Movie Review

  • South Pacific (1958)

    South Pacific (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2018) I like musicals a lot and fifties musicals are among the finest every made, but I do have a marked preference for musicals made for the screen rather than adapted from the stage, and I seem to have a specific lack of affinity for anything adapted from Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musicals. South Pacific is a case in point: A big bold musical set on the Pacific front during World War II, it features a young nurse taken with a creepy older Frenchman, with various hijinks from the US soldiers stationed nearby. It’s not that funny, which is a shame considering that the film’s most interesting moments are its funniest ones. Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi star, but Ray Walston is a highlight as a hapless soldier, while Juanita Hall is fantastic as a strong-willed islander woman. As is often the case, the film opens strong with good upbeat numbers (“Bloody Mary” and “There’s Nothing Like a Dame”), only to become duller and more romance-focused in its second half, with some comic interludes along the way. The cinematography of the film is a bit too out-there for the material—the use of strong colour filters is particularly annoying in washing out scenes that would have been perfectly good without them. There’s enough here to make South Pacific worth a watch for fans of musicals, but it hasn’t stood the test of time very well—especially considering that it was one of the top-grossing films of 1958.

  • Justice League (2017)

    Justice League (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2018) Let me put it this way: If this was 2010 and we’d never seen The Avengers—let alone every single MCU film since then—then Justice League would be exceptional. But it’s not 2010 and we’ve seen nearly everything that it has to offer already. I’m not necessarily saying that the film is terrible—just mediocre. I actually like quite a lot of it: I think the actors are generally good, with special mention of Ben Affleck as a grizzled Batman, Gal Gadot in a third outing as Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa as an imposing Aquaman and quite a few known names in supporting roles. I’m particularly happy that directing duties on Justice League were transferred midway through from Zach Snyder to Joss Whedon—while the reasons for the transfer were tragic, the result is a film that moves away from the dour atmosphere of the DCU-so-far and closer to the Marvel-brand of lighter, more entertaining fare. As a result, the film does have more rewatachability value than previous film. Still, let’s not overstate the “lighter and funnier” angle: Justice League is still too heavy for its own material. It’s also flawed by the nature of its story and Superman’s godlike status: much of the film is spent waiting for Jesus/Aslan/Supes to show up and resolve the problem through sheer brute force because that’s the kind of superhero power fantasy that it is, and the supporting characters may be colourful but they don’t get to save the day. It’s only one of the many things that do limit Justice League’s appeal eight years after The Avengers: It’s boldly catching up to what’s been done well already, and the déjà vu is significant.

  • It (2017)

    It (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2018) We’re in the middle of an interesting second-generation Stephen King cinematic renaissance, as long-time fans of the author are becoming filmmakers and producers with enough pull to propose and execute King-related projects. It helps that King writes enough books in a decade to rival another author’s entire bibliography, but recency is not a factor with It—a second adaptation of one of King’s landmark 1980s novels, a book so big and split in two eras that this first film only shows up the first half of the story. I, frankly, wasn’t expecting much: King adaptations span the whole spectrum of cinematic quality from silly to sublime, with most settling for middling horror. But this first half of It is actually quite good. It doesn’t try to be anything else but a straight-ahead horror film, but when it pulls the stops it gets surprisingly intense. Making effective use of a medium-sized budget through a lot of special effects, a large cast of main characters and a focus on a reasonable amount of plot in order to do it justice without cramming too much stuff in a too-short film. Director Andy Muschietti delivers a few inventive and iconic set-pieces (which always helps in distinguishing a good horror film from an average one) and gets good performances from his teenage actors. (The film also removes the most problematic scene of King’s book, saving us from endless debate about justifying a bad creative decision.) The result is enjoyable, spooky, nightmarish at times and feels somewhat complete even without the modern-era half of the book. I’m quite looking forward to the follow-up.

  • Call Me by Your Name (2017)

    Call Me by Your Name (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2018) I’m not that fond of the whole summer-of-personal-growth subgenre, and so there are definite limits to how much I can like Call Me by Your Name. This being said, much of the film’s first half is remarkably successful at making us enjoy a summer European holiday in picturesque settings, with bright people enjoying each other’s company. It’s a really interesting atmosphere, and it does much to compensate for the film’s slow pace—in fact, the pacing is part of the film’s charm. Then the plot takes over and the film becomes substantially less interesting, although director Luca Guadagnino does have a good eye in executing a rather good script from veteran screenwriter James Ivory. Pacing and subject matter means that Call Me by Your Name is almost by design an actor’s showcase, with Timothy Chalamet establishing himself in a single film as a young actor to watch. I’m not that comfortable with the romance, although my discomfort has more to do with the maturity difference between the leads. Still, the film wraps up with a decently wistful last five minutes (featuring what may be the most open-minded father in the history of cinema). Call Me by Your Name is clearly designed for another kind of audience, but I liked it more than I thought, and actually quite enjoyed moments of it, even if more as a travelogue than a romance.

  • To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

    To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2018) Mood counts for more than I care to admit in watching movies, and so it is that after a lengthy run of older black-and-white classic movies, I was hungering for something like the 1980s crime thriller antics of To Live and Die in L.A. despite significant reservations about much of the film’s execution. Delving in the nitty-gritty of money counterfeiting, this William Friedkin movie goes to Los Angeles for a sordid tale of crooked cops, unabashed villains, not-so-victimized girlfriends and hazy sunlight. William Petersen turns in a career-best performance as an adrenaline-addicted cop who throws away morality and decency in a quest to take down his partner’s killer. That killer turns out to be played by Willem Dafoe, in an early, perhaps less intense performance but one that shows how handsomely the actor has aged since then. Other surprising names pop up here and there, from John Turturro, Robert Downey (Senior) and a short-but-striking appearance by Jane Leeves. The influence of the mid-eighties couldn’t be more obvious with its garish credit sequence and Wang Chung-scored synth soundtrack—it’s one of the film’s more dated features, and it’s about as annoying as the gratuitous gory violence that mars a film that’s far too exploitative to deserve its gore. The story is a game played with clichés—the three-days-to-retirement veteran, the out-of-control hero, the hidden informants, the sunny California haze … it feels like both a spiritual cousin to Miami Vice and a prototype for Heat — even the much-lauded counter-flow car chase feels less impressive now that it has been copied so often. Still, for all of its grim narrative (in which a rogue cop causes an endless parade of trouble and death for everyone), To Live and Die in L.A. is surprisingly entertaining, and even the over-the-top eighties aesthetics eventually work in the film’s favour. There’s even a substantial thematic depth in the way the protagonist is revealed to be a revolting anti-hero—so much so that his unsentimentally portrayed fate is a mere stepping stone to even greater character corruption. In doing so, To Live and Die in L.A. becomes something more than a mere rearrangement of genre elements, but a reassessment of our toxic relationship with them. That’s quite a bit more than I expected in tackling the film, predisposed mood eventually giving way to honest interest in what the film was attempting.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, July 2021) I ended up rewatching To Live and Die in L.A. more or less by accident: TCM had itself a neo-noir spotlight, and I was more interested in hearing the film’s introduction than the film itself – after all, I had watched it only a few years ago and was only cautiously positive about it. But I left the film running after the laudatory introduction as I was doing other things, and was gradually sucked into the film as it went on. By the time the car chase rolled by and the true shape of the film’s neo-noir corruption had come up, I had abandoned my other tasks and was riveted to the screen until the end. There is a lot to like in the now-period portrait of mid-1980s Los Angeles, especially if you see it as an explicit take on familiar noir themes. The way it takes on themes from 1940s police procedurals and refuses the argument-from-authority portraying policemen as virtuous is fascinating, as is the corruption of its wide-eyed idealist protagonist. (Heck, it even switches the protagonist in the last quarter.)  The car chase remains quite good, and Willem Defoe is striking in one of his early performances. Even the often-excessive violence didn’t seem as outrageous this time around – which is clearly something that the previous viewing had primed me to expect. Still, I was surprised — To Live and Die in L.A. definitely holds up to a second viewing, perhaps even more so if you have a better idea of where it fits in cinema history.

  • The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

    The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2018) Even for sympathetic cinephiles like myself, watching silent movies can often feel like an imposed chore. Some of the 1920s dramas can be a test of anyone’s patience with lengthy running time made even worse by title cards, with overdone acting, primitive cinematographic grammar, hackneyed stories and outdated social mores. But there are exceptions—comedy movies à la Buster Keaton work on a purely physical level, and genre stories still work on pure plot and ideas. So it is that The Phantom of the Opera may have most of the problems of 1920s silent cinema, but it still works because it tells a familiar story with enough grace and style that it’s hard to resist. You probably know the plot if only because Gaston Leroux’s novel has been remade once in 1986 as a massively successful musical (can you hum the title tune? I’m doing so right now), which was then turned into a 2004 movie. But the original still has a kick of its own—relatively fast paced at less than two hours, it also features Lon Chaney as The Phantom (watch out for when he takes off the mask!) and a period atmosphere that still feels quite enjoyable. The big romance at the heart of the plot is timeless, and it’s actually fun to see the phantom wreak havoc in the Paris Opera House. There aren’t that many silent movies that still carry this much pure non-comic entertainment power. On a historical level, this very first version of The Phantom of the Opera is also notable in that it was enough of a financial hit that it motivated Universal Studios to launch a number of horror projects that eventually led to the classic “Universal Monsters” franchise—The Phantom of the Opera is sometimes mentioned as part of the franchise, although they’re usually talking about the 1943 version in doing so rather than the now-public domain 1925 one. (And if you want to get a glimpse at the complex horrors of silent-film preservation, have a look at the later half of the film’s Wikipedia page. Geez.).

  • The Wolf Man (1941)

    The Wolf Man (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2018) The 1941 original version of The Wolf Man is rightly considered one of the big-five Universal Horror monsters (alongside early-thirties Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Invisible Man), so it’s a bit of a surprise to find out, throughout the film, how much of it seems to differ from our codified understanding of the werewolf monster. This film (scripted by legendary SF writer Curt Siodmak) does bring together werewolves and silver, but not necessarily shape-shifting under a full moon—which is a later innovation. As with many Universal Monsters foundational texts, there is a substantial romantic component at work here, and a cinematography that bridges between German expressionism and American film noir. Lon Chaney Jr has quite a presence as the titular wolf man, anchoring a potentially silly story into something with romantic gravitas. The film has surprisingly good makeup and special effects, though they come in fairly late in the movie. Despite some mythology weirdness compared with the contemporary version of the werewolf monster, The Wolf Man did create much of the myth and so remains a mandatory viewing for horror fans—fortunately, it happens to be a decent movie still.

  • The Lady Vanishes (1938)

    The Lady Vanishes (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2018) Alfred Hitchcock made a number of rather good movies in 1930s Great Britain before moving to Hollywood, and The Lady Vanishes does have the hallmarks of many of his later movies: An intriguing premise, a train, some romance, a substantial psychological dimension, comedy, thrilling elements, an action-packed conclusion and a musical leitmotif. The film opens at a leisurely pace (with an opening sequence that features a zoom-in on a building that appears impossible in a pre-helicopter, pre-CGI age … until we realize it’s a scale model), introducing the passengers on a train trip in European countries. The plot gets kicking once our protagonist realizes that a sweet old lady has gone missing from the train and that everyone she meets swears that the lady was never there. They’re lying, of course, and the cover-up soon leads her to a far more dangerous situation. The ending gets out of the train but not in any kind of safety as bullets fly in the middle of the woods. The abrupt ending nonetheless managers to wrap everything up with a laugh. It still works rather well today because Hitchcock’s style defined modern thrillers and his willingness to use genre elements means that the suspense has travelled well throughout the decades. Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave make for a cute couple, especially as they pair up to uncover the mystery. This being said, I suspect that Hitchcock students will get the most out of The Lady Vanishes by pointing out how it contains themes and tropes that the director would re-use over his career.

  • The Ladykillers (1955)

    The Ladykillers (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2018) If you’re looking for an exemplary British black comedy, you could certainly do much worse than The Ladykillers, a deliciously dark story in which five professional criminals team up for a heist that covers every eventuality … except for their little old lady landlord. Their combined resourcefulness is no match for the bumbling ineptitude of their boarding house host, especially when they make her an unwitting part of their plan. While the heist initially goes well, things get more complicated when she discovers the plot and wants no part in it. The criminals then make one fatal mistake: they decide to kill her. But nothing will go as planned. You can guess who remains standing at the end. Katie Johnson stars as the little old lady to be killed, but the star here is Alec Guinness as a mastermind clearly outwitted, while Peter Sellers has an early role as one of the criminals. My memories of the 2004 Coen Brothers remake are far too dim to be useful, but the original British film is decent enough in its own right—perhaps predictable, but no less satisfying for it. It does help that the film was shot in colour even in mid-fifties UK, giving us a funhouse glimpse in the rather gray life of fifties London, stuck between WW2 and the Swingin’ sixties. This is now remembered as one of the best productions to come out of the original post-war Ealing Studios, as well as one of its last before the Studio was sold to the BBC in 1955. It remains a decently amusing film. 

  • Cars 3 (2017)

    Cars 3 (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, Outdoors theater, July 2018) Pixar’s hitting the sequel profit-making button a bit heavily these days, and while Coco and Inside Out are welcome reminders that they’re still able to do original material, Cars 3 comes in the middle of a production schedule that includes Monsters University, Finding Dory, The Incredibles 2 and Toy Story 4. Following up on the widely reviled Cars 2, however, this third instalment does feel like an apology of sorts. Going back to its American racing pedigree, Cars 3 makes most of its references to the first film, as if the second hadn’t happened. Mater is wisely relegated to a supporting role, the film foregoes any foreign trips and a big theme is one of modernity versus history. Our protagonist spends much of the film trying to recapture his racing mojo after an early-movie blowout, and the plot mechanics are an excuse to go back to Appalachia for some stock-car chassis-crunching action, plus a look at the pioneers of American racing. It generally works, even though it’s wise to avoid getting hung up on the details: The ending sequence hinges on one of the most outrageous cases of rule-lawyering that I can recall—even kids are liable to be dubious about it. I suppose that the film’s emphasis on aging, retirement and passing the torch is also more liable to reach the parents than the children in the audience. As is almost de rigueur with Pixar films, the visual polish of the film is as good as contemporary CGI can be—the background is often photorealistic, while the characters themselves are immensely detailed. Much of the world-building remains as nonsensical as the rest of the series (It even becomes infuriating the longer you think about it), so it’s best to approach Cars 3 as a caricature rather than detailed fantasy. The result is, all things considered, not too bad—thankfully much better than the second film, to the point where it’s more or less as good as the first (which, admittedly, remains among Pixar’s weakest). As atonement, it was worth Pixar’s effort.

  • Stagecoach (1939)

    Stagecoach (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2018) It’s absolutely normal to see Stagecoach and feel as if we’ve seen all of this before: While there were a lot of westerns in Hollywood history before Stagecoach, this John Ford film may have been one of the first notable examples of using the Western as a vehicle for drama and social commentary, helmed by a big-name director and starring well-known actors. As a result, Stagecoach ended up being the first of many: First true John Wayne starring role. First Western that earned sustained critical attention. First Western still worth viewing today, if only to establish the classical western formula before the deconstructionists took over. It has the problem of its qualities: being a straight-up well-executed western, it’s unbelievably racist toward Native Americans depicted as savage hordes. Its portrayal of gender roles is, well, what it was. The cavalry comes to the rescue unironically. On the other hand, the device of uniting different characters for a journey in a tightly enclosed space is a classic (allowing for dramatic friction and commentary outside the scope of a typical western) that has withstood the test of time rather well. Wayne isn’t too annoying as the designated hero of the film and it’s easy to see how his persona would become immensely popular as wider audiences were exposed to him through this film. Stagecoach is a classic western and as such today exemplifies them at their conventional rather than transcend the genre like so many other later westerns would do. It’s worth a look, if only as a yardstick against which more subversive westerns would be compared to.

  • The King and I (1956)

    The King and I (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2018) So, so very boring. I should be sorry for saying so, but there it is: Despite liking all three lead actors a lot (Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, and especially Rita Moreno) and liking musicals a lot, and not being completely unreceptive to mid-fifties filmmaking, I found The King and I very long, very dull and unable to go beyond its familiarity. It doesn’t help that the film’s outlook on colonialism is, well, from the mid-fifties (if not earlier, given the film’s lineage to a Broadway production, then to a book, then to real-life experience). I’ll point out that my not liking a musical is not a surprise when the musicals are based on a Broadway/Hammerstein source—I find Broadway adaptations not as interesting as musical developed directly for the screen, and Hammerstein to be humorless. Otherwise, as The King and I demonstrates, it usually ends up being an unimaginative restaging of a theatrical production with very little in terms of purely cinematographic art. It doesn’t help that the source material is almost entirely devoid of anything looking like humour or playfulness.   On the other hand, many of the individual components of the film are just fine. The scenery and costumes are terrific. Brynner is fantastic in the royal role, while Kerr and Moreno are also very good in their roles. And yet, I just couldn’t get or remain in the film, occasionally perking up at some of the better numbers but otherwise thinking “I’ve seen this already with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-fat”. 

  • Universal Soldier (1992)

    Universal Soldier (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, on TV, July 2018) I have dim memories of seeing Universal Soldier on VHS back in high school, and I particularly remembered the farm-set climax. I thought it was a below-average film then, and a second viewing doesn’t necessarily improve things. Jean-Claude van Damme is a gifted physical performer (and he was near the peak of his physical form in 1992), but his career was badly damaged by a string of second-tier, nearly undistinguishable action movies. Universal Soldier manages to be a bit more memorable than the others by dint of its science-fiction high concept, having a strong antagonist (Dolph Lundgren), featuring better-than-average action direction by Roland Emmerich, and starting with a great early sequence at the Hoover Dam. Still, it doesn’t really become anything but a generic action thriller in which two muscled guys beat each other up. A tepid romance doesn’t really distinguish itself despite Ally Walker’s attempts to bring some humanity back into a superhuman film. I may remember it now because I was around and part of the film’s target audience at the time, but I didn’t exactly love it then and I can barely even tolerate it now. I suspect that without its easy narrative hook, the film would have not led to any profile-raising sequels and would be long forgotten today. Who else but van Damme fans remember near-contemporaries Double Impact or Nowhere to Run? Exactly.

  • Flash Gordon (1980)

    Flash Gordon (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2018) Oh wow. I’m not sure you can actually describe Flash Gordon without sounding certifiably insane, so wholeheartedly does it commit to its campy style. 1980 was like a parallel universe when seen through the campy mind of director Mike Hodges, and I’m not sure where to start in order to give you a taste of the film’s built-in ludicrousness. Maybe Queen’s soundtrack with its eponymous FLASH! (Ah-ah-Aaaah) ? Maybe the prologue where a bored supervillain decides to destroy the Earth out of spite? Maybe the hero, a football star thrown in galactic conflicts? Maybe the unrepentant use of musty clichés such as the scientist and his daughter? Maybe the gaudy visual design of the film? Maybe Max von Sydow and BRIAN BLESSED hamming it up, along with such notables as Timothy Dalton and Topol in other roles? Maybe choice quotes along the lines of “Flash, Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!”  I don’t know. Flash Gordon has a messy production history, and the fairest assessment you can make of it was that Dino de Laurentis thought it was a good idea to resurrect a 1930s comic strip, except that the people tasked with writing and executing the project found the thing so ridiculous that they left the throttle firmly struck in the “parody” setting and the result got away from them. Or they all played along. No matter how you see it, Flash Gordon is a terrible big brash loud movie that feels as if it’s an hours-long hallucination. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.

  • Dracula (1931)

    Dracula (1931)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2018) It’s amazing to realize how much standard Halloween iconography (“Halloween” being used here as “mainstream watered-down portrayal of horror”) can be traced back to a handful of 1930s Universal movies. In-between The Wolfman, The Mummy, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and Dracula (released in 1931–1933, except for The Wolfman in 1941), you have the five classic monster archetypes and the associated iconography. A ridiculous amount of what has become associated with vampire movie portrayals is owed directly to Bela Lugosi’s portrayal of Count Dracula, down to the exaggerated vocal performance (equally taking from the theatrical and silent movie acting styles) and quotable material. It means that Dracula is still worth a look today … but those very same qualities also make it an overly familiar borderline-dull experience. Much like Frankenstein, the film moves through an intensely well-worn plot that was made just as well earlier (Nosferatu) and much later (Bram Stoker’s Dracula). That certainly does not make it a bad film (its legacy can still be found everywhere come late October), but it does nibble at some of the basic enjoyment of watching a film to see what’s going to happen: In this case, we know exactly what will happen and that makes it more like a repertory piece—even to first-time watchers! I’m still glad I saw it, but the rough early-1930s production values mean that if I’m going to watch something based on Bram Stoker’s original novel, I’m going to volunteer the rather entertaining Coppola version.