Movie Review

  • OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus [OSS 117: Lost in Rio] (2009)

    OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus [OSS 117: Lost in Rio] (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, October 2018) The premise of the OSS 117 series is strange but simple: adapt older French spy novels as comedies by repurposing their plot and pushing their sexist and racist content to an absurd degree. It wouldn’t work if Jean Dujardin wasn’t headlining the cast, and in fact it works markedly less well in OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus than in the first film of the series. It turns out that even when exaggerated for comic purposes, sexist and racism aren’t that funny … and the film doesn’t have much more in its sleeve to get viewers laughing. Dujardin does have the comic timing (and the square-jawed looks) to take the parochialism into comic territory, but there the jokes fall flat as being irritating and repetitive. It’s no surprise if the female characters, played by Louise Monot and Reem Kherici, are far more likable than the misogynistic hero. Director Michel Hazanavicius replicates the original’s self-consciously old-fashioned filmmaking, but he can’t strike gold twice, and the film often becomes an ordeal rather than an enjoyable parody piece. At best, OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus is best seen right after the original film, but I expect that the growing exasperation with the character is liable to grow even worse when they’re watched back-to-back. Too bad, because there’s a kernel of interest here that could have been developed better.

  • Only the Brave (2017)

    Only the Brave (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) Hollywood has a fixation on making inspiring movies out of tragedies, and firefighter drama Only the Brave pushes this habit to the limit, leaving out a few less-savoury details along the way. The real events on which this film is based (and Only the Brave does itself a disservice by not stating this up-front) are tragic: nineteen close-knit firemen belonging to the fire crew of Prescott, AZ, died while fighting a brushfire. What the film insists on doing is to show the dedication, courage and tenacity of the doomed men, their relationships to be extinguished with their spouses, and so on. Everybody is ennobled in death, and the firefighters here are no exception. It’s a familiar script in that regard. What makes the film work beyond the mournful homage is in its execution from visually-strong director Joseph Kosinski. A solid cast headlines the film, with Josh Brolin as the chief leading the men in danger, and capable actors such as Miles Teller, Jeff Bridges, Jennifer Connelly and Andie MacDowell in supporting roles. The way the firefights are shown is also quite compelling—for a medium-budgeted film, Only the Brave has some exceptional special effects (in daytime, outside, wide-screen) to portray men fighting fires in dangerous circumstances. It’s almost certainly the best firefighter film since Backdraft and its earnestness does manage to keep the film going even when it’s not being subtle about what it’s doing. The film does end at the right moment, though: again, the real-life story had a very unpleasant epilogue, with the widows of some of the dead men having to fight the town council to secure benefits. That part is nowhere in Only the Brave, but then again some things are beyond Hollywood’s ability to transform in a noble uplifting film.

  • Faust: Eine deutsche Volkssage [Faust] (1926)

    Faust: Eine deutsche Volkssage [Faust] (1926)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Hoopla Streaming, October 2018) Bringing an imaginative version of the biblical story to the big screen, F.M. Murnau’s Faust remains remarkable today for its density of special effects and for an all-out approach to fantasy filmmaking. As a result, there’s quite a lot to see here (do try to watch as high-quality a copy as you can find), which is helped along by the reasonable running time of the film (a mere 106 minutes, when some contemporaries ran almost to three hours). The story is a remix of several versions of the Faust story, meaning that it’s familiar and yet a good clothesline on which to hang fantastic set pieces. A veteran Murnau being at the helm (this being his last German film before moving to Hollywood and working on Sunrise), there is an undeniable artistic intent here, which adds quite a bit to the film. It may not be to everyone’s taste (and it does take a while to get started) and like most silent movies it does require active viewing in order to make the most out of it, but Faust is a solid example of fantasy filmmaking, influential and still worth a look today.

  • Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)

    Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) Considering my extremely low opinion of the first two Maze Runner movies, I’m as surprised as anyone else to find out that third instalment The Death Cure is a bit of an improvement. It may be that the enforced delays in the production of the film (put on hold for a year when series star Dylan O’Brien suffered a serious accident while shooting) helped distinguish it from the spectacular crash of the dystopian YA subgenre that occurred in the meantime. It may also be that, contrarily to the recycled and lazy post-apocalyptic settings of the first two volumes, this one heads back to a high-tech megacity as a backdrop to its familiar thrills. No matter why, and I’m not trying to argue that it’s any better than an average action movie, The Death Cure feels a little bit more interesting and a little bit less exasperating than previous instalments. There’s an interesting ensemble supporting cast (Nathalie Emmanuel, Giancarlo Esposito, Walton Goggins, Barry Pepper, Patricia Clarkson, Will Poulter, etc.) stuck with the uninspired material and quite a bit of special effects work to keep things looking dynamic even when the story is dull. Plot-wise and sight-wise, there isn’t a lot in The Death Cure that hasn’t been done better elsewhere (the coincidences and contrivances get heavy at times), but it can be familiar comfort fare for, say, cyberpunk fans looking for a minor dose of the stuff. Director Wes Ball keeps things rolling, so at least there’s a bit of kinetic energy to the nonsense. If I thought too much about The Death Cure (and I don’t really care to), I’d point out the hideous hypocrisy of having the city, a last bastion of civilization, burn to the ground while our teenage heroes claim this as a victory … but that sort of thing is depressingly common in post-apocalyptic YA fiction where the span-of-consequences seems to stop at the teenage protagonists with nary a care for anyone else. “Better than the previous volumes” in this case doesn’t quite translate in an absolute recommendation.

  • Biutiful (2010)

    Biutiful (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) There is a lot going on in writer/director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, and while not all of it makes sense or is properly developed, it does help maintain interest in a kind of film that I otherwise would find dull or ugly. Let’s see: Here we have a protagonist who’s not just estranged from the mother of his two children (sub-plot #1) but is also semi-psychic (#2), is dying of cancer (#3) and is involved in illegal immigration (#4) which lead to him welcoming the wife of a deported drug dealer in his apartment (#5). The issue here isn’t the number of subplots as much as they all seem to belong in different genres: their collision often smacks of contrivances, and I’ve left the most dramatic parts out of it. Fortunately, the film is anchored by a strong Oscar-nominated performance by Javier Bardem, who grounds even the most ludicrous content in reality, while remaining compelling enough to follow even when the film revels in unnecessary grimness and tragedy. There are plenty of ways Biutiful could have gone wrong, and yet it (mostly) stays interesting throughout as it goes for high drama and a weepy conclusion.

  • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

    Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On Blu-ray, October 2018) Now this is how you make a Star Trek movie. Learning from the lessons of the infamously slow-paced Star Trek: The Motion Picture, here comes Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to set things right. From better uniforms to a pair of great space battles to a memorable antagonist to a thematic exploration of character flaws to zippy pacing and reasonable odds, this film still stands as one of the most-improved sequels in Hollywood history. Writer/director Nicholas Meyer wraps surprisingly dense (and appropriate) thematic concerns in a relatively short running time. I hadn’t seen Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in a long time, and I had forgotten that the film is efficiently contained to, essentially, a bridge set and a handful of other locations. Kirstie Alley shows up in an early role as a young officer, the innovative CGI sequence still looks good, the actors are comfortable with their characters (with William Shatner and Ricardo Montalban free to scream as much as they’d like), the film builds upon the existing series mythology and we do get the feeling of a story slightly too big to fit in an hour-long episode, but well aligned with the rest of the franchise. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is still a really good movie by anyone’s standards, but it also remains a particularly good Star Trek movie, perhaps still the best one so far.

  • Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari] (1920)

    Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari] (1920)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Kanopy Streaming, October 2018) German Expressionism remains a distinctive film style even decades after its heyday, and even today Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari is remarkable as much for what it shows than for its innovative narrative. The surprisingly complex story (by silent film standards) has to do with a mad doctor, serial murders, vampires, lost love and hypnotism … or does it? Because the film comes with a twist ending that completely change the meaning of what preceded it, making it an early example of twisted plot movies. Still, as much as the plot can be interesting, the real value of director Robert Wiene’s Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari is its gorgeous visual style, quite unlike anything done since then with lights and shadows painted on the floor, highly stylized backdrops, very unusual title cards and conscious decisions to alienate the viewer from any expected realism. It’s quite effective even today, and it does give to the film a moment-to-moment watchability that is often missing from other silent movies of the era. For a near centenarian movie, Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari still packs a charge for modern filmgoers, even though it may not be as accessible as (say) the silent comedies of the era. Still, it’s worth tracking down. The film is available from archive.org, but it’s of medium quality at best—do yourself a favour and seek out as high a quality version as possible in order to enjoy the visual gorgeousness of German Expressionism at its finest.

  • Zulu (1964)

    Zulu (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Snagfilms Streaming, October 2018) Social standards of acceptability change over time, and movies such as Zulu can illustrate these shifts with blinding clarity. It is, after all, a film in which a small band of British soldiers defend an outpost against a far more numerically numerous groups of Zulu warriors. Featuring Michael Caine in one of his earliest roles, it’s a war movie with an expansive scope: The battle sequences are inspired by American westerns (which bring up a whole other bag of issues to consider), and they take up the full widescreen. Of course, from our perspective, the film is about something else that we’re not quite as fond of seeing: imperial forces killing native populations. Yet at the time of its release, fifty-five years ago, Zulu was perceived as both a stirring tribute to British imperialism, and as unusually respectful depiction of the Zulu warriors: They are portrayed as clever, organized and deadly. Alas, the film does show its clear allegiances later in the film as the Zulus pay tribute to the resisting Englishmen, once again going back to the increasingly ridiculous trope of having marginalized characters affirm the nobility of our (white, male, etc.) protagonists. This being said, Zulu still plays rather well for most of its duration. Modern sensibilities about seeing groups of humans slaughter each other don’t quite manage to dampen the stirring combat sequences, the heroic sacrifices of the English-speaking characters and the good old last-stand theatrics. I do have a number of issues with the result, but Zulu is what it is.

  • Never Say Never Again (1983)

    Never Say Never Again (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On DVD, October 2018) There aren’t that many good creative reasons for Never Say Never Again to exist. It’s a movie that owes its existence to a rift between the original James Bond movie creators, resulting in the rights to the Thunderball story and Spectre as a plot element being given to someone other than Eon Productions. Money is a powerful motivator, and so we ended up with a legal James Bond movie not made by the usual Bond people, but somehow starring Sean Connery in one last go at the character, graying temples and all. The story itself is a blatant remake of Thunderball, not only with stolen nuclear weapons being used as a plot driver, but with similar narrative stops at a health clinic and fancy yacht, not to mention similar character names. While the film’s pacing sharply improves upon Thunderball-era Bond, most of the “updates” affirm the early-eighties origins of the film more than anything else—there’s a particularly funny sequence involving Bond battling it out with the villain not on the casino table, but in a video game with deadly controls. That part really hasn’t aged well. But what did age well is Connery himself—there’s a real treat in seeing him, obviously older, taking up the character once more. Speaking of aging well, it’s also fun to see Kim Basinger in an early role (sheer aerobics jumpsuit and all), but it’s a reminder that she looks just as fine today than back then—and she’s now a far better actress too. This being said, Barbara Carrera is often more striking than Basinger, with a villainess role that she embraces with a relish rarely seen from other Bond girls. Klaus Maria Brandauer is not bad as the film’s overall villain, and Rowan Atkinson shows up in a small bumbling role. While Bond’s sexual conquests are still dodgy, they do feel like a step up from the original Thunderball, and the film is notable for suggesting that Bond will live happily ever after in a committed relationship. It ends up being a decent swan song for Connery, far better than the ludicrous Diamonds are Forever. While Never Say Never Again is not part of the official Bond continuity (and probably won’t ever be, even if the film’s rights are now owned by MGM) it does fit in a Bond completist’s viewing order: It’s not a great Bond, maybe not even a good Bond, but it’s worth a look especially if you’re going through the entire series.

  • Sherlock Jr. (1924)

    Sherlock Jr. (1924)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Hoopla Streaming, October 2018) When I consciously decided to explore older movies, I semi-arbitrarily set 1920 as my limit—I wouldn’t actively seek out any movie earlier than the 1920s, and even that was going a bit past my preferences given my lack of enthusiasm for silent cinema. But there are a few silent movie stars that I really, really like and Buster Keaton is high on that list, even beating out Charlie Chaplin. Films like Sherlock Jr. illustrate why some silent 1920s are well worth watching even today. The first half of the film is a bit messy, as a young man working as a movie theatre usher daydreams about being an ultracompetent detective. It’s a set-up for various gags and the slow accumulation of the plot’s bare-bones: The girl, her unpleasant suitor and the protagonist’s rich imagination. But then the second half of Sherlock Jr. comes by, and all the brakes come loose. Suddenly, it’s not just a great pool-table sequence; it’s a wildly imaginative trip through cinema by a hero entering the movie screen and it’s a terrific chase sequence that has us both laughing and grabbing our armrests. The special effects are still amazing, and so is the dreamlike logic of the film’s second half, abandoning strict realism for sight gags and an imaginative build-up taking advantage of movie magic and, crucially, the power of editing. The film is around 50 minutes long, and it sometimes feels even faster thanks to the pace of the editing. Keaton suffered for this film (not only was he severely injured on-set, but he also experienced the failure of the film’s then-modest commercial and critical success) but the results more than speak for themselves. Sherlock Jr. is still a wild ride and a literal joy to watch.

  • Italianamerican (1974)

    Italianamerican (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) Martin Scorsese takes a camera back home in Italianamerican, a look at his parents’ history and daily lives in the early 1970s. If you’re not a Scorsese fan, the film won’t mean as much as it does to those who are curious about the celebrated director’s origins. We get a solid look at the family history as Italian immigrants in New York City and young Martin’s living conditions, but it’s the look at an old married couple bickering affectionately that remains the film’s highlight. Mama Scorsese tells us about her meatball recipe as she argues with her husband. As a capture of a specific kind of people at a specific time, it’s quite heartwarming and charming even if you don’t know anything about Scorsese-the-Director. Italianamerican is short (it was made as part of a larger project), but it’s the kind of thing you leave on while doing other things, simply to eavesdrop on another family having its own discussions.

  • Von Ryan’s Express (1965)

    Von Ryan’s Express (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2018) The 1960s were a strange time for war movies, as they (influenced by the Vietnam debacle) steadily evolved from the war-is-an-adventure tone of the 1950s to the war-is-hell tone of the 1970s. Von Ryan’s Express is an unsatisfying mid-way point along that evolution: While it does present itself largely as an adventure in which WW2 Allied POWs escape the clutches of the Nazis thanks to complex train-bound shenanigans, it also features a rather depressing ending that cuts short any willingness to cheer all the way to the ending credits. This ending (reportedly motivated by star Frank Sinatra’s desire to avoid sequels) is all the more maddening because it’s not quite tonally consistent with the rest of the film, which is a good old-fashioned outwit-the-Nazis romp on rails in the closing days of the war. Sinatra is dependably charismatic in the lead role, with a decent ensemble of supporting character actors. The production values are high and so is the verisimilitude of the results. The tension runs high, and Von Ryan’s Express does, up until its last few moments, seem aimed to become a sure crowd-pleaser. But then there’s the ending … which I’ve already discussed.

  • Harsh Times (2005)

    Harsh Times (2005)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, October 2018) The measure of great actors can often be seen at how they elevate standard material, and so we have Christian Bale single-handedly making Harsh Times a worthwhile watch. Well, OK, that may be overstating things. After all, this film is another one of writer/director David Ayer’s take on the seedier side of Los Angeles (his first as a director after a good run as a screenwriter) as it follows two young men, one of them a troubled combat veteran (Bale) as they attempt to do better with their lives. That’s easier said than done when jobs are scarce, police work isn’t for those with troubled pasts, and a tangled web of obligations holds down both men. As this wouldn’t be an Ayer film without tense gunplay and impossibly tragic choices, Harsh Times does not head in a happy direction—the third act becomes a dramatic ordeal to watch. Interestingly enough, the film has gained a bit of sustained attention in the decade-or-so since its direct-to-DVD release: the star power of Ayer and Bale (and Eva Longoria, here with a thankless role as a girlfriend trying to bring her husband back to respectability) have ensured that the film continues to get attention today. The uneasy mix of graphic violence and emotionally stunted characters may not make for an easy watch, but Harsh Times holds its own as a sombre LA crime film with good performances and a strong atmosphere.

  • Au hasard Balthazar [Balthazar, at random] (1966)

    Au hasard Balthazar [Balthazar, at random] (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Kanopy Streaming, October 2018) I have a parody version of French New Wave movies in my mind that has been fed by other parodies, by early unpleasant encounters with the genre and by various readings about the Cahiers du Cinéma/Rive Gauche crew. My theoretical parody is a wholly unfair funhouse version of a valid artistic movement, and I’m astonished to find a movie that surpasses its absurdity. That would be Au hazard Balthazar, a movie about a donkey. A real donkey as a protagonist. A donkey whose life, from birth to death, is followed by the film as an illustration of humanity as it gets new owners—some nice and others not-so-nice. But wait: the absurdity doesn’t stop there, as a donkey protagonist means that we’re stuck in rural France for the duration of the film. But wait! There’s more! Under writer/director Robert Bresson’s instructions, the actors do not emote even in the fiercest of conversations, giving an intense feeling of detached alienation to the proceedings, something that the mostly static camera and stripped-down surroundings definitely heighten. I’ll be the first to admit that this kind of cinema isn’t for me. Really; an emotionally-dampened movie about a donkey?! But then again I’m only beginning to dip seriously into the pool of sixties French cinema. Maybe I’ll revisit Au hasard Balthazar in a few years. In the meantime, I’m afraid I won’t be afraid to use the movie as an example of how absurd Nouvelle Vague cinema can be. A movie about a donkey and emotionless humans. Really.

  • Les parapluies de Cherbourg [The Umbrellas of Cherbourg] (1964)

    Les parapluies de Cherbourg [The Umbrellas of Cherbourg] (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Kanopy Streaming, October 2018) You would think that I, being a francophone fan of musicals, would be a natural audience for Les parapluies de Cherbourg, perhaps the best-known musical to emerge from 1960s France and a major influence over films such as Damien Chazelle La-La Land. But I reserve the right to have idiosyncratic reactions, and as it turns out I’m this close to loathing writer/director Jacques Demy’s Les parapluies de Cherbourg. For one thing, it’s a downer musical. For another, it’s a wall-to-wall musical: The characters can’t stop singing even in dialogue scenes when there is no song, no rhymes, no arrangement, no accompanying choreography, no reason to sing. The effect is profoundly irritating. It sounds like incessant meowing for no reason and if I don’t like it from my cat at six o’clock (well, at least she’s hungry—it’s for a reason), I don’t necessarily like it from my TV screen for an hour and a half. Les parapluies de Cherbourg drove me crazy in a way that most musicals don’t, seemingly magnifying everything that usually annoys people about musicals. The reason why I can’t quite bring myself to kick this movie in the trashcan is that it does have some charm once past the meowing. The story is simple and while it ends in a not-so-happy way (well, the guy is happy and the woman isn’t so much and the audience least of all), it does feel rather endearing during its first act, especially before the unrelenting singing becomes unbearable. It’s also immensely colourful, with a portrayal of late-1950s small-town northern France that is affectionate and stylized at once. The ending sequence, as melancholic as it can be, is beautifully shot and doesn’t forget, through a signed “Cherbourgeoisie,” to put its class message front and centre. Given that I followed Les parapluies de Cherbourg by the absurdly ridiculous Au hazard Balthazar, it’s even far from being the worst movie I’ve seen that day. Maybe I’ll revisit it eventually. But maybe I’ll wear earmuffs. [January 2019: I’m happy to report that Les demoiselles de Rochefort, Jacques Demy’s follow-up musical to Les parapluies de Cherbourg, is a far more enjoyable film.]