and then somehow ended up a leading Bollywood actress. What makes the film extra-amusing is its pedigree as a Canadian production partially financed by tax dollars in an effort to develop Canadian content for cable TV channels. That’s right — Mostly Sunny is considered valuable cultural content. But jokes aside, Leone’s unusual story suggests a thicket of intriguing issues, especially given the Indian connections: How do her parent react in finding out their daughter’s first acting career? What about the reactions in the notoriously conservative Indian society as a known pornographic actress stars headlining mainstream movies? There’s quite a bit of dissonance verging on hypocrisy commented upon here — no one will admit seeing her earlier work, but everyone knows about it — and her second career is more than partially fuelled by her earlier notoriety: the film begins with her being a (paid) guest of honour at a wedding celebration. Expect some nudity but no explicit sequences along the way: This may be made for cable, but it is still made for cable. (Later accounts about the movie reveal that Leone and the director had a falling-out — She somehow expected the film to contain no nudity and he obviously disagreed. As a result, don’t expect Leone to comment fondly now about a documentary featuring lengthy all-access interviews with her and members of her closest circle.) Leone herself gets a lot of opportunities to express herself here — She comes across as down-to-earth and likable, albeit not particularly clever or insightful. I suspect that the film will play to viewers’ expectations. Still, this middle-of-the-road sensibility means that the film doesn’t quite dare reach for particularly hard-hitting conclusions. It’s worth noting that Leone has added more than a dozen Bollywood titles to her filmography since Mostly Sunny’s release — I can’t vouch for their quality, but it sure seems as if her career is doing just fine even three years later.

  • The Dead Pool (1988)

    The Dead Pool (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, November 2018) Each Dirty Harry movie gets worse and worse, and The Dead Pool marks not only the end of the series, but the cul-de-sac in which its increasing self-parody could lead. As the film begins, Harry Callahan has become enough of a celebrity that he qualifies for inclusion in a municipal death pools—that is, predictions on whether he will soon die. The plot gets going once someone decides to hasten his demise, motivated by overall psychopathy and revenge. Clint Eastwood sports yet another hairdo here, and I can’t underscore how weird it feels to see Callahan’s character in the firmly established 1980s: He’s such a creation of the 1970s that it just feels wrong to see him compose with the worst clichés of the decade, including Guns’n’Roses. (Sudden Impact, the fourth film of the series was indeed set in the eighties, but its small-town setting and early-decade product means that it still felt like the seventies.) It gets worse once you see Callahan interact with up-and-coming actors that would achieve notoriety a decade later: pay attention, and you’ll see Jim “James” Carrey, Liam Neeson and Patricia Clarkson (looking like Natasha McElhone!) in supporting roles adding to the weirdness. Mind you, the film has enough contemporary weirdness on its own—Callahan is here written as a self-parody, fully indulging in the worst traits of his character. The nadir of the entire Dirty Harry cycle can be found in the silly car chase featuring… an explosive remote-controlled car. (Nobody will be surprised to find out that Callahan’s car does not survive the film, as noticed by the characters. And we won’t bring up what happens to Callahan’s partners.) The Dead Pool feels like an overextended joke, a wholly useless entry in a constantly declining series. Amusingly enough, it’s not even included in many of the Dirty Harry compilations on the market, which should tell you enough about it.

  • The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1980)

    The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2018) I read the original novel years ago but I can’t recall much about it other than some metafictional tricks and multiple endings. So when I saw The French Lieutenant’s Woman pop up on the TV schedule, promising a story about a historical couple and the actors playing them in a movie, I was definitely interested. The best thing about the film is how it takes some metafictional ideas from the book (which sought to be “novel” in the way it presented and commented upon the story) and spin them in an original film-appropriate direction. Here we have married actors having an affair while shooting a movie about a complex Victorian-era romance. It sounds interesting … but the execution is underwhelming. The links between the two parallel plots aren’t particularly strong, and the modern-day romance peters out in an undignified fashion, which would be disappointing only if we actually cared for it. Meryl Streep does look surprisingly good in curls or with bangs (the similarities with Joan Cusack in the later case are striking), while Jeremy Irons does himself no favour with a moustache. The historical plot feels more interesting than the modern one, so it feels frustrating that there aren’t more resonances between the two, or that the film gets the good idea of transforming literary metafictional devices into cinematographic ways to comment upon the story … but then does nothing spectacular with that idea. In other words, there is less to The French Lieutenant’s Woman than expected, and I don’t think that the film manages to come up to its own expectations in terms of the story. Too bad; because there’s a really good kernel of an idea here.

  • A Bridge Too Far (1977)

    A Bridge Too Far (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2018) Watching A Bridge Too Far, I was struck at how closely the film initially seemed to follow the template of The Longest Day: A lengthy WW2 drama covering both sides of the war, with a lavish re-creation of the fighting and an ensemble cast of superstars including Sean Connery, adapted from a non-fiction book by Cornelius Ryan. But the comparisons only go so far, especially as the movie advances and the military operation goes sour. It’s certainly worth noting that a significant cultural shift happened in-between 1964’s The Longest Day and 1977’s A Bridge Too Far: The Vietnam War did much to affect the public perception of war and audiences having digested MASH and Catch-22 and Kelly’s Heroes in 1970 alone were far more willing to embrace a film about an unsuccessful operation. (Even A Bridge Too Far’s opening narration is a bit off-kilter, suggesting a level of built-in cynicism that would have been unheard of fifteen years earlier.) While there are plenty of enjoyable wartime heroics in A Bridge Too Far, mistakes in planning, insufficient intelligence, bad communications and plain old happenstance all contribute to a costly failure. Still, if the events described by the film may be frustrating to watch, the film itself is entertaining enough. The historical re-creation of the massive airdrops is impressive, the massive explosions are numerous and the sheer number of recognizable actors is also notable. Connery gets a great character to play, but there are equally interesting moments for Michael Caine, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman and even Anthony Hopkins in a very early role. The film does not describe a particularly glorious moment for the allied forces, but that may add to the sense of discovery while watching it—I’m a modest WW2 buff thanks to having read many histories of the era as a teenager, but I had either not learned or forgotten much of Operation Garden Market until A Bridge Too Far refreshed my mind. It’s quite a spectacle, and it’s not quite as well-known as other WW2 movies. In any case, it’s worth a watch if the subject matter interests you.

  • Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

    Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Youtube Streaming, November 2018) It’s easy to like Arsenic and Old Lace if you already like Cary Grant—after all, the film is his showcase, as he goes from being a suave newlywed man of letters to becoming increasingly frantic as he discovers that his aunts and then his brother are all proficient serial killers in their own ways. It’s not a good thing to discover on one’s honeymoon, and things get crazier as he also tries to manage an insane uncle, friendly policemen and fights to stay alive given the presence of a psychopath or two. The black comedy of Arsenic and Old Lace is a bit surprising in a post-Code mid-1940s comedy, but the film did have a strong theatrical pedigree, being an adaptation of a long-running Broadway play. Frank Capra directs what is essentially a stage play with some flair (a bit of a departure from his usual fare), but much of the work is done by the actors. If you want to see a face-off between Cary Grant and Peter Lorre, well, this is your movie. Grant does play the role very broadly, but his facial expressions are terrific—the sequence in which he’s tied up and gagged has some hilarious comedy moments simply because of the way he uses his face and eyes. Grant hasn’t often played a character as out-of-control as in Arsenic and Old Lace, but it works largely because his usual persona is the one we see at the beginning of the film—what if such a person got in as bad a scrap as in here? There’s even a metafictional moment in which his character comments on the stupidity of stage characters … while making the exact same mistakes. The beginning of the film is a bit laborious, but like most farces it converges in time for a high-spirited last act in which everything collides. Some of the acting and staging choices will seem a bit on-the-nose, but Arsenic and Old Lace is still funny and still well-worth seeing today.

  • The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

    The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Archive.org streaming, November 2018) Structure isn’t always used as effectively as it could in movies, especially as a tool to reveal dramatic ironies. But The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a film from 1943 that does it exceptionally well: It starts with an impetuous young British soldier disregarding orders to mock-capture an older officer as he’s in a Turkish bath. The older man seems like an object of ridicule with an overblown moustache, a portly belly and a pitiable insistence on following rules in war. But then the flashback begins, and so does our perception of the character through a forty-year span. Made at the height of WW2, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp isn’t your usual wartime propaganda film: it’s a sophisticated meditation on age, wisdom, unfulfilled romances, the sacrifices required to fight evil and the nature of friendships. Our protagonist (magnificently played by Roger Livesey at a variety of ages) is occasionally sympathetic but not always admirable—he causes diplomatic trouble for dumb reasons, derives the wrong lessons from his life and becomes increasingly fixed in his ways. In short, he’s an authentic character in a medium far more interested in easy archetypes. He escapes easy description, and that also goes for the entire film as it pokes and prods at British tradition, military customs and the changing dynamics between friends. Is it better to be ethical or victorious? Is it better to be young and dumb or old and inflexible? It’s an unexpectedly moving film, and one that escapes the kind of cheap rabble-rousing propaganda that emerged from the era. Deborah Kerr is fine in three separate roles, but Anton Walbrook is almost as good as a friend/foil of the protagonist. There’s some serious moviemaking skill in some of the film’s delivery (most notably in portraying change across a lengthy period), and the colour cinematography of the film makes it feel more modern than its early 1940s origins. Even if the version I watched was a poorly-compressed low-resolution digitization of a pre-restoration copy of the film (it was the most easily available way to see the film legally), the magic of the film still works. By the time we get back to the framing device, we no longer see the older man in the same way, nor do we think that the young man is completely right … but neither do we think he’s completely wrong either. Such nuances were rare in early-1940s cinema, and it’s one more reason why The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp has survived so well along the way.

  • Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983)

    Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Fourth or Fifth Viewing, On Blu-ray, November 2018) I do have a soft spot for Return of the Jedi: I don’t hate the Ewoks as much as some pretend to do (heck, keep in mind that they’re probably going to eat those fallen Stormtroopers) and as a kid who was eight when the movie came out, cinema couldn’t get any better than the sequence in which the Millennium Falcon goes inside the Death Star to blow it up. Decades later, I still get a kick out of that sequence, especially given its place in the three-ring circus that is the last act of the film. Richard Marquand does a fine job directing a complicated film, and the result it still fun to watch. I’m not happy with some of the digital alterations made to the movie since its release—the celebration sequences set on planets that would be introduced in the prequels are the worst. Mark Hamill is a much stronger presence this time around (even though the short timeline between the two movies don’t support much of his growth), while Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher are up to their standards. (Fisher never looked better than in this film, and I’m not talking about the Jabba-the-bikini sequence as much as her long hair extensions down in the Ewok village.) While revisiting the original Star Wars as a not-eight-years-old was a serious let-down, the two immediate sequels are still fine—as long as you learn to live with the various idiocies of the science-fantasy adventure tone requiring so many contrivances along the way.

  • Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

    Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Fourth or Fifth Viewing, On Blu-ray, November 2018) Popular opinion has it that The Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars movie, and even a recent look as a jaded middle-aged man (who’s happy not to be eight years old any more) does little to convince otherwise. The much-better dialogue helps a lot, but it’s impossible to discount the impact of three memorable locations (Hoth, Dagobah and Bespin) along with a sombre finale that raises the stakes for all characters. Irvin Kershner is also a better director, and the actors understand what they’re trying to do—Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher still run circles around Mark Hamill, but the film benefits a lot from the addition of Billy Dee Williams as the truly cool Lando Carlissian. Screenwriter Leigh Brackett (a written SF legend) does her best work in spinning the Han/Leia romance carefully through a series of antagonistic interactions. The special effects are generally successful, and I’ll note that the 1997 digital enhancements seem more natural here than in the overstuffed re-edit of A New Hope. I hadn’t seen the film since its 1997 re-release in theatres and I found it much better than its immediate prequel.

  • Selma (2014)

    Selma (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2018) I’m really, really glad I waited four years to see Selma, because if I had seen it upon release (or—even worse—during its Oscar run), I would have been sorely tempted to dismiss its appeal as righteous Oscar-bait feel-good progressive tripe. Four years later, as American racism runs resurgent with an unrepentant ruling party cozying with white supremacists and a president who thinks there are “some fine people on both sides” of the racism question, we clearly need to go over the basics again. Racism is bad, discrimination is bad, hate is bad and violence is bad. And if that message hasn’t been dumbed-down or amplified enough so that everyone gets it, then let’s do it again. And again. Until at least a sizeable majority of American voters get it and act accordingly, putting the “economic anxiety” garbage to rest. That’s a lot of baggage to put on Selma, but it’s a film that can take the extra load. Cleverly written by Paul Webb and exceptionally well-directed by Ava Duvernay, it’s a film that describes the Selma-to-Montgomery marches that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It’s mind-boggling that this happened only fifty years ago, and even more mind-boggling that the United States, as shown by the 2018 midterm elections, are still having issues with racial voter suppression. Directed with some energy and awareness of the complexity of the issue portrayed on-screen, Selma feels like a political thriller more than a history lesson, and it doesn’t shy away from complex portraits of Lyndon B. Johnson and Martin Luther King. Capable actors like David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson and Carmen Ejogo (as well as many other actors in smaller roles, some of whom have become familiar names since the film’s release) are there to help, and some sequences—most notably the violence that interrupts the first march, breathlessly narrated by a journalist—are intense. But it’s also a film about moves and countermoves in conscious activism, and it is far from being as cheaply manipulative as it could have been. Movies like Selma often become activist acts of their own, by reminding us vividly of the nature of progress and what is needed to achieve it. At this moment, we need all the inspiration we can get.

  • Hotaru no haka [Grave of the Fireflies] (1988)

    Hotaru no haka [Grave of the Fireflies] (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Youtube Streaming, November 2018) It’s a good thing that I approached Grave of the Fireflies knowing all about its punchline (which, to be fair, is telegraphed in the opening moment of the film) and its reputation as the saddest movie ever made. Otherwise, I would have ended the movie as a bawling mess. As it is, I was about to keep it together at watery eyes and a lump in my throat. Considering that I’m not usually given to emotional reactions and that I knew nearly everything that was going to happen in the film, I’d classify Grave of the Fireflies as an emotional nuclear bomb, intense and devastating. Don’t approach it as mindless evening entertainment. The opening sequence says it all, as the protagonist announces his death as a voice-over, and we see him rejoin the ghost of his younger sister. Then it’s a flashback to the WW2 firebombing of Kobe and how their mother dies while their home is destroyed. Things get, much, much, much worse from that point on, despite occasional lighter moments that are instantly undercut by what we know will happen to them. It’s a terrifyingly efficient film, with director Isao Takahata using the medium of animation to show things that would be either impossible to shoot or far less effective as live-action. The control over the tone of the film is masterful even as it goes from drama to comedy to extremely bleak tragedy. As I said—no viewer escapes the ending without crying, and it may be even worse if—say—you spent the previous weekend babysitting your niece and your daughter, both of them roughly the same age as one of the doomed protagonists. Ooof. If there are nitpicks to be said about Grave of the Fireflies, it’s that the story isn’t a story as much as a long preordained execution … but really, the point of the film is you make you cry, and it’s so good at fulfilling its intentions that it becomes difficult to recommend it. In an ideal world, there would be heavy-duty warnings shrink-wrapped around every copy of the film—don’t watch this unless you’re willing to mope for days afterwards. Don’t start wars. Hug your kids. Count your blessings.

  • To Be or Not To Be (1942)

    To Be or Not To Be (1942)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Youtube Streaming, November 2018) The famed “Lubitsch touch” referred to director Ernst Lubitsch’s ability to … well, no one can quite agree about the exact definition of the Lubitsch touch, but there is something in his movies that separate them from other films of the period. So it is that To Be or Not To Be remains striking even today for the sheer number of spinning plates that Lubitsch is able to keep in the air without having them all crash to the ground. Consider that it’s a comedy set during the earliest days of the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. Consider that it mixes anti-Nazi critique with a portrayal of egomaniac theatrical actors dealing with mortal suspense and perceptions of infidelity. It’s a wonder that the film hold together at all, let alone that it manages to be hilarious and thrilling at once. Jack Benny is excellent as an actor whose ego nearly derails resistance plans, while Carole Lombard is the other half of the couple at the centre of the story. The treatment of Nazis really isn’t sympathetic, and there’s a vertiginous quality to the film when you consider that it was shot and released in the middle of World War II, as these things were still very much going on and liberation was just a distant goal. The opening sequence is terrific, which leads to a rather less interesting first act in which the pieces of the plot are slowly put together. The dialogue is slyly funny (it may take you a while to catch a joke given the dry delivery) and occasionally mordant: I almost gasped at “What he did to Shakespeare we are doing now to Poland.”—the film gets away with a lot considering that it’s a post-Code production. To Be or Not To Be does get its rhythm back in the second half as complications pile on, the danger becomes more immediate and we see the characters thinking fast on their feet in order to get out of ever-more complex situations, sometimes caused by their own doings. There’s a very appropriate Mel Brooksian quality to Jack Benny considering that Brooks would take over the role in the 1983 remake. Audacious even today, To Be or Not To Be has survived exceptionally well and remains just as funny as it ever was.

  • Martian Land (2015)

    Martian Land (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2018) I’ve been bingeing on classic cinema for months now, and I had almost forgotten what a truly wretched movie could feel like. Now, thanks to Martian Land, I’ve just had a quick and painful reminder. Produced by the infamous The Asylum production company in anticipation of The Martian, this is a film that keeps its quality as low as its budget. From a nondescript premise to terrible execution, there aren’t that many redeeming qualities to the film. In fact, it’s most fascinating when it shows that terrible movies cannot use the same tools as good movies. When bad actors get angry in terrible scripts, they become laughable rather than fearsome. When heroic deaths are sprinkled everywhere in a script that does not deserve them, they feel cheap and hollow, perhaps even reprehensible. There are a lot of special effects, and they are not good even with the possibilities of CGI. Things don’t make sense but our investment in the result is so low that it doesn’t really matter. I won’t try to claim that it’s one of the worst movies ever: that would be singling out a film that is simply too dull to be singled out. Every so often, I see a promising logline in the TV guide and record the movie just for the curiosity factor, but Martian Land will help me cure myself from the habit of doing so. It’s just dull. I’ve written too much about it already.

  • Where the Heart Is (2000)

    Where the Heart Is (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, November 2018) The obvious hook for describing Where the Heart Is remains “Pregnant girl lives in a Wal-Mart,” but as it turns out that only explains the first third of a film that covers quite a bit more ground. (Also: While it’s satisfying to condemn a film for offering a big spotlight to Wal-Mart, I’m wondering when realism trumps anti-corporatism: If you had to live somewhere while homeless in a small town, Wal-Mart would be a good option.) (Independently of this movie, which I only discovered recently, I came up years ago with a party question that went “If you had to spend thirty days living in a store, which one would you choose?” and the answer was nearly always Wal-Mart.) Nathalie Portman stars as a young woman who ends up marooned in a small town after her boyfriend’s abandonment during a road trip, and the story covers roughly the six following years of her life, through various personal and small-town troubles. Ashley Judd is featured as her new best friend (she gets the film’s best lines), with a few other name actors such as Joan Cusack and Stockard Channing in supporting roles. Since the film is adapted from a novel, this gives Where the Heart Is a more freewheeling quality in terms of plotting and subplots—in particular, following the no-good ex-boyfriend through an abortive musical career. On the other hand, the film does feel unfocused and messy as a series of crises loosely held together chronologically. Several viewers will be allergic to the blatant product placement, not just for Wal-Mart, but for what the characters are drinking as well. It could have been a TV movie with lesser actors. While Where the Heart Is does deal with lower-class white people, it’s not always clear whether it has sympathy for them, as it sometimes milks laughs out of some stereotypes. It doesn’t make for a particularly good film, although the premise could have been developed in a far more interesting way.