Movie Review

  • Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

    Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, March 2018) Surprisingly enough, I had never seen Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory as a kid … and I’m almost glad I hadn’t, because few other children’s movies have such a naked contempt for their audience. (Needless to say, it’s adapted from a novel by famous misanthrope Roald Dahl.)  As a result, the film is almost more interesting for adults than for kids—my favourite aspects of the film was the madcap “the world’s gone wild for golden tickets” news footage from the first half, and then Gene Wilder’s spectacularly sarcastic performance as Wonka in the second half. “Bad kids versus super-snarker” would be one possible alternate title. For a 1971 film, it certainly delivers on high concept imagination: The wild world of candy is pushed to its conceptual limits, and the special effects are often surprisingly good. Still, much of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory depends on Wilder and his oddball sense of humour. I audibly laughed at a few moments, from the computer sequence to the teacher scenes to Wonka’s literary allusions. Wilder’s performance in incarnating eccentric trickster Wonka is terrific—no wonder it became a reference. What’s particularly likable about the film is how it’s really not afraid to hop between moods as needed—the tunnel sequence is just as creepy as it ever was, and yet it fits in-between the far more light-hearted rest of the film. (It probably plays much better on a second viewing, as it becomes a pushed-to-eleven example of Wonka’s deliberate eccentricity. While the musical numbers are hit-and-miss (“The Candy-man” is a classic for other reasons) and the ending is a bit abrupt, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a surprisingly good time for those who haven’t yet seen it.

  • Blow Out (1981)

    Blow Out (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018) I hadn’t seen Blow Out in at least thirty years, so it’s funny to see what sticks and what doesn’t—my childhood memories of seeing the film (in French, on broadcast TV “prestige” Saturday evening showing) included the ending shot and the “animated film” sequence but little else. I think I learned of the Chappaquiddick political scandal after watching the film, which is really weird in retrospect. Watching the film as a seasoned thriller fan, I was a bit more impressed by director Brian de Palma’s ability to create suspense and memorable sequences through directorial audacity. John Travolta is surprisingly good (and young!) as a sound-effect technician who ends up embroiled in a political assassination conspiracy—with no less than an even younger-looking John Lithgow as an effectively creepy antagonist. Blow Out moves quickly and doesn’t have too many dull moments. While some character motivations are suspect (as in; the protagonist seeing the heroine again for no other reason that she’s attractive) and the coincidences in the plot defy credibility, but de Palma knows what he’s doing (just watch that opening shot) and the look at exploitation filmmaking at the eve of the eighties is simply fascinating—the period feel of the era’s technology, complete with tapes and physical cutting, is now one of the film’s biggest strengths. The ending is a downer, but it’s almost entirely justifiable through the film’s atmosphere and thematic resonance. Blow Out remains a remarkable early-eighties suspense movie that clearly owes much to the conspiracy thrillers of the seventies.

  • Barbarella (1968)

    Barbarella (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, March 2018) It seems to me that Barbarella was a cultural reference when I was much younger, but it has since then waned in popularity and influence. Oh well; merely being reminded of it was enough to get me watching, especially given how it played late at night on a French “classic TV & movies” channel. While I’m normally a strong advocate for watching movies in their original language, Barbarella does have a certain flavour in dubbed French—Jane Fonda’s Barbarella has a lovely slight English accent, and the French dialogue does remind us that the film was directed by French writer/director Roger Vadim. It certainly starts with a bang, as Fonda disrobes during a groovy credit sequence and, disrobed, receives mission instructions from the president of Earth. None of what you’ll see in the movie looks like anything else: Barbarella sure looks like peak sixties with surreal imagery in service of a nominally science-fictional story. It barely makes sense either on a narrative or a visual level, but it sure does have atmosphere to spare. Unfortunately, the lack of an engaging plot, cohesive visuals or anything approaching craft of execution does mean that the film becomes less and less interesting as it goes on. While the initial appeal of a science-fiction erotic comedy is good enough for a hook, the film never exceeds the results of its opening sequence. It’s curiously restrained for a French film of the sixties, further contributing to the film not fulfilling its opening promises. Sure, it’s interesting to see Marcel Marceau in a speaking role, or watch Anita Pallenberg vamp it up as an evil queen … but the film does very little with what it has to play with, and the result turns from promising to dull to annoying as the film goes on. Even at 98 minutes, it feels long and disconnected. Fonda does act and look fantastic as the titular heroine, the music is interesting (witness the origins for Duran Duran’s band title) and the shoestring-budget acid-trip production design is still worth a look. (There’s a straight line from Barbarella to The Fifth Element in terms of costume design, and it shows.)  There are a few quick laughs (the tail thing getting stuck in a door), some of them guilty (Barbarella overloading the orgasmatron.) But the film hasn’t survived particularly well—to say that’s dominated by the male gaze is a strong understatement, and I suspect that the film is now more embarrassing than exhilarating to older audiences. I’m reasonably happy that I have finally seen Barbarella … but I can’t bring myself to recommend it.

  • A Lot like Love (2005)

    A Lot like Love (2005)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, March 2018) About as generic a romantic comedy as it’s possible to put together, A Lot like Love is familiar and forgettable, but not necessarily terrible. Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet do well as a couple that repeatedly meets over a seven-year period, eventually discovering that they belong together through personal failures and growth. The nineties sequences already feel nostalgic, not to mention the early dot-com era material. Kal Penn shows up in a small role, as does Kathryn Hahn in a very brief and early role that nonetheless adds to her later persona of playing sex-crazed characters. The episodic, time-skipping structure of the film is equally interesting and frustrating, as we know early on that romantic frustration will be maintained until the story catches back up to present time. On the other hand, the film is decently scripted (witness the mini-romances going on in the background during the seven years of the story) and can depend on capable leads. Sure, the various plot threads are predictable but seeing the film from a perspective twelve years later, it’s a reminder that Hollywood studios have gone almost entirely out of the mid-budget romantic comedy genre. Seeing the film in 2018 is almost inevitably less repetitive than having seen it in 2005 … by lack of similar examples. Still, let’s not fool ourselves: A Lot like Love remains a generic romantic comedy, and it fades away as soon as the final credits roll. You won’t begrudge the time spent watching it … as long as you don’t have a big queue of other movies to watch.

  • The Best Years of our Lives (1946)

    The Best Years of our Lives (1946)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018) There have been a lot of World War II movies, but comparatively fewer post-WW2 films. Released in 1946 and taking a look at the struggles of servicemen coming back home after a long time abroad, The Best Years of our Lives surely qualified as a “social issues” movie when it came out. Fortunately, it does capture the dynamics of the moment well enough to be worth a look even seventy years later. Of our three protagonists, one is an older man coming back home to adult kids and a senior banking job; another is an ex-soda jerk struggling to go back to lower-class jobs after a rewarding tour as a bombing navigator; a third (played by a real-life amputee) sees his disability as a disqualifying factor in his relationship. All three interact in various ways, break established patterns and reveal themselves to have been changed by their experience. Of note here is Harold Russell, an amputated non-actor delivering a performance so impressive it won no fewer than two Oscars. (Nominated in the Supporting Actor category but expected to lose, the Academy gave an honorary Oscar to Russell … only to see him win the competitive category as well.)  Fredric March is also quite likable as the visibly older man reintegrating a comfortable position. It does have the quirks of a mid-forties film, but the drama is solid, generally palatable to a modern audience (including a daring-for-the-time subplot of a married man justifiably leaving his wife) and still well-observed even today. The ripped-from-headlines nature of The Best Years of our Lives has aged very well in a credible depiction of an overlooked facet of history and the result is surprisingly good even today.

  • The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

    The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, March 2018) Do American movies ever get as angry as does The Grapes of Wrath? Squarely taking on injustice in Dustbowl-Depression era, the film follows a family forced away from their Oklahoma fame and led to seek work in California fields. It really doesn’t go well for most of the movie, as the “Okies” family encounters death and capitalist exploitation at every turn, only reaching satisfaction of sorts in the hands of a decent government program. While definitely softened from the original Steinbeck novel (including reordering episodes around to provide a good ending), The Grapes of Wrath is still a scathing denunciation of the free market in a time of need. It’s almost continuously infuriating as the protagonist family gets knocked down again—fortunately, the stirring ending manages to make things a bit better, delivering a memorable speech about the resiliency of the people (and the importance of being there to right wrongs) as an epilogue. Visually, the black-and-white quality of the film’s images reinforces the poverty of their surroundings, washing out any colour in a muddle of despair. Still, director John Ford knew what he was doing, and the film is still powerful even today. Consider that The Grapes of Wrath was a major production by a big studio … why is it that movies never get as angry as this one, even at a time when social disparities are ripe for criticism? 

  • The Player (1992)

    The Player (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On Cable TV, March 2018) I first saw The Player sometime in the mid-nineties and fondly remembered it as a good satire of the Hollywood system. Seeing today, now that I’m venomously better-informed about moviemaking, is almost better than a first viewing. Tim Robbins stars as a studio executive who, harassed by an unknown person, comes to accidentally kill a screenwriter. The rest of the film is about avoiding detection even in the face of persistent investigators. Writer/director Robert Altman has rarely been funnier as he (somewhat gently) skewers the Hollywood machine, portraying nearly everyone as self-absorbed jerks capable of the worst. Back in 1992, much was made of The Player’s nonstop parade of cameos—twenty-five years later, it’s turned into a game to spot people whose fame has considerably waned a quarter of a century later, or non-actors Hollywood royalty whose face were never that well-known in the first place. The film does begin on a very high note with a complex seven-minute shot that neatly introduces a bunch of narrative threads and characters. It spends a remarkable portion of its first half-hour lining up joke after joke even as it gradually builds up its premise. The rest of the film isn’t as constantly funny—The Player does take its plot seriously after a while, and the detective subplot isn’t particularly high on satire. The last few minutes, however, do go back to the satire, with an amusing movie-in-a-movie and a killer last few lines in which, well, “forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.”  While I don’t think I’m quite as bullish about the movie as when I first saw it, I still like it quite a bit.

  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

    The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, March 2018) I wouldn’t go as far as putting The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the upper half of Disney Animation Studio’s production, but I’m relatively pleased with the adaptation. Bringing a dour Victor Hugo novel to the big screen for kids isn’t the easiest of propositions, and including a love triangle between a superb heroine, a movie-star hero and a consciously ugly hunchback doesn’t seem like the kind of bet worth taking. And yet, and yet, The Hunchback of Notre Dame works when it should. Turning the novel in a musical excuses a multitude of tonal shifts (who knew that funny gargoyle sidekicks would turn out to be effective foils for a murderous judge?) and the skill through which the love triangle is resolved (i.e.: without the death of any of the three) is kind of impressive. Of course, I’ve always really liked Esmeralda, unjustly forgotten as one of Disney’s original princesses (along with Megara, my other favourite Disney heroine) and she gets a chance to shine here as a relatively full-featured character—not to mention being one of the most mature Disney heroines. Of course, the surprise here is Quasimodo, underdog champion of the physically deformed yet spiritually admirable. What impresses me most about The Hunchback of Notre Dame is the way it balances many opposite intentions (not the least being delivering a fairly dark story in a format for kids) in ways that are more successful than the comparable Pocahontas (about which I have complex feelings). Still, there are contradictions and tonal inconsistencies and various other little issues. It’s not bad, and it’s quite a bit better than it should be … but it’s still a distance away from the best Disney movies. Although, if you’re looking for a dark horse candidate to argue for the next time you get to rank Disney Animation Studio movies, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is not a bad contrarian choice.

  • Trouble in Paradise (1932)

    Trouble in Paradise (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018) As I dig deeper in film history, few words become as interesting as “pre-code comedy”.  The more I watch older films, the more I complain about the Hays Production Code that effectively stunted the thematic development of American cinema between 1934 and 1960 (ish). But there is a brief time, roughly 1930–1934, during which Hollywood movies, having more or less mastered the grammar of cinema, was moving toward bolder and more daring subject matter. These movies feel considerably fresher than many subsequent films in their ability to grapple with authentically adult subject matter. While I wouldn’t call Trouble in Paradise an all-time classic nor a boundary-pushing film, its Pre-Code nature makes it so that it’s just spicy enough to be worth a rewarding viewing experience. Focusing on a pair of expert thieves out to swindle a rich French heiress, this is a romantic crime comedy that works decently well on several levels. As a pure comedy, it features witty dialogue, strong characters and an amiable sense of sophisticated style. Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins make for likable criminal heroes (their introductory dinner is a lot of fun), their loyalty to each other tested when Kay Francis enters the picture as a rich target. Director Ernst Lubitsch handles the elements of his film with a deft touch (indeed, “The Lubitsch touch” that could be seen in later movies such as The Shop Around the Corner), producing a well-rounded piece of work. What’s not so obvious to modern audiences since then used to moral complexity is the idea of presenting two outright thieves as romantic heroes: while it’s since been done over and over again in modern cinema, this was a bit of a sensation at the time, and the film effectively disappeared from public circulation for decades (until 1968) once the Hays Code was enforced two years later. Marvel, then, that we twenty-first century cinephiles now have access to something that many earlier audience didn’t. And marvel that, thanks to more natural non-enforced moral standards, Trouble in Paradise still plays really well today, more than eighty-five years later.

  • Alien: Covenant (2017)

    Alien: Covenant (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018) The Alien series has now managed the difficult feat of not making me care about any new film in the series. To be fair, it’s been trending in that direction since Alien3 ignored Aliens and set out to humanize the Alien. But the series usually remained interesting even in ludicrousness: even Alien: Resurrection was too weird not to like a little. No, it took Ridley Scott and a whole lot of unconvincing “actually it’s not really part of the Alien series” nonsense in Prometheus to truly stimulate exasperation in the series. With Covenant, he seems determined to repeat all of the past mistakes of the series, from jettisoning main characters in-between instalments to mortally dumb characters to explaining how it’s the humans, you see, that have created these monsters, and all sorts of other dumb plotting moves. Plus a pitch-dark ending that leaves little hope. The impact is not one of wonder, or satisfaction, or even entertainment: It’s one of caring less and less about a franchise that is being treated incoherently. If they’ll make it up as they go along, then why should we care? As a result, I would rather not see any further instalment of the series and let it die unceremoniously than have another follow up that will make me care less and less. All the mystery of the original Alien has been replaced by pretentious musings on the nature of whatever the screenwriter was smoking at the time, and the schematic approach to the series is now so familiar that there’s little here to be interesting. To be fair, Covenant is almost tolerable in small five-minute segments. Some of the action beats are well done, some of the images are interesting, and Katherine Waterston gradually grew on me throughout the film as her character followed the series’ usual zero-to-hero dramatic arc. Still, people who nitpicked Prometheus’s dumber-than-dirt characters won’t have anything better to say here about the various decisions taken by the characters and the Benny-Hill-like catastrophe of consequences that ensues. Let them all die, if they’re going to be so incredibly stupid. (Not that the stupidity is confined to the character—it often spreads to the screenwriters, as an entirely unmotivated late-movie twist suggests.)  Covenant barely has that visual grandeur of Prometheus—at this point, why even bother seeing the film at all? But that’s movie-watching in the early twenty-first century, with franchises being beaten into the ground until no one is interested—then artificially revived as reboots that usually don’t have anything to say beyond imitating the original. The surest way to ensure that we’ll get better movies is simply not to care about the bad ones. And this review is already long enough to suggest that I haven’t done a very good job of not caring.

  • Going my Way (1944)

    Going my Way (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018) On paper, there’s nothing to suggest that Going My Way is going to be an entertaining experience. It is, after all, about a young priest moving to a New York City parish. His small-town ways are not greeted warmly, and it’s an uphill battle for him to be taken seriously. Duller films have been made of more interesting premises. But watching the film makes it better. For one thing, the lead character is played by Bing Crosby, who isn’t just effortlessly charming, but allows the film to gradually shift in semi-musical mode as his character can sing in support of his parish. As antagonists are tamed, songs are sung, the church’s mortgage paid off and things get back in order (at least until one capriciously arbitrary late-movie downturn), Going my Way actually works decently well. Movies rarely spend so much time in the minutiae of church-running, but the film isn’t particularly religious—the parish is usually portrayed as a business with obligations and logistics. Going my Way won the best Picture Oscar for its year, and while I can argue that (then) Gaslight or (now) Double Indemnity would have been better choices, it’s not an incomprehensible one: It’s a warm and uplifting picture, with great performances by Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald. It’s religious-friendly without being secular-unfriendly and as such could (and still can) reach a wide audience.

  • The Quiet Man (1952)

    The Quiet Man (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, March 2018) There’s quite a lot that I don’t particularly enjoy about The Quiet Man, starting with John Wayne and the overly romanticized portrait of the Irish. I should probably add right now that I don’t have anything against Ireland of the Irish diaspora—after all, I’m part Irish myself (much diluted) due to a quirk of French-Canadian history—but I’ve seen enough Irish romanticism in my life to be largely immune to it by now. As for John Wayne, the irony is that I don’t like him but I like many of his movies especially when they feature him as a quasi-villain. Alas, that’s not the case here, as Wayne is out of his traditional element as a disgraced 1920s boxer returning to Ireland to reclaim his family farm. As with most “stranger coming to town” stories, he falls in love (understandably with a character played by Maureen O’Hara), makes a few friends and temporary enemies that he’ll have to deal with before a happy ending comes back. The Quiet Man is in colour largely to showcase Ireland’s Green tone and O’Hara’s fiery-red hair. It ends with a memorable knock-down drag-out fight played for laughs in the middle of the village. Wayne looks a bit lost in trying to act tough in the middle of a comedy, while the film’s blatant idolization of the rural Irish lifestyle will be lost on those who, like myself, can’t see what the fuss is about. As a result, the film is a bit obnoxious at times, and definitely too long otherwise. Director John Ford knows what he’s doing, so I suspect that this is as clear a case of “this film is not for me” as it’s possible to get. The Quiet Man is a fine film, but it just didn’t resonate. At all.

  • The Producers (1967)

    The Producers (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018) Being a modern moviegoer taking a look at the classics can lead to blasphemous statements, so here goes: I like the remake of The Producers better than the original. Once you get your rage out of your system, consider this: The original Mel Brooks version of The Producers is scattershot—it aims in all directions, occasionally hitting a bullseye and occasionally firing off in the air. The real highlight of this original production only comes after an hour of various nonsense—it’s really good once the stage musical begins and we get to see the insanity of a camp version of Hitler. In the meantime (and afterwards), The Producers is duller than expected. In contrast, the remake version doesn’t quite capture the stage musical in its unhinged glory, but has a much stronger first and third act, with more memorable supporting characters and a stream of musical numbers throughout. Yeah, I’ll take the remake if only for Uma’s Ulla. Still, preferring the remake over the fifty-year-old original shouldn’t take away from the qualities of the original. As stated, the original has a much stronger musical sequence. It also benefits from Gene Wilder and (to a lesser extent) Zero Mostel in the lead roles. There’s also a definite shock quality to the original that can’t be properly appreciated by modern audiences—although it can be felt secondhand from some reactions baked in the film itself. Remake aside, The Producers remains a film that can be readily watched even today without trouble … but it is definitely of its time, from a writer/director making his debut. Influential, but since then supplanted by a much slicker (and focused) remake. Considering that Brooks himself wrote much of the remake, that’s not that much of a blasphemous statement.

  • Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

    Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, March 2018) What annoys me about Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is that the series of novels upon which the films are based, Lee Child’s “Reacher” cycle, is special. They’re above-average thrillers in which the true shape of the plot is often hidden from view until late in the story. Reacher is an extraordinary character, and Child has honed his writing ability to deliver exactly what a modern adventure series should provide. Sit down with a Reacher book, and you’ll be guaranteed (at one or two exceptions) a solid entertainment experience well above the norm for the genre. Alas, the film adaptation, and particularly this second instalment, has been the definition of average … if not even below average. Plus, as has been endlessly rehashed, Tom Cruise is all wrong for the part. If the first Jack Reacher film managed to be a decent thriller, Never Go Back starts off promisingly, but then becomes less and less interesting until it becomes a bog-standard arms-dealing film, executed limply. It’s actually hard to care for most of what’s happening in the second half of the film given that it feels like so many other similar movies. Cruise is bland in the role, and saddling the story with a potential-paternity subplot does little to humanize the character or give him a personal stake. All told, Never Go Back is a dud—and it should pretty much ensure that a so-so series remains dead for the foreseeable future. That’s not exactly bad news for Reacher fans—at least the books are still coming out every year.

  • Night of the Living Dead (1968)

    Night of the Living Dead (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018) A mandatory stop on every horror fan’s checklist, Night of the Living Dead is the father to an entire zombie subgenre, transforming an old Voodoo bogeyman in the undead monster that has been endlessly copied and adapted ever since. Writer/director George Romero does much with a limited budget, although it does take some suspension of disbelief to go along the film’s various basement surprises. Still, and respite the remakes and adaptations and sequel, it still carries an appreciable punch: While the gore and the dread have all been surpassed later on, the original still works rather well. Judith O’Dea initially looks great as Barbra (“They’re coming to get you, Barbra!”), but it’s Duane Jones who steals the show as the only competent one around. The low-budget restrictions of the film make it lean and mean, with maximum thrills in a minimal space: No wonder it would be endlessly imitated. Since Night of the Living Dead has been in the public domain for a long time, watching it is as easy as calling up the film’s Wikipedia page. This being said, there’s some worth in springing for a high-resolution restored versions: While there’s some charm in the low-grade version, it’s a good enough film that it should be watched as it was meant to be seen.