Movie Review

Charlie’s Angels (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Amazon Streaming, December 2020) No. Just no. I’ve had it with misandry promoted as female empowerment. True equality is not a film in which all men are portrayed as evil, duplicitous or incompetent. This Charlie’s Angels’ self-satisfied assertion that this is, like, the first time anyone has even thought about having female action heroes is immensely grating, and the script goes out of its way to be actively unpleasant in matters of male-bashing. The thing is, I don’t actually hate the entire thing: Despite some fun-killing wrong notes, writer-director-star-producer Elizabeth Banks (who deservedly earns every good and bad comment about the film) can direct a few good sequences even if her writing is repetitive and bland. Ella Balinska is a joy to watch, and Kristen Stewart is surprisingly compelling here. With a few tweaks to tone down the stridently misandrist tone (and a few more viewings of McG’s previous Charlie’s Angels films to understand why they were actually fun), this could have been much better. And if all of this makes me a reactionary… so be it. But I have a feeling that this is going to age badly enough that everyone, male or female or other, is going to see this Charlie’s Angels in twenty years and roll their eyes. That is, if anyone remembers it.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Disney+ Streaming, December 2020) If you’ll allow me to be cranky for just a moment, let me rant for a hundred words on how I dislike the current trend of not allowing villain to remain villains. You don’t need to remind me that there aren’t that many self-acknowledged villains in real life – everyone has their reasons, and all can rationalize them. But in fiction? Let me have some evil people running amok, making life difficult for the heroes. Don’t go digging into their backstories, making them misunderstood sad sacks, or rewriting their heinous acts as good-faith errors. Alas, that’s the entire point of Maleficent and its sequel Mistress of Evil: shift perspective to the antagonist and show that, aw, she’s really a good girl after all. Or at least not as bad as the other girls. Whatever. But (twist!), this excessive humanization of the antagonist isn’t the worst aspect of the film – that would be the overstuffed yet unsatisfying story, which muddles its own morals and crams so much material in what should be a simpler (and shorter!) film that it loses its interest at every new complication. The weak script is partially offset by strong performances (none as impressive as Angelina Jolie’s return in the title role) and phenomenal special effects, but not enough to bring the film to an acceptable level. Disney’s live-action looting of its library doesn’t necessarily get better when it starts spinning off “original sequels” to the riffs – it just underscores how desperate the Mouse can be for sure hits. And no, I don’t want to humanize The Mouse’s actions at this point.

Croisières sidérales [Sideral Cruises] (1942)

Croisières sidérales [Sideral Cruises] (1942)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2020) Oh! Oh! As a budding Science Fiction historian, I always get a thrill whenever I discover a forgotten piece of SF history. Croisières sidérales certainly qualifies as such, considering that it’s probably the first film to tackle general relativity… and it comes from nowhere else but Vichy France. The technicalities of the film are ludicrous, as a hot-air balloon takes its passengers to Venus (!) and then back to Earth (!!) except that for them the past 15 days have been equivalent to 25 years on Earth (!!!), which makes for significant changes as they return to see their loved ones. That’s right – a full half-century before Interstellar, there’s some time dilatation used for dramatic effect. If the hot-air balloon thing hasn’t aged well, the film’s last section, in which our astronauts must compose with suddenly grown-up children and aged relatives, is quite nice in its own way. Now, I wouldn’t want the film’s cutting-edge ideas to overshadow its far more disappointing execution: the film’s production values are not good, it badly blends disparate tones from poetic realism to musical comedy, and the pacing is often very, very slow. But that’s the price to pay to discover a film that is almost entirely absent from the histories of Science Fiction film. To think it was made when Nazis controlled the French film industry is even more amazing. It’s frankly not worth a watch if you’re just a casual SF fan, but it’s essential for those who are serious about studying the field. After all, Science Fiction was nearly absent from Hollywood during the entire 1940s – this makes Croisières sidérales, almost by default, one of the best SF films of the decade.

For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism (2009)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2020) Of course, you would find a review of For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism on a site dedicated to film reviewing and criticism. Critics talking about criticism is catnip to critics, and writer-director Gerald Peary clearly knows this: his film is pretty much all about the basics of American Film Criticism over the past hundred years, featuring archival footage, talking-head interviews and a bit of narration from Patricia Clarkson. All the major pre-2010 critics are featured here, whether it’s Ebert, Kael (in archival footage), Scott, Mitchell, Maltin, Maslin, Reed and Siskel. Amazingly enough in a passing-the-torch kind of manner, it also features Harry Knowles at the height of his popularity (now thankfully over, but I remember those times), and Karina Longworth long before she became the podcaster of the essential You Must Remember This. The production values of this documentary are on the lower end, but the content is great. Crucially, the film was shot over eight years, through the growing obsolescence of print film criticism – while this dates the film in significant ways, it also preserves this facet of American film history when it was relatively fresh. Surprisingly enough, there weren’t (aren’t?) many or any formal histories of film criticism at the time of For the Love of Movies’ release – this is both original and important as a first-draft history and as a celebration of the meaning of criticism. Far from taking cheap shots at something that nearly everyone thinks they can do (I cough-cough guiltily), this is a documentary that insists on establishing how movies would be poorer without critical commentary.

Johnny Dangerously (1984)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, December 2020) I’m not going to pretend that Johnny Dangerously is a great comedy. But I will say that it seems to have been unfairly forgotten over the decades. There are reasons for this, of course: This is Michael Keaton playing a mobster during his silliest era, and his run of 1980s comedies doesn’t get enough appreciation. Then this is a 1930s gangster film parody, and most people don’t remember those as clearly as they did even in the 1980s. (Although you could almost see Johnny Dangerously as a predictive parody of 1991’s Billy Bathgate.) It’s also quite uneven in matters of jokes – some witty bits are juxtaposed with broad dumb stuff, and the effect isn’t as much a film going for all kinds and levels of humour (something I usually respect and encourage) but a film that can’t quite find its own specific comic sensibility. This being said, there is some really funny stuff here, and some of the players (notably Peter Boyle, Joe Piscopo, Griffin Dunne and a younger Danny DeVito) carry their part really well. Keaton himself is charm and hilarity, while director Amy Heckerling can deliver a joke but often has trouble keeping some tonal unity over the entire thing. Johnny Dangerously may aspire to high-pace spoof comedy, but doesn’t quite stick the landing. Now, the best thing I could do to you would be to lower your expectations so that by the time you finally see the film, you would think that it’s better than you thought it would be. So here goes: Uneven but sporadically funny, Johnny Dangerously will do if you think you’ve seen the big comedies of the 1980s and are now making your way through the rest. It has a few funny surprises for you.

Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2020) Don’t go around thinking that Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence is some kind of holiday movie, because it’s really weirder than that. It’s actually a Japanese-made WW2 drama starring David Bowie as an interpreter in a Prisoner of War camp where the strict commander of the camp develops a homoerotic fascination for him. Nothing less. Matters of honour and sacrifice weigh heavily in the dramatic arc of the film until the somewhat bittersweet conclusion. Writer-director Nagisa Ōshima credibly portrays the atmosphere of a WW2 POW camp, but the film’s subtle and meandering tone eventually takes its toll. In the end, I found Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence more intriguing as a concept than interesting to watch. At least it’s not another Hallmark Christmas special…

Every Girl Should Be Married (1948)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2020) With a title like Every Girl Should Be Married, it’s fair to say that the film won’t ever win any progressive awards. If you happen to watch the now-hilarious trailer, your expectations may run even lower. But the movie itself is a bit more mixed – starting with the heroine’s deeply held belief that women should be free to make the first move (hurrah) but continuing with the same heroine going for some good old-fashioned stalking instead (boo). Of course, the target of her affection is played by Cary Grant, who effortlessly deflects all of her attempts until it’s time for him to yield and for the film to end. Let’s admit right away that Every Girl Should Be Married is a middle-tier Grant film, perhaps even a lower-tier one. Grant is charming enough to make it worthwhile, but there’s a limit to how much he can elevate the material. Playing opposite him is Besty Drake, who would become Grant’s third wife not even a year after the release of the film. (Not that it will make you feel better, but they started dating before the shoot.) It’s certainly not unwatchable – you can make an argument that the female protagonist has a lot more agency than most of the female romantic comedy protagonists of the time. But Grant has made enough good-to-great romantic comedies that even an intermittently interesting one can feel like a step backward.

Cold Pursuit (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Amazon Streaming, December 2020) Producers apparently aren’t done with Liamsploitation film, apparently, and neither am I: if you want to cast sixty-something Liam Neeson as a plow truck driver going on a rampage of revenge against the local mob for killing his son, then be my guest. But Cold Pursuit does have a slightly different flavour from other Liamsploitation films. The setting, high up in the snowy mountains, is distinctive enough. But it’s the tone of the film, adapted from Norwegian action film Kraftidioten, that makes it as distinctive as The Grey was. Here, we get a revenge story served as a very dark comedy, from distinctive angles chosen by director Hans Petter Moland (who also directed the original) to visually scratching out the names of the (many) deceased as they are taken out of the story. It’s a bit of flourish over what could have been a very familiar story of grieving dads, mob war, escalating revenge and baroque death scenes. It’s certainly watchable, and perhaps (due to its off-beat tone) slightly more memorable than other comparable Liamsploitation films. At some point, we can all have fun seeing Neeson plowing into other guys all movie long. Wait, that didn’t come out right…

Toy Story 4 (2019)

Toy Story 4 (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Disney+ Streaming, December 2020) No, we did not need a Toy Story 4. The third one was already a gamble, but it also ended in such a definitive way that any attempt to follow it up would be doomed to disappointment. To be clear, Toy Story 4 is not a failure: too much effort has gone into it from seasoned professionals that it still benefits from Pixar’s usual high polish, incredible animation and storytelling prowess. But even those advantages can’t quite conceal the hollowness at the film’s reason for existing. After the high note of the third film, this one feels like another episode without a point – a detour in a bric-a-brac that makes the series’ internal mythology even more confounding, with scant justification for the hijinks along the way. The “forky” character is a thicket of existential philosophy conundrums by itself that the film isn’t interested in exploring all that deeply, and the ending is worth a shrug more than anything else. The series is close to having nothing else left to say at a higher narrative level, so it’s a relief to find that, on a beat-by-beat level, Toy Story 4 is much better: there are a few fun set-pieces, one pleasantly loopy new character (Keanu Reeves voicing a Canadian stuntman toy), decent dialogue and a continuation of characters introduced in previous instalments. But in the end, the hollowness returns as soon as the end credits are done: this wasn’t much of an essential instalment, and now that we’re apparently going forward with this, what else is going to be added to the series, perhaps forever? (I wouldn’t be opposed to a remaster of the original, though.) I’m sure Pixar will find a way, no matter whether we want it or not.

The Lion King (2019)

The Lion King (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Disney+ Streaming, December 2020) Live-action or animated? Useless or interesting? A marvel or a disgrace? A step forward or backward? Yes to all of that. Another entry in Disney’s continued hall of recycled shame, the 2019 version of The Lion King applies the “live action” treatment to the 1994 film in looks only: nearly the entire film is computer-animated, albeit with the intention of making it look as real as possible. From a narrative standpoint, though, it’s practically the same thing: The film lifts the entire narrative structure from the original, tweaking a few things around for polish but still adding thirty more minutes to the original running time. Capable voice actors give recognizable performances, but none of this erases the impression of having seen it all already. Directed by Jon Favreau as a version of The Jungle Book on steroids, I suppose that The Lion King is a new high-water mark in computer animation: now so good that it feels as if most of the film is live-action. I also suppose that it’s a new step toward the self-cannibalization of movies into a hollow shell of themselves. But the film made billions, so away merrily into the shell we go. If you can’t feel my enthusiasm, it’s because I haven’t got any.

The Wave (2019)

The Wave (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2020) I’m sure this has happened a couple of times to the most partygoing readers of these reviews: after finding a way for his company to avoid a $4M insurance payout, a young executive goes partying, does drugs, and finds himself hopscotching between parallel universes and time-travelling back and forth in time, along with demonic visions of reality. No? Hmm. Well, at least that’s what happens to Justin Long’s protagonist in genre blender The Wave. Probably science fiction, slightly comic in a dark way, clearly confusing and perhaps even a moralistic tragedy in thriller clothing, this is a film whose potential exceeds its ability to deliver. The plot doesn’t quite make sense even when explained, but the way there has a few good moments of confusion, scene-switching, hallucinations and temporal blips. It’s fun, but looking back, it could and should have been even more twisted – there is a sense that director Gille Klabin and screenwriter Carl W. Lucas, perhaps held back by a low budget, are just scratching the surface of the premise they stumbled upon. On the other hand, Long is pretty good here: he’s growing wilder and more interesting in his choice of projects over the past few years. Alas, he doesn’t get a perfect showcase in The Wave, which grows less satisfying in the final reveal and can’t quite reconcile its tonal multiplicity. Ah well – at least it’s a fun trip while it lasts.

Little Women (1949)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2020) When it comes to the multiple adaptations of Little Women, it’s not as useful to say, “That’s the 1949 one” as much as “that’s the Elizabeth Taylor one” or maybe “that’s the June Allyson one,” considering that Jo is usually the main character of the tale. But it’s also “the one with Peter Lawford, Margaret O’Brien, Janet Leigh and Mary Astor” considering that casting is the most spectacular aspect of how each version is perceived. With the 1949 version, I’ve now seen the fourth of the four major adaptations of the tale as of 2020. If it most closely resembles the 1933 (“Hepburn”) one, it’s no accident – it’s essentially using the same script and score, albeit with a significant upgrade in colour cinematography. It plays more as lighthearted(ish) comedy than the others – fewer reconsiderations about the role of women than later versions, not quite as dramatically weighty as the earlier version. Still, it’s a pretty good time with the March sisters – the technical aspects of the production are MGM-grade, which is to say as good as these things were in 1949. A young Taylor is a huge draw despite a lack of attention to her character – in retrospect, there’s a clear lack of balance between her Allyson in matters of starpower. The first half of the film is generally more fun than the second, but it all evens out when compared to the other version, which you absolutely should do in order to get the most out of your viewing. My recommendation: Watch them in chronological order of production so that you get the most out of the growing technical polish of the form.

Mexican Spitfire’s Elephant (1942)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, December 2020) Seventh and penultimate episode in the Mexican Spitfire series, Mexican Spitfire’s Elephant isn’t one of its finest instalments – and knowing that this was the third film of the series to be released in 1942 does suggest why it feels like just another episode. Pretty much everything that has made the series is repeated here – Lupe Velez’s fast-paced, carefully mangled dialogue; Leon Errol’s dual role/impersonation; the Spitfire’s long-suffering husband; and deliberately goofy situations to heighten the face and slapstick. Yes, an elephant does get brought in at some point and it’s the highlight of the 64-minute film, which also features Velez singing two songs in this instalment’s cabaret club. While Velez is the draw, Errol remains the funniest performer here. If you’re a fan of the series so far, this is an easy if familiar watch. Still, there’s a strong feeling that Mexican Spitfire’s Elephant is repeating previous instalments, that the lemon is being squeezed too dry and that the series is running its course. Accordingly, the next episode, Mexican Spitfire’s Blessed Event, would be the last.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Amazon Streaming, December 2020) I understand why the world makes us cynics (I’m Gen-X; while we didn’t invent cynicism, we’re pretty good at it,) but it’s not a bad idea once in a while to stop and ask ourselves if there’s another way. I had limited exposure to Fred Rogers in my youth, but discovering him as an adult may be an even bigger revelation – his incredibly earnest, vulnerable approach to the human condition is enough to make anyone wonder – is this guy for real? Is it even possible to be this uncynical, or does it hide something else? This turns out to be one of the key pieces of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, a Rogers biopic that has to navigate a tricky path between describing Rogers, not falling prey to easy contrarianism and trying not to repeat the 2018 documentary Won’t You be My Neighbour? too much. Structurally, the film avoids making Rogers the protagonist, and instead follows the adventure of a journalist who thinks of himself as too cool for Rogers – only for Rogers to become the antagonist, the one breaking down the main character and rebuilding him for the better. Tom Hanks is an almost perfect fit for playing Rogers: With the weight of his filmography as a nice guy and a generally irreproachable personal life, Hanks roughly occupies a similar cultural space as Rogers. Director Marielle Heller has a few tricks up her sleeve here – presenting a film that struggles with the possibility that Roger may, in fact, exactly be what he appears to be despite an almost-childish desire to find otherwise (with a few darker sequences to shock viewers); and borrowing a few powerful moments from the documentary within a narrative structure. It’s all quite impressive: the film’s tough armour is gradually whittled away until a state of guilelessness is achieved, and the impact is quite something. Maybe the carapace we carry can be taken off from time to time.

Anna (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Amazon Streaming, December 2020) Every storyteller has their favourite archetypes, and based on the evidence I’m sure that writer-director Luc Besson’s go-to is that of a female assassin. (Also one much younger than he is – and that’s been known for a while.) Anna is something like the seventh dip into that kind of character after, …let’s see…, Nikita, Point of No Return, Leon (split archetype), Bandidas (somewhat), Colombiana and Lucy (sort of). It’s probably the dullest of the lot, too. Our heroine is a product of the Soviet assassin training program who finds herself in Paris living the life of a supermodel by day, assassin by night. Turning to become a double agent, she really is fighting for her freedom to disappear. The rest is action sequences, tough-person posturing, an enjoyable turn from Helen Mirren, some standard spy fiction tropes, and reasonably energetic direction. Anna is an unobjectionable time killer, although the tortured timeline filled with flashbacks and skip-forwards is better suited to mathematical exam questions than casual watching. I’m not that susceptible to Slavic blondes like Sasha Luss, but she does generally well, and is supported by the likes of Luke Evans and Cillian Murphy. Besson-as-director can deliver the strict minimum (and occasionally a bit more, like the restaurant scene) but I’m not seeing any evidence of trying to become any better. (And with recent affirmations of his terrible behaviour, it’s not clear if he’ll get to direct another film any time soon.) If he does write something else, let’s hope he tries to do something different than another female assassin.