Movie Review

  • Dèmoni [Demons] (1985)

    Dèmoni [Demons] (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2020) I’m game for any movie talking about movies, even if it’s a schlocky Italian horror movie about unsuspecting patrons being stuck in a movie theatre as they’re changed into demons. Yep, that’s Dèmoni all right—co-scripted by Dario Argento in full supernatural demon fan mode and directed by his protégé Lamberto Bava. The story isn’t complicated: It’s about a bunch of people invited to watch a movie about demons, then dying, one by one, to real demons. Their troubles don’t end once they’re outside the theatre, but that’s a classic horror slingshot coda. Before we get there, however, this hardcore horror film has plenty of black-comedy fun to offer: it doesn’t quite attain its fullest potential, but it’s gory and wild and crazy and nonsensical and subservient to the rule-of-cool and somewhat still unlike most horror movies out there, so that’s a plus. The cultural references are all very mid-1980s too. The lineage between Dèmoni and Argento’s more traditional giallo is obvious, but the result remains a capable mid-1980s horror film, and one of the few Italian horror movies of the decade that I can stomach without too many qualms.

  • Dark Horse (1992)

    Dark Horse (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2020) I’m not that big of an audience for horse-centric family dramas, but I will watch anything with 1990s vintage Mimi Rogers, and she’s pretty good in Dark Horse as a horse ranch owner who takes in a resentful teenage protégé. The teen rebel is played by Ari Meyers, who’s cute enough in a conventional role. Produced by 1950s-60s movie star Tab Hunter, the film is blunt, simplistic and deliberately feel-good, but it works well enough at its intended purpose. Otherwise, this reviewer struggles to find anything more to say about Dark Horse. Equestrians will enjoy, maybe?

  • The Jazz Singer (1927)

    The Jazz Singer (1927)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) So… just so that we’re clear—the first sort-of-not-silent film is one that stars a white guy who made an entire career out of blackface? That’s the legacy we’re talking about? Birth of a Nation as the first film shown at the White House, and the first talkie as a showcase for black cultural appropriation? All right then. No, The Jazz Singer is not the first full talking film—it was designed as a silent film, then rushed through then-experimental sound production segments in order to wow audiences, but it’s not the first full sound film, as it’s largely silent-ish with only a few songs and talking sequences (“Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”) making up maybe a quarter of the film. Much of the dull narrative is narrated through title cards, and focuses on a protagonist torn between his strict Jewish father and a career in showbiz. While there’s nothing wrong with that premise, it’s just that… well… the film’s headliner is Al Jolson, who became famous for doing blackface. A lot of undeniable, unsubtle blackface. What softens the blow, slightly, is that blackface in this narrative stands for something a bit more than racist jokes and appropriation; it’s the protagonist (Jewish and so different from the mainstream, if that helps) distancing himself from himself, and paradoxically affirming whiteness by exaggerating blackness. In other words: It’s not quite so simple by the standards of 1927, although you can take a shortcut to problematic in 2020. Of course, such cultural analyses are wasted in talking about the film that launched the talkies—it wasn’t so much the technology as the public’s enthusiastic approval of the technology that sealed the fate of silent films. Within a mere three years, the vast majority of Hollywood switched to sound films and never looked back. (Incidentally, it made Warner Brothers go from near-bankruptcy to a major studio.) It probably would have happened without Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer, but the more you dig into the film and what it meant to the Warner Brothers, the more you understand why it was a near-perfect launching pad for talkies. Still: it’s now of historical interest only.

  • An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)

    An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2020) There’s a reason why An American Werewolf in London is still ranked as one of the finest horror-comedy films of all time and why no one ever talks about An American Werewolf in Paris, and it’s not mere Anglophilia. Part of the reason is because of sheer talent—the first film is from John Landis, while this one seems to come straight out of the studio’s sequel-extrusion department. The first is bold and crazy in its choices, whereas the second apes the first without too much conviction. The first has the guts of a memorable ending, whereas this one settles for an off-the-wall climax. The first has some incredible practical effects, whereas the second is stuck at the infancy of the CGI age. At least the second has a young and very cute Julie Delpy in an unusual horror-comedy role… but it’s not enough. An American Werewolf in Paris very clearly apes the first film, especially with its visions, but without quite recapturing what made it special. Seen from 2020, the film feels increasingly dated in its choices, musical or otherwise. It’s not, to be specific about it, that terrible of a film—you can watch it easily enough—but it’s a noticeable step down from the original and a mediocre film (at best) in its own right.

  • Quella villa accanto al cimitero [The House by the Cemetery] (1981)

    Quella villa accanto al cimitero [The House by the Cemetery] (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2020) While I’m absolutely not a fan of early-1980s Italian horror cinema, I could, if I needed to, watch The House by the Cemetery a second time. It’s still very much an Italian exploitation film, but it’s better than many—starting with how it starts by blending slasher, zombie and Gothic haunted house tropes alongside other just plain weird stuff. The mayhem begins when a family moves into a new house somewhere in New England, and it ends when most of the cast is dead. Frankly, I don’t like it that much—but I like it better than other films of its ilk (and about on par with director Lucio Fulci’s earlier City of the Living Dead and The Beyond) and that should be enough—at least it’s supernatural and not strictly slasher or cannibal-focused. Crazy enough to be fun, restrained enough to pass off its episodes as something like a plot, The House by the Cemetery is Fulci at his most tolerable. No praise intended.

  • Zombi 2 [Zombie] (1979)

    Zombi 2 [Zombie] (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2020) While Zombi 2 earns a certain place in horror film history due to a convoluted naming origin (originally intended by director Lucio Fulci to be a sequel to a Romero film, then produced as a standalone) and by being among the first wave of grindhouse zombie movies, it doesn’t have much to offer to casual viewers nowadays—yes, of course, there’s the ultra-gory violence of this and the Italian zombie film subgenre it helped inspire, but that’s more of interest to the gore-hound contingent. The rest… not so much. The story takes us to the Caribbean for a face-off with classic voodoo zombies, but Shark versus zombie? Eh, whatever. That it inspired Zombie Holocaust is not something to be proud of. While I’ll acknowledge that Zombi 2 is not as awful as many of the later films in its corner of the movie universe and that the practical effects are not bad for 1979, that’s very faint and reluctant praise.

  • Run! Bitch Run! (2009)

    Run! Bitch Run! (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2020) With a title like Run! Bitch Run!, you can expect the worst and not be surprised. Think of the worst film you ever saw and then dig deeper. Much deeper. Past the made-for-TV uninspired pap. Past the dull but watchable straight-to-streaming generic products. Past the cheap horror-festival film with at least one idea. When you get into the neighbourhood of softcore pornography and revenge horror, slow down because that’s where you’re going to find this film. The only thing that potentially saves this film is how much writer-director Joseph Guzman intended this to be a homage to grindhouse exploitation film. (The trailer is almost fun in a “wow, I can’t believe they’re this blunt” kind of way.) On the other hand, what may drag the film back to the trashcan is how much viewers can like or even tolerate such exploitation material. I was not convinced: Run! Bitch Run! is, true to title, exploitative to the point where it’s difficult to become or remain invested in what happens to the heroine. Ultra-cheap production values translate into garbage-grade visual, lousy sound, excruciating acting and even more terrible direction. It’s somewhat helped by a (slight) restraint in terms of gore, but by that point it’s far too late to be thankful. Not even the nudity can save this one, and that’s how far from the light Run! Bitch Run! ends up. When it comes to grindhouse exploitation, I’d rather be the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, and has the means necessary to do it well.

  • Red: Werewolf Hunter (2010)

    Red: Werewolf Hunter (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) No good idea can be interesting if the execution is lacking, and I offer as evidence of this Red: Werewolf Hunter, a low-budget made-for-TV film in which Little Red Riding Hood is recast as (obviously) a werewolf hunter. It even stars Felicia Day, if you want at least one reason to see the film. Which may end up being the only reason, considering the ineptness of the rest. The plot ends up being a dull romance set in what looks like an abandoned town set. Director Sheldon Wilson is a veteran of cheap low-budget movies and Red: Werewolf Hunter fits right in the middle of his unimpressive filmography: muddy cinematography, uncomfortable actors, unimaginative camera setups and a script that never went beyond a first draft are the main problems here. Red: Werewolf Hunter ends up being generic to a degree that sabotages nearly everything that was clever or original about is high-concept. But Day does look really nice.

  • Le corbeau [The Raven] (1943)

    Le corbeau [The Raven] (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Criterion Streaming, April 2020) There’s an admirable simplicity at the heart of Le corbeau—in this proto-noir thriller, inhabitants of a small French village start receiving letters that spill the town’s secrets—adultery, abortion, terminal diagnoses, and so on. This leads to an atmosphere of paranoia, distrust and revenge—who is that “raven” who signs the letters? It’s not a bad thriller at all—the paranoia is substantial, the hero has some depth, there are plenty of twists and turns, and the ending hits fast. There’s also a fascinating real-world story to be told about Le Corbeau. Produced by a Franco-German company in a France that was then under Nazi occupation, it wasn’t warmly received by the French, and as soon as the war was over, writer-director Henri-Georges Clouzot was “banned for life” from making movies in France, as the public was convinced the film was an attack on the French. A critical re-evaluation soon followed—Clouzot was eventually unbanned (he ended up delivering two of the best French thrillers of the 1950s) and the film was once again re-evaluated as a subtle attack on the Nazis. While that historical context is interesting, it doesn’t take away from the power of Le corbeau: As a mystery, a thriller and an unforgiving look as small-town power dynamics, it remains a reference.

  • The Hunger (1983)

    The Hunger (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) In director Tony Scott’s hands, The Hunger goes from potboiler vampire horror (adapted from a novel by—ugh—Whitley Streiber) to something far more stylish. Of course, having a trio of lead actors like Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon helps a lot in elevating the material, but style is not to be underestimated when working with such thin material. The atmosphere holds everything together, even if there are notable storytelling flaws like the very last scene. Squarely drawing upon the vampiric symbolism of sex and death held together, The Hunger goes from high to low, portraying a high-class vampire couple that nonetheless is enslaved to violent and oft-sexual desires—once they draw in a third person into their arrangements, things quickly fly apart. Thanks to Scott, The Hunger has aged very, very well—the then-shocking bisexual content now seems in-tune with the times, and the stylistic insistence of the cinematography ensures that it will keep a place as a neo-gothic minor classic for a long time. Far more often than you think, maximalist execution of minimalist material is the best way to go.

  • Deep in My Heart (1954)

    Deep in My Heart (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) Sigmund Romberg is largely forgotten these days, but once upon showbiz history, he was considered famous enough as a Broadway composer of successful operettas to warrant a full-length MGM musical about his life. Deep in My Heart, in assembling a jukebox of his most famous hits loosely arranged in-between fanciful sketches about the composer’s life, wasn’t even an outlier but the latest in a subgenre that tackled other composers’ work. (I have a specific fondness for Till the Clouds Roll By, but more for Lena Horne than Jerome Kern.) The advantage of a revue-style structure is that beyond the main biographical cast (featuring no less than José Ferrer, Merle Oberon, Walter Pidgeon and Paul Henreid), you can bring in very special guest stars in specific musical numbers. This is where Deep in My Heart may be most interesting, because the mid-1950s MGM roster was stacked with great bit performers. Here we get Gene Kelly in a fun vaudeville dancing duet with his brother Fred (Fred’s only screen credit despite an accomplished dancing career). We get Cyd Charisse (dubbed, but spectacular), Ann Miller looking terrific as the “It” girl, Ferrer dancing romantically with his then-new wife Rosemary Clooney, and a few other distinctive numbers as shows-within-the-show. Ferrer’s performance is occasionally terrific: at one point, he gets a breathless showcase with a one-man-show presentation of an upcoming show; at others, he speaks magnificent French dialogue. Alas, those individual performer highlights are really what Deep in my Heart is about—the film itself is fairly unremarkable and classical in matters of execution. Director Stanley Donen’s heart was obviously in the musical numbers more than the rest of the film, and who can fault him? Working with stars to deliver their standalone numbers ensures that the film is still worth a look today for fans of mid-century musicals.

  • Of Mice and Men (1992)

    Of Mice and Men (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2020) Generations of American high school students know all about John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, with its heavy mixture of depression-era vagrants, uncontrolled force, tough choices and titular mouse. As such, there’s a ready-made public for an adaptation, whether it’s to revisit a classic about which a substantial proportion of all Americans had to write an essay about, or post-1992 classrooms that might as well watch the film rather than read the novella. There had already been one movie version of the story in 1939, so this one had an opportunity to upgrade the craft of the film adaptation while remaining faithful to the text. Under director Gary Sinise (who also plays the quick-witted one of the duo), this take on Of Mice and Men succeeds at keeping much of the Steinbeck text while updating the classic film: the visuals carry some sort of gentle nostalgia for a less-complex time, the images are what we would expect of a period film, and both Sinise and John Malkovich (who plays the strong-but-slow one) are good in their roles. The controversial casting here is Malkovich, who’s far from being the image of the bulky and physically imposing character… but makes up for it in innocent menace. In many ways, Sinise’s Of Mice and Men is the ideal case for literary adaptation: It doesn’t deviate much from the original text, sumptuously executes the story, delivers on cinematic aspects—and in doing so, manages to reach even those who aren’t primed to like the story through the curricular circumstances of how they encountered it.

  • The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper (1981)

    The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2020) Taking as premise one of the most famous unsolved airborne hijacking crimes in history, The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper goes all-Hollywood on its “and then…” aftermath. Treat Williams stars as a likable Cooper, but it’s Robert Duvall who looks as if he’s having the most fun playing a dogged insurance investigator. Based on a novel, this adaptation is almost entirely fictional—even the basic facts of the hijacking are not true to reality, let alone the rest. Much of The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper, as promised, is a long chase sequence set in the northwestern United States, with a bit of large-scale plane-versus-car action-comedy stunts as the climax. While the film has a cheerful outlaw comedy atmosphere (very much in vogue as of the early 1980s), a lot of it is merely amusing than truly funny. A look at the film’s incredibly troubled production history suggests how the film arrived in its current mediocre state (Credited director Roger Spottiswood arrived after three previous directors had worked on the film, and reshot much of it as a comedy rather than drama). I still liked The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper, but more as a throwback to the early 1980s than to anything specifically good about the result.

  • Serial Mom (1994)

    Serial Mom (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2020) As one would expect from a Jon Waters film, Serial Mom is crammed with Baltimore scenery, dark humour and a savage dissection of suburban America’s neuroses. Kathleen Turner stars, perhaps too effectively, as an ordinary family mom who’s secretly a serial killer over trivial breaches of etiquette or politeness (especially toward her children). It doesn’t take a long time for Waters to use his slasher-like comic premise for satirical purposes, whether he’s describing a terrifyingly mundane kind of evil, or the media furor that surrounds high-profile murder trials. There’s quite a bit of camp in the result, to good effect. Waters clearly had the necessary means to execute his vision, and the result is one of his slickest, most professional-looking films. The concept is fun and the execution is up to the task—Serial Mom gets top notes: no questions asked, no disrespect meant.

  • La grande vadrouille (1966)

    La grande vadrouille (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2020) I’ve waited thirty years to see the end of La grande vadrouille. True story—As a boy, Radio Canada ran a weekly marathon of Louis de Funès movies for a few months, and if my memory is correct, La grande vadrouille hit around Christmastime. This meant that I could keep watching as long as I wanted to…, which ended up not being enough to get to the end of this fairly long film. I distinctly remember the “hopping on chairs” sequence, and then nothing, as I was tired enough to go to sleep. Well, here goes one full viewing of this big-budget epic comedy. Two leading French comics of the time, Bourvil and Louis de Funès (not one of parents’ favourite comic actors back then — “too annoying,” they said, which is perfectly understandable in hindsight), co-star as WW2 French civilians who find themselves helping an RAF aviator get back to safe territory. (Terry-Thomas also stars as one of the British aviators.) La grande vadrouille was designed as a blockbuster and succeeded as such: For thirty years, the film remained the French box office’s most successful film. The difference in characters and comic style between the two leads is interesting (the film does get to play on a number of comic registers, which varies the comedy), and it seldom stops moving until the end. In order to make the WW2 material approachable, the film is entirely bloodless—even the Germans are only slightly threatening and nothing more. Fortunately, director Gérard Oury knows how to handle the comic talents involved—this was his second film with this lead duo, and there’s a feeling that everyone involved knows what they’re doing. Of special note are the car stunts, all handled (of course) by Rémy Julienne’s team. Slick, dynamic, immensely detailed and crowd-pleasing to the utmost, La grande vadrouille definitely was worth my three-decade wait to see the end.