Movie Review

  • Hocus Pocus (1993)

    Hocus Pocus (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2019) Over the past few years, I gradually realized that Hocus Pocus had attained cult status for an entire generation a decade younger than me. Of course, I was 18 and not inclined to kids’ movies back in 1993—no wonder it passed me by. But now that 1980s nostalgia is leading to 1990s nostalgia, here we are celebrating the youth classics of a new generation, hence Hocus Pocus’ 25th anniversary and an occasion to find out what the fuss was about. To my surprise, Hocus Pocus does hold up—from the surprisingly dark opening sequence (child-murdering witches!), to the twists and turns of the plot with a few false endings, all the way through a gleefully campy tone, it’s actually a good time to watch. Bette Midler is clearly having fun hamming it up as a buck-toothed elder witch, but Sarah Jessica Parker is just as hilarious as the most dim-witted (and cutest) of the lead witchy trio. Early performances by a pre-teen Thora Birth and a zombie Doug Jones are worth noticing, but the ensemble cast does seem to have a good idea of the kind of film it’s in. The pacing rarely flags at barely more than 90 minutes, and even the creaky special effects have their own charm—including a surprisingly convincing talking cat. (On a similar note, the feline Binx pleasantly reminded me of my other favourite 1990s talking black cat, Salem from Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.)  For adult viewers, there are a number of racy references in Hocus Pocus that feel even more surprising coming from a Disney movie, and a fair number of good one-liners. Add to that the generally timeless feel of the film (and yes, “I put a Spell on You” is catchy), and there’s enough here for everyone even today.

  • She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

    She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) I was fully prepared to, well, maybe not dislike She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, but at least not quite care for it. The topline description of the movie had nearly everything I don’t care about in a western: John Wayne, frontier fetishism, natives portrayed as bloodthirsty savages… But She Wore a Yellow Ribbon eventually gets better. For one thing, it’s in glorious Technicolor, with director John Ford showcasing Monument Valley at its best. For another, John Wayne isn’t playing the obnoxious creepy uncle characters he so often does, but a grizzled veteran about to retire and trying his best not to cause a war with the natives. (The similarities with Fort Apache are there—same director, star and setting, after all.)  The film adds in a little bit of more evenly gendered content with a female character tagging along the expedition, and after a few bloody confrontations throughout the film, the climax actually avoids wide-scale bloodshed through clever tricks. I still don’t quite like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, but I can respect it, and was frequently amazed at the truly exceptional cinematography featured throughout the film.

  • Baby Boom (1987)

    Baby Boom (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) It’s a good thing I watched Baby Boom until the end before settling upon some kind of opinion, because if the credits had rolled after its first act, I would have been several shades of livid. I quite dislike the initial half-hour of the film, as a high-powered businesswoman somehow ends up with a baby. Gracelessly tackling real issues confronting career women juggling motherhood with their professional aspirations, Baby Boom, seen from thirty years later, fumbles the ball: it strings along dumb gags, revels in dated stereotypes, showcases nonsensical episodes, treats its characters like idiots and gives the impression of trivializing an important topic that still matters today. By the time our character cracks up and leaves Manhattan for rural Vermont, I was ready to light the film on fire. But it gets better. As our protagonist (Diane Keaton, increasingly sympathetic) grapples with life in the country and then her improbable comeback to the boardroom, the film acquires the complexity and sympathy that the first third fails to create. I still don’t quite like Baby Boom all that much, but I don’t dislike it quite as much as I did at the end of the first act. With a reaction so idiosyncratic, I suppose that everyone else’s mileage will vary.

  • Think Like a Man Too (2014)

    Think Like a Man Too (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) The entire gang from the original Think Like a Man is back for more in its sequel as they all head to Vegas for a wedding. Things obviously don’t go as planned, as both the men and the women have their own bachelor/ette party adventures on their way to the wedding. To its credit, Think Like a Man Too knows how much to keep from the original film, and how much variety to include. The change of scenery to Vegas suggests not only new sights and subplots, but new familiar clichés to follow. The tone of the film also shifts slightly—while the emotional growth of the characters does find a few new areas to explore, the couples are well established already and so Think Like a Man Too strikes out for a lighter, more superficial but also more obviously comic tone. Director Tim Story has fun playing with music cues [interrupting the background score for comic effect, or indulging in a full-blown music video set to Bell Biv DeVoe’s “Poison”—probably the series’ comic highlight and a strong musical moment in a film with a great soundtrack] and his direction is deservedly flashier this time around: with its ensemble cast’s worth of subplots, the film packs quite a lot of stories in its 106 minutes. Plot-wise, the film indulges in familiar Vegas excesses, but seems to breathe more easily now freed of the shackles of the self-help book that inspired the first film. Still, the fun of the film is spending some more time with its sympathetic characters, whether it’s the boys or the girls. Michael Ealy has been bumped up to leading man, with Kevin Hart being used just a bit too much in his over-the-top persona and Dennis Haysbert having a very funny minor role. Distaff-side, Taraji P. Henson and Jenifer Lewis seem to have the most to do, although you’ll be forgiven for staring at Meagan Good, Regina Hall or Gabrielle Union. Shallowed but funnier than the original, Think Like a Man Too offers just enough of the same and just enough new to be a worthwhile follow-up to the original. I watched both back-to-back, and still liked everything about the series after four continuous hours.

  • Think like a Man (2012)

    Think like a Man (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) As an ensemble romantic comedy, there isn’t much in Think Like a Man that hasn’t been done countless times. But knowing what happens next is part of the charm, and charm is what this film has in abundance. Part of it is akin to hanging out with friends and checking out the good-looking members of the opposite sex. We get to spend some time with characters incarnated by Michael Ealy, Jerry Ferrara, Romany Malco, Terrence J and an appropriately limited dose of Kevin Hart (far better used in supporting rather than leading roles), as well as get a good long look at no less than Meagan Good, Regina Hall, Taraji P. Henson and Gabrielle Union. It’s a wonder it took me seven years to watch the film—I should have known better. Set in Los Angeles, it’s a breezy, highly enjoyable romantic comedy, somewhat reminiscent of the 2014 version of About Last Night (with which it shares three lead actors and a setting) albeit more comic and less romantic. Given that it’s a two-hour movie with four main couples and an ensemble cast, nearly everything follows strict genre conventions, through the inevitable ups and down and semi-synchronized victories. The main problem with the film comes from its premise, not only adapting the content of comedy/relationship book by Steve Harvey [“Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.”] but also placing the book itself in the middle of the plot as a how-to guide that leads the characters in their action. Truth be told, the “wisdom” of the book is either basic or reflective of fairly set ideas about relationships: you’d think that the supposedly smart characters would know how to treat everything in moderation. But that’s the way the movie goes, so it’s not particularly useful to rebel against the premise. Thanks to some unobtrusive direction from Tim Story, Think Like a Man moves quickly and efficiently through the bits and pieces of its plot, with some well-integrated music tying it all together. Michael Ealy is a near-perfect romantic lead, Meagan Good is quite good and I would watch Gabrielle Union movies all day long if I could. (Also, Wendy Williams has a two-scene cameo.)  Still, the result is pleasant enough, funny enough and romantic enough to be a welcome watch (especially as a chaser after a few days of horror movies, Italian neorealist dramas, and noir films … but your mileage may vary). I liked it better than I thought, and I thought I’d like it a lot.

  • La Strada [The Road] (1954)

    La Strada [The Road] (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) Given that I don’t particularly like Italian neorealism and that Federico Fellini hadn’t yet fully evolved into his more personal expressionist style by the time he completed La Strada, you can probably guess how I feel about the movie. An episodic drama focused on two desperately poor entertainers eking a life of misery on the road with a circus, La Strada is not a film for the impatient. While there is a plot of sorts that eventually distinguishes itself from the individual scenes, it takes a long time between the scenes to get the narrative ball rolling … and you may not like where it’s heading. Anthony Quinn, unusually enough, stars as the strongman Zampanò. Alongside him, Giulietta Masina (familiar from her later role in The Nights of Cabiria) plays the dim-witted long-suffering young girl basically bought by the strongman. I tolerated much of La Strada, but the parts I liked more were those that strayed away from the neo-realist style (into expressionism, into genre suspense). Otherwise, it’s enough to be able to scratch off this film from the umpteenth lists of essential movies on which it figures. One annoyance (or cool find): The five notes of the film’s insistent leitmotif are near identical to the opening of the theme to the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun.

  • Murder, My Sweet (1944)

    Murder, My Sweet (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) Aw yeah, pump that undiluted film noir stuff right into my veins, because I can’t get enough of that genre and Murder, My Sweet is as pure as it gets. Adapted from Raymond Chandler’s more innocuous-sounding Farewell, My Lovely, this is a film that goes right for the archetypes of film noir, what with the private investigator, femme fatale, precious McGuffin, criminal figures, gunplay and complicated plotting. The addition of a nice girl thankfully lands the movie in happy-ending territory without necessarily sabotaging what comes before. I had a bit of trouble accepting Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe, but was gradually won over by his sardonic humour, reasonable stature and flashes of vulnerability—the shadow of Bogart looms large of the character, but Powell’s take on it is excellent. Alongside him, Anne Shirley is as lovely as she needs to be as the only rock of morality in an otherwise gray-on-gray tale. Claire Trevor is ideal as a femme fatale, while Mike Mazurki is a presence as a dim-witted enforcer. Perhaps the best thing about the film on a moment-by-moment basis is the delicious tough-guy dialogue, played unironically given the film’s place in early noir history. Murder, My Sweet is, unsurprisingly, one of the most influential films in the noir canon—it had the good fortune of appearing on screens in 1944, alongside a class as distinguished as Double Indemnity, Laura, The Woman in the Windows and (arguably) Gaslight, a time when noir was gaining traction as a specific thing (even if defining it took another two years on another continent). There have been many, many imitators and some of them may even have surpassed Murder, My Sweet. But the original is still more than worth a watch.

  • Angel Heart (1987)

    Angel Heart (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2019) I wasn’t expecting much from Angel Heart other than a mild curiosity as to why what looked like a neo-noir murder mystery was doing playing on a hard-core horror Cable TV channel. Well, as it turns out, one of the least of Angel Heart’s qualities is the way it shifts from neo-noir investigation to something quite more horrifying. Mickey Rourke turns in a good early-career performance as Harry Angel, a Private Investigator asked by a mysterious client to find out what happened to crooner Johnny Favourite (no apparent relation with the lead singer of the Canadian Jazz band). The mystery client is joyfully played by Robert de Niro, whose devilish behaviour (along with impeccably clawed fingernails) clearly suggests that he’s enjoying playing the part. Quite a bit of the Angel Heart’s second half features Lisa Bonnet shredding her former nice-girl image with a few unusually intense nude scenes. Much of the film’s initial appeal is going back to 1950s New York noir archetypes, albeit played with more bloodshed than the classics. Things take a turn for the much, much worse once our private investigator travels to New Orleans where (as is movie tradition) everyone seems steeped into some variant of voodoo magic. But that’s not the half of it, and even if you know where things are going, the film as a few more unpleasant surprises in store right until the end. Director Alan Parker does quite well with Angel Heart, creating unnerving sequences when it counts, delving into visual symbolism that’s at least one level deep, and taking great care with the musical atmosphere of the film in between the scares. The unusual coda keeps going throughout the credits. It all amounts to a bit of a surprise—the film isn’t unknown, but I had completely missed it and got to discover something more interesting than anticipated along the way.

  • The Woman in the Window (1944)

    The Woman in the Window (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) There are two distinct sections in classic noir film The Woman in the Window. The first takes up most of the film and is an exemplar of the form. The second is the film’s final two minutes, and it destroys what we think of a noir movie. I’m eager to discuss it in spoilerriffic details, but first we’ll have a few general comments about the film’s bulk. (Any readers unfamiliar with the film are advised to go see it—no, really, it’s worth a look—before proceeding any further.)  Edward G. Robinson reinvented himself in the role of a meek professor finding himself in the middle of a terrible situation, forced to kill the lover of the woman he just met, and then arrange a coverup that goes awry. Joan Bennett is quite good as the titular woman, beguiling enough (wow, that see-through blouse!) that she can lead men to murder and deception. Dan Duryea is the third highlight of the film, playing a would-be blackmailer who cranks the tension even higher. Director Fritz Lang brings some moviemaking savvy to the film, but the result seems uncomfortable with the implicit dark humour of the screenplay as ironies mount and surround the protagonist. For much of its duration, The Woman in the Window is pitch-perfect noir as our meek protagonist simply finds himself at the wrong place and the wrong time, and keeps making desperate decisions that run against his better judgment and make the situation worse. It all leads to a climactic sequence in which he swallows enough pills to bring down a horse … and wakes up at the beginning of the film, having imagined it all. Do note that there are enough clues and foreshadowing here and there to make the ending somewhat organic and premeditated rather than tacked on: our protagonists openly muses about degrees of murder in the opening segment, then talks about the siren call of adventure with his friends before falling into slumber. The problem with the film may be one of anticipated codes: What we know of noir as it developed after 1944 is that its protagonists don’t get an easy way out: they suffer the whims of a capricious universe that sends temptations, mobsters and femmes fatales their way, and even having a solid moral compass may not be enough to save them from ruin. Still, there is a feeling that the happy ending is not deserved, that it cheapens the dramatic buildup, that it runs counter to the very foundations of noir. Whether it’s good or not is immaterial—although film historians will be quick to point out that the film was a commercial success and that its immediate remake, Scarlett Street (released a year later and featuring the same director, stars, plot) with a far more unforgiving ending, isn’t as remembered as the original. Few stories, all mediums combined, ever try to attempt the “it was all a dream” stunt for good reasons, and The Woman in the Window is a study in why.

  • The Old Man & The Gun (2018)

    The Old Man & The Gun (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) If you’re a legendary actor looking to go out on top, you best bet is to call it quits after a reasonably good film that plays to your persona’s strengths. So, while we may or may not believe 81-year-old Robert Redford when he says he’s retiring as an actor as of The Old Man & The Gun’s release (cameos happen so suddenly, and these days not even death can permanently retire an actor), it does seem like an appropriate swan song for him. Redford has always possessed off-the-chart likability, so it’s appropriate for him to carry a film on his shoulders as an affable elderly bank robber who manages to rob a succession of banks with nothing more than a pleasant disposition and the quick flash of a gun in his hands. The film around him is not quite the same old chase thriller—our dogged policeman on the case ends up having little to do with our anti-hero’s capture, doesn’t have marital problems brought on by the case and only interacts with his prey two or three times. Much of the film spends its time trying to imagine the mindset of an old man only happy when committing (non-violent) crimes. Director David Lowery is quietly building a reputation as a canny explorer of unusual premises, and the result here is both elegiac (for Redford) and comfortable (for the viewer). Touches of humour, irony and flashbacks keep things interesting even when the plot won’t surprise anyone. For Redford, The Old Man & The Gun means going out on a relatively high note, and a powerful reminder of how good he could be just banking on his personal charm.

  • The Mark of Zorro (1920)

    The Mark of Zorro (1920)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) I had a surprisingly good time watching the original The Mark of Zorro, even despite it being nearly a hundred years old, in sepia tones and without sound. Genre thrills carry through the ages, and when the film gets down to business, we get to see Douglas Fairbanks deliver action sequences of timeless physical ability. The story of Zorro needs no introduction, of course—the plotting is easy to follow, and the film distinguishes itself with the choreography of the fights and the small details of what it means to be Zorro. Those of us keenly interested in the secret origins of Batman in Zorro will be bowled over not only to see the dual-identity conceit used this early on (Don Diego is vastly more comfortable talking to women as Zorro than as himself), but also Zorro hiding his Batmobile horse in his Batcave underground stable, with a hidden entrance and access through a hidden trapdoor in his house! But the fun here is seeing Fairbanks (a bit pudgier than what we’d expect from an action star, although appropriate for “man of leisure” Don Diego) fighting and running his way through the scenery—some of the second-half chase sequence approaches parkour-level stunts. I still think that the 1940 version is superior (and the 1998 version is my own personal favourite) but this is one silent film that’s not too long, not too dull and not to be missed.

  • Scarface (1932)

    Scarface (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2019) The real star of Scarface may not be Paul Muni as a Capone-inspired gangster, nor superlative director Howard Hawks, nor legendary screenwriter Ben Hecht, but multi-talented producer Howard Hughes and his instinct for anticipating what the American public really wanted to see. By today’s standards, Scarface is promising but familiar fare—the last ninety years have led to a very large number of gangster pictures offering vicarious thrills by portraying (sometimes with a bit of moralistic tut-tutting) the life of gangsters. Martin Scorsese built a career on such movies, and they seem hardwired in Hollywood’s DNA. Examples reach into the silent era (notably Hughes’ The Racket), but Scarface, along with the slightly earlier Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, helped codify the genre even as real-life gangsters were laying waste to urban areas. It was tremendously successful, and just as influential—all the way to a much better-known 1983 remake penned by Oliver Stone and directed by Brian de Palma. This original is much rougher—hailing from the early days of sound cinema, it does have a wild energy to it, and a good turn from Muni. While modern viewers won’t appreciate the innovation of the film in staging complex action sequences (including some savvy special-effects work!), the result on-screen looks and feels a lot like more modern movies. Pre-Code audiences liked it (even Al Capone was reportedly a fan), but Scarface raised so much controversy that it was shelved by Hugues and effectively disappeared for decades before resurfacing in the post-Production Code 1970s. Now, contemporary audiences can see what had been unavailable to prior generations and appreciate the result for themselves, as a hard-hitting gangster film that pushed the envelope and remains absorbing in itself. I’m sure Hughes would approve.

  • Funny Games (1997)

    Funny Games (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) There are a few films whose reputation not only precede them, but tell you everything you need to know about them. So it is that Funny Games is widely remembered as the home invasion horror film that plays unfairly with its audiences, intentionally toying with expectations in order to leave them with no way out. The infamous remote-control scene is as extreme a piece of meta-cinema as it’s possible to imagine outside a satirical comedy. I would argue that knowing as much as possible about the film’s ending is not a bad thing, because writer-director Michael Haneke (who remade his own film in English for an American studio in 2007, changing almost nothing) is determined here to make a statement about film violence and audiences’ desire for revenge. And that he does. Over nearly two hours spent circling the same idea, often not even bothering to move or turn off the camera. It gets very, very, very long. I think that some of what he has to say here is clever—but brevity is the essence of wit, and Funny Games is far too long to remain interesting when everything points to an ending that is then executed without many surprises. I’ll forgive nearly everything in the service of a happy ending, but not in the service of an everybody-dies one. It doesn’t help that I’m not really a fan of vengeance cinema—Haneke seems intent to score points with another kind of audience. Still, by the end, I was not only hating the over-the-top psychopaths serving as Haneke’s puppets, but the entire cast and crew of the film for going forward with such an indulgent and pointless piece of cinema.

  • Koroshiya 1 [Ichi the Killer] (2001)

    Koroshiya 1 [Ichi the Killer] (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2019) Even nearly twenty years later, Ichi the Killer remains infamous as a film that goes well beyond whatever boundaries we expect even from hard-core horror cinema. Renowned for its excessively gory violence, twisted psychosexual themes and utterly amoral compass, it remains banned in at least three countries (including the normally permissive Norway), often pops up in lists of extreme movies and is often mentioned as a landmark to see how strong a moviegoer’s stomach is. And yet, while watching it, I found it curiously easy to remain uninvolved and unimpressed at the amount of gratuitous violence shown on screen. Gratuitous actually doesn’t become the right word—a better one would be grandguignolesque. Writer-director Takashi Miike has made a film to shock the rubes, and will stop at nothing to gross out the audience. Once you catch on to the trick, though… it’s not as if the film has anything like a conscience—seeing bad people do bad things to each other isn’t a path to the kind of empathy we’d need to be revolted at what’s on-screen. I could give you a long list of the terrible and unbearable sights in the film, but I fear that it would make it seem far more interesting than it is to watch. In reality, Ichi the Killer showcases such a relentless succession of atrocities that they become numbing—as if the brain throws up a circuit breaker in defence. As a result (and not helped along by a direction that cares far more about gory set-pieces than coherent plotting) the film does feel interminable, and increasingly obnoxious as it goes on. By the end, we’re so fed up with the whole thing that it doesn’t matter who kills who in whatever way—the film is over and that’s quite enough of a reward.

  • Summer Rental (1985)

    Summer Rental (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2019) There are a few movies out there that seem to spring from near-universal experiences, at which point the screenwriter adds nearly everything that could go wrong in such a situation and call it a day. At least that’s the feeling I get from watching Summer Rental, a typical mid-1980s comedy featuring John Candy as a father of a family headed to Florida for the summer. What initially looks like an idyllic rental location turns out to be a nightmare compounded by everything else going badly once settled in. They get into arguments, make local enemies and eventually find themselves in a third act sea racing set-piece because there’s got to be more to a script than simply a string of humiliations. It’s clearly a summer comedy, light to the point of being insubstantial. It is strung together by John Candy’s comic ability, although if you want something similar but better you don’t have to look very far for 1987’s very similar The Great Outdoors also featuring Candy. Summer Rental will do nicely if ever you’re bored out of your skull and it’s the only choice available in a place without Internet connectivity, or are trying to complete the Candy filmography. Otherwise, well, there are better movies out there.