Movie Review

  • Molly’s Game (2017)

    Molly’s Game (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) So… Jessica Chastain as the lead in an Aaron Sorkin film? You definitely have my attention. But Molly’s Game goes many steps further in giving us a real-life story of poker, Hollywood, organized crime, Idris Elba, a brainy leggy heroine and a two-hour stream of patented Sorkin dialogue. A fascinating example of an adaptation that goes further than the source material, this film not only adapts the content of Molly Bloom’s story as published in the original Molly’s Game, but updates it through a framing device taking place after the book’s publication. The fascination here is evenly distributed between Sorkin’s usual brand of rapid-fire witty dialogue, Molly Bloom’s extraordinary personality and Chastain’s uncanny ability to inhabit the role. It’s a great match between actress and subject, as the attractive Chastain gets to play a ferociously smart character who turns to the legally dubious side in order to make a living. Her conceit is simple enough: take care of all the necessary arrangements for wealthy poker players to have their regular games. It’s not entirely legal, certainly not completely safe, and much of the film’s interest is in detailing all the precautions she has to take in order to attract and retain the high-rollers while protecting herself. Michael Cera plays against type as a slimy Hollywood actor (reportedly Tobey Maguire) who ends up becoming one of Molly’s worst opponents, while Elba is his usual charismatic self as a high-powered lawyer. Sorkin also has fun directing his own script, fully getting into his heroine’s mind and history. (Kevin Costner pops up for a few scenes as her father, and gets a great scene in which he fast-forwards through years of therapy with his immensely intelligent daughter.) At 140 minutes, Molly’s Game is not a short movie, but it is seldom less than engrossing thanks to its script, directors and multiple subject matters. It’s thoroughly entertaining, and a strong demonstration of what Sorkin and Chastain can do at their best.

  • Sahara (1943)

    Sahara (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2018) Considering the time it now takes to make movies and bring them to market, it’s sometimes amazing to watch WW2-era films discussing events that happened mere months prior to their release. It’s even more amazing to find out that some of them remain remarkably effective even despite their ridiculously short gestation period. So it is that Sahara is a welcome surprise: a solid war adventure set during the African campaign of WW2. It certainly helps that it features no less than Humphrey Bogart as the commanding officer of a lost tank trying to rejoin their main battalion after a fierce battle. Lost in the desert, they gradually find other survivors and spend the first half of the film searching for an oasis. Alas, their troubles only begin when they do find a source of water—before long, they find themselves guarding a dry well against a much larger force of Nazi soldiers. Action, derring-do, amazing coincidences and character drama all punctuate the second half of the film, raising the stakes and providing a capable war adventure made as it was going on. There is a really interesting moment midway through the film in which the Italian character blames the German character for his nation having duped in joining the alliance—a far more nuanced portrait of the enemy than you would have expected at the time. Bogart is quite good in the lead, with a secondary role by a young Lloyd Bridges—and this is one of those rare films with an all-male cast. Sahara firmly belongs in the “war is an adventure” school of filmmaking: the film is not trying to make a statement about the futility of it, but neither is it unbearable propaganda. A clever, tight script wraps everything together in a topical war drama that has nevertheless withstood the test of time significantly better than most of its contemporaries.

  • The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

    The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) I am of two minds about The Autopsy of Jane Doe, depending on which half of the film we’re going to discuss. The first half is an effective supernatural thriller, as two coroners starts working on the flawless body of a young woman found at a crowded crime scene. The contrast between the unblemished skin of the corpse and what they find while performing their autopsy is surprising and increasingly disturbing: broken bones, blackened lungs, missing tongue and teeth. Then it gets much weirder, as various … things are found inside of her. The mystery created by those discoveries is compelling: until that point, the film does score highly as a different take on familiar elements. But The Autopsy of Jane Doe then takes a sharp turn for the worse, as the thus-far realism of the autopsy quickly cedes ground to far more fantastic events. Sadly, Jane Doe ends up being an excuse for unrelated, incoherent paranormal events that kill a good chunk of the minimal cast. It’s during that second half that, clearly, the screenwriter abandons every rule they may have set for themselves. As a result, The Autopsy of Jane Doe becomes a film in which anything and everything can happen on a whim, giving us little reason to care about a film not playing fair with its audience. It doesn’t help that the film goes on a maximally nihilistic ending. Fortunately, I stopped caring far before everybody died. I do like the mystery, director André Øvredal’s effective use of a constrained setting with few characters, and the inventiveness of the plot’s first half. Emile Hirsch, Brian Cox turn in decent performance, with Olwen Catherine Kelly showing up as the corpse of Jane Doe. Unfortunately, the rest of the film works hard to undo nearly everything that was interesting until then, with a limp ending that does not leave a lasting good impression. Too bad…

  • The Greatest Showman (2017)

    The Greatest Showman (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) Don’t tell anyone else on the internet, but I have a special place in my cinephile’s heart for the kind of big brash musicals that Hollywood almost doesn’t make any more. From the get-go, The Greatest Showman sets high expectations with an eye-popping circus-and-dance number that clearly tells us that we’re not going to watch an attempt at mimetic realism. Hugh Jackman is known for his singing and dancing prowess on-stage, but little of this ever made it on the big screen until now. (let’s forget about Les Misérables…) Fortunately, The Greatest Showman makes the best use of his affable persona in telling a highly romanced version of P. T. Barnum’s life story. Most movies reflect the obsessions and values of their times, and so it shouldn’t be surprising that a 2017 retelling of Barnum’s life would focus on themes of anti-discrimination and empowerment, ennobling those who—in earlier days—would have been presented as freaks. Nobody will be surprised to learn that the real-life Barnum was far more complex than the amiable huckster-who-learns-better from the movie—after all, much like Barnum’s marks, we’re here for the show and what’s a little mutually agreed-upon film-flammery if we’re decently entertained? It helps that the musical numbers are usually as broad and brash as the film requires—I particularly liked “The Other Side” with its synchronized use of diegetic sounds in a context that goes from reality to fantasy in a blink, and, of course, both “The Greatest Show” as meant to be the marquee song and “This is me” as the power empowerment ballad. Jackman is great in the title role, fully able to do the big song-and-dance routines he was pining for. Michelle Williams is adequate in a supporting role, although Zac Efron proves better than expected in a role that, after all, goes back to his teenage-heartthrob musical roots. Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya and Keala Settle all seize their chance to shine in smaller roles. We can certainly quibble about the deviations from the historical record (or should we, given the film’s clear and early refusal to be realistic?) and the way that a proudly diverse cast ends up validating a white businessman’s life, but the film works really well in its chosen musical genre. At barely 105 minutes, The Greatest Showman focuses on the razzle-dazzle more than that rather simplistic plot and it works well enough to sustain the film. Director Michael Gracey does well in his first feature film. During the credit sequence, pay attention to the corners of the title cards for extra jokes.

  • Body Heat (1981)

    Body Heat (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, October 2018) I watched Body Heat based on nothing more than availability (it was playing and it ranked fairly high on the list of 1981 movies I hadn’t yet seen) and was pleasantly surprised to find out it was an updated riff on classic noir movies such as Double Indemnity, albeit sexed up for the eighties. William Hurt is fine as the pitiable lawyer protagonist, but it’s Kathleen Turner who leaves a lasting impression as the woman that upends everything for him. If you understand the film’s true genre early on (as the reference to Double Indemnity suggests), there are few true surprises along the way of the film’s many twists and turns, but the execution of the story is good enough that it doesn’t matter. The atmosphere of an unbearably torrid Florida is excellent, and the film delves early and deep in the “everyone is bad” moral attitude—we quickly understand that nobody here turns out virtuous. The homage to noir movies is excellent. It makes for a conventional but satisfying thriller, the kind of film that we don’t nearly see that often almost thirty-five years later. Even watching Body Heat in dubbed (European) French added a special je-ne-sais quoi to the film, making it feel even more of a pastiche than it would have been in its original language.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, July 2021) It went without saying that TCM’s look at neo-noir would include Body Heat, and it was just as given that I’d give it another look. One of the quintessential examples of how noir themes could be reinterpreted decades later, this Florida-set thriller set an example rarely met, let alone exceeded. An impressive cast, led by Kathleen Turner (as a neo-femme fatale) and William Hurt (as a semi-stupid lawyer), gets this sweaty thriller going, but it’s really writer-director Lawrence Kasdan who gets the credit for updating noir tropes to early 1980 Florida, creating a piece that’s timeless forty years later. It’s ingenious, devious, atmospheric and graphic at once – a terrific script is the canvas on which the rest of the film plays. It’s quite wonderful to rewatch even when you know where it’s going, because the execution is so good.

  • Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie [The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie] (1972)

    Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie [The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie] (1972)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, October 2018) I liked Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie quite a bit more than I expected, which is saying something given my usual reluctance toward surrealism and/or French cinema of the 1970s. Writer/director Luis Buñuel does have a few surprises up his sleeve, though, the best of those being the dry black humour of a film in which anything and everything can happen. Once you accept that Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie is pure surrealism (which doesn’t take all that long, even taking into account that 1970s French bourgeoisie was weird enough), the rest is simple joy as the film zigs and zags between dreams and absurdity. Violence abounds, but the film remains riotously funny even as the black comedy gets even darker. The flipside is that nothing means much, so it’s not really worth watching the film for characters or plotting as much as a series of sketches featuring more or less the same cast. Which isn’t to say that the film is meaningless comedy—while it’s strongest when it’s at its funniest, there’s enough of a graphic (at times unsubtle) illustration of hypocrisy to keep thematic engines running. Even for plot-centred viewers such as myself, meaningless isn’t the same thing as worthless, and Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie gives us enough narrative breadcrumbs to sweeten its own surrealist intent. I liked it more than I thought I would. In fact, I may even enjoy a repeated viewing in a few years.

  • Dinosaur (2000)

    Dinosaur (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2018) At fifty-some movies and counting, the output of Disney Animation Studios has been inconsistent at best—some of them are classics, and others have been nearly forgotten along the way. Even if it was a box office hit back in 2000, Dinosaur now languishes in the Disney bottom shelf, plagued by the absence of a princess, visually dated technological choices and overtaken by later movies (i.e. The Ice Age series) reusing similar concepts to better effect. It’s true that by choosing to focus on a photo-realistic representation of a dinosaur at a time when it was barely achievable to do so, Dinosaur shoots itself in the foot. Overlaying CGI characters over real backgrounds was a plausible choice before 2000—It would take fifteen more years, until The Good Dinosaur, before entirely computer-generated scenery could be mistaken for real-life photography. Still, it does look weird at times: Dinosaur is best watched today in as low a quality as you can tolerate, so pick that DVD over the Blu-ray version if you can. It doesn’t help that the film looks better than it sounds—or, more accurately, that it goes from an intriguing dialogue-free film to a kid’s comedy as soon as the animals start talking like teenagers. That, more than the dated special effects, dooms the film to third-tier status: It’s not even interesting dialogue, and it doesn’t really lead to an interesting plot either. The basic tension between the film’s then cutting-edge visuals (still generally beautiful) and the much-dumber plot and dialogue are enough to be exasperating. While Dinosaur can still be watched today, it does feel like a re-thread of other versions of the same idea done before and since.

  • Alice in Wonderland (1951)

    Alice in Wonderland (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, On Blu-ray, October 2018) I grew up on a lot of Disney paraphernalia, so in a sense I’ve always known about Alice in Wonderland even if my memories of the film were hazy at best. I half-revisited the film two years ago alongside my daughter, but didn’t really write a review because my viewing was repeatedly interrupted—What I could see from the film was episodic, psychedelic and more interesting as an animation piece than a feature-length narrative. I decided to revisit the film in a less distracted state to find out if it made more sense when watched from beginning to end and … it doesn’t. For all of the familiar iconography and the set pieces that everyone remembers and the movie summary that figures in picture books, the full-length version of Alice in Wonderland is a trippy succession of absurd episodes that doesn’t really build to anything coherent. While that’s the point of the original Lewis Carroll book, it’s also a bit of a disappointment for basic movie viewers who expect something more narrative-driven. (A question to be answered by others: how popular was the film with stoner audiences?) To be fair, the animation in the film is really, really good—It looks much better than some of the seventies and eighties Disney movies, for instance, and there’s quite a visual imagination on display from the various set pieces that form the bulk of the film. Narratively, however, it sounds as if the Disney animators got permission to do half a dozen psychedelic episodes of the sort seen in earlier movies (most notably Snow White, Fantasia and Dumbo) and string them together. Having read (and re-re-re-read) the film’s junior novelization more than once as a bedtime tale, I was still disappointed and surprised at the lack of coherence in the film. In the end, this remains a second-tier Disney Animation Studio release—the animation is too good (and Alice too significant a character) to be forgotten, but it’s not on the level of the other iconic productions from the studio. And if you want a second advice, ask my daughter—she wasn’t overly impressed by the film on her first viewing, and never asked to see it again.

  • Kaze no tani no Naushika [Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind] (1984)

    Kaze no tani no Naushika [Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind] (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2018) Criticizing Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is tantamount to blasphemy in animation circles: the film has become a classic throughout the decades, and its impact in the kind of fantasy imagination as displayed in 1984 is only blunted by it being one of many incredibly imaginative feature films from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki. Taking place in a far future where humanity struggles to survive in a post-apocalyptic environment, it offers still-unique visions of repulsive creatures, intense combat, war between tribes, cognitive breakthrough leading to peacemaking. It’s very much in-line with other Miyazaki films such as Howl’s Moving Castle or Castle in the Sky. While we’ve seen similar offering in the decades since its initial production, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind remains unique viewing today. This being said, I can’t say that I enjoyed it all that much—I still have trouble processing the lower frame rates of even top-tier 1980s animation, the creatures are designed to be disgusting and there have been far more interesting twists on the post-apocalyptic genre since then. But that may actually be part of Nausicaä’s heritage: I have a feeling that its success allowed the unbridled go-for-broke fantasy world-building of much of modern anime, ironically making it feel a bit staid compared to its progeny. Still, it’s a classic for a reason … although I’d be wary of showing it to the pre-teen set.

  • Love Story (1970)

    Love Story (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2018) With a title as generic as Love Story, it’s almost unfair to complain that the film is as by-the-numbers as it can be. It doesn’t help that its premise has been absorbed in pop culture and often regurgitated in grotesque ways since then. It doesn’t help either that much of the film now sounds like melodramatic tripe to today’s audiences accustomed to a bit more substance. Of course, we weren’t there in 1970, when the movie out-grossed everything else in theatres, earned no less than an Oscar nomination, spawned a best-selling novel and a sequel. What works for one audience may not work one (or two) generations later. This being said, even despite the dubious charm of Ryan O’Neal (Ali McGraw easily out-acts him), Love Story does manage to work once in a while: The banter between the two leads becomes increasingly effective in its own sarcastic way, and by the time the famous ending strikes after being announced in the film’s first line, we’re kind of sorry for those two kids. (Although I think that most are far too quick to forgive Oliver for not telling Jenny about her illness. Or, heck, her doctor—what’s with the malpractice?) The class-warfare thing is a bit overdone (with Oliver being, frankly, a big jerk about it all) and the film’s much-celebrated “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” didn’t make sense before watching the film and still doesn’t make sense after watching it. Other movies for other times—in Love Story’s case, its success may have been its downfall: So often imitated or derided that it doesn’t look as impressive nowadays.

  • C’era una volta il West [Once Upon a Time in the West] (1968)

    C’era una volta il West [Once Upon a Time in the West] (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2018) Is Once Upon a Time in the West the western to end all westerns? Probably not, but watching it after seeing Sergio Leone’s Eastwood-led man-with-no-name trilogy, I was struck at the sheer scope of his achievement here. Far from the low-budget heroics of A Fistful of Dollars, Leone goes for big-budget maximalism in showing how the railroad makes its way to an isolated western town, and the violence that ensues. It takes a while for everything to come into focus, but when it does we have a four-ring circus between a nameless protagonist (Charles Bronson’s “Harmonica,” and you know the tune he plays), a woman trying to transform herself in the West (Claudia Cardinale, captivating), an evil industrialist henchman (Henry Fonda, playing a villain!) and a bandit there to mess everything up (Jason Robart, not outclassed by anyone else). The four quadrants of the plot having been defined, the film then takes on its narrative speed—although at no fewer than 165 minutes and considering Leone’s typically contemplative style, there isn’t quite enough plot here to sustain the film’s duration. Still, it’s entertaining enough if you’re not in a hurry—This is clearly a film by someone who has seen a lot of westerns, and it regurgitates familiar elements in entertaining permutations. Plus there’s Leone’s visual style—the film’s best shot is a slow pullback from a man about to be hanged from an arch, with Monument Valley as a majestic backdrop. Not being much of a Western fanatic (although I appreciate it more and more as I see the best movies of the genre), I can say that there’s a limit to how much I can like Once Upon a Time in the West, but it was more entertaining than I expected, and almost as good as its lengthy running time would justify.

  • The Shape of Water (2017)

    The Shape of Water (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) I love when a movie works better than I expected, but the reverse also happens and unfortunately, I find myself underwhelmed by Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning The Shape of Water. Keep in mind that “underwhelmed” is a relative term: I still think it’s a good movie, and couldn’t be happier that it was actually crowned with a Best Picture Oscar. It’s a film that shows del Toro with his firmest grasp yet on his own brand of fantasy: It’s self-assured, archetypical on premises while quirky on details, delightfully otherworldly in its setting and playing up the natural sympathies of del Toro for monsters of all sorts. It doesn’t take a long time for the basic plot to be set in motion, what with a quiet young woman (Sally Hawkins, hopefully never again underrated) meeting an aquatic creature at a secret government facility. The alien-escape plot is decently textured with social discrimination, Soviet agents, power-mad military personnel and early 1960s social subversion, but it does remain as basic as they come. This is not necessarily a criticism, since del Toro’s best work has often been in maximalist approaches to minimalist plots, making up in richness of details what is too easy to follow in overarching story. Visually, The Shape of Water is just as lovely (in its own way) as any of del Toro’s previous films, even though the visual inventively is kept in check by a less expansive approach. This familiarity is also shown in the film’s themes, which is blatantly supported by having a ragtag band of disenfranchised misfits (gay, black, communist, disabled, aquatic) take on the white male military establishment as coolly incarnated by Michael Shannon. It works, but it really isn’t subtle at all. Ultimately, though, The Shape of Water just isn’t as interesting as much of del Toro’s previous work. As much as I hate sounding like an insupportable hipster contrarian, I thought El Espinoza del Diablo, Pan’s Labyrinth and even Crimson Peak (not to mention his more commercially driven material along the lines of Blade II and Hellboy 2) were ultimately more interesting than The Shape of Water. On the other, other hand (since we’re talking fantastic creatures), this is the film that got del Toro an Oscar, mainstream critical attention and especially enough box-office clout to greenlight future projects: While he’s been a long-time geek favourite, del Toro was, until recently, not much of a bankable name: Other than his propensity to announce projects that ultimately led nowhere, his movies didn’t gross much despite their favourable critical acclaim. Now that he’s been given an Oscar that looks suspiciously like a body-of-work recognition, what else will he show us next?

  • The Horse Whisperer (1998)

    The Horse Whisperer (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, October 2018) There isn’t much of a step between earnestness and ridiculousness, and I suspect that The Horse Whisperer can fall in either depending on how susceptible you are to the film’s manipulation. There is a way to state the plot as a Lifetime movie (Following a terrible accident, a woman goes to a ranch in Montana to heal her daughter) and then as a Lifetime movie on steroids (Following a terrible accident, a woman goes to a ranch in Montana where an impossibly perfect guy heals her horse, brinks back her amputated daughter from the brink of suicide, and makes her realize the true meaning of passion even though she doesn’t really like the guy she’s been married to for nearly twenty years). Both are true, even though my own sympathies clearly lies with the most sarcastic version. But then again, I’m clearly not part of the film’s target audiences. It does help that The Horse Whisperer is often very nicely directed by Robert Redford—the cinematography is terrific whenever it can use Montana as a backdrop, although it clearly suffers whenever it’s time to present horrific events: Redford (or his editor) relies far too much on incomprehensible quick-cutting that gives an impression of what’s going on rather than what is happening. Whenever The Horse Whisperer can take a breath (and at its nearly-three-hour duration, it often does), it can take advantage of lush backdrops. It also helps to have actors such as Redford in the title role, and Kristen Scott Thomas as the heroine: while the characters are ridiculously over-written as wish-fulfillment superheroes on the page (he’s a wise cowboy with an urban past who knows how to tame horses, unshackle teenagers and romance women; she’s a workaholic New Yorker magazine editor with an upper-class lifestyle but personal issues), their portrayal on-screen works significantly better. This being said with a small dose of hard-won humility, I feel increasingly uncomfortable to deride other people’s wish-fulfill fantasies—everybody needs a few, and it’s not as if white-middle-class-geek wish fulfillment isn’t an overbearing feature of today’ cinema landscape. If The Horse Whisperer works for some, then let it work. If viewers can find some measure of inner peace and entertainment in what sometimes felt like an excruciating test of endurance to me, then I should just shut up and not spoil anyone’s squee. The recent nerdification of American cinema is not always a good thing, and we definitely need more Horse Whisperers twenty years after its release.

  • Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

    Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) As I’ve grown up to become a cranky middle-aged movie reviewer who gets to complain that they don’t make them like they used to, here comes Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to reassure me that while original mid-budget realistic drama movies are on life support, they’re not dead yet. It does help that even within the context of a contemporary adult setting, writer/director Martin McDonagh gets off to a roaring start with a strong premise: a small-town woman putting up three highly critical billboards demanding justice for her murdered daughter. The event sparks dramatic conflict across an ensemble cast of strong actors, reaching across a community to spur characters to action. As befits a film written by a playwright, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is an actor’s dream with several strong sequences, well-developed characters and a dark sense of comedy that keeps viewers interested from beginning to end. Frances McDormand now deservedly owns an Oscar for her performance here, but there’s a lot more good material from Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson. A strong plot means that the film’s 115 minutes go by in a flash, with a conclusion that provides some comfort but not an entirely wrapped-up happy ending. It’s quite a ride, and I couldn’t be happier to see how Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri leveraged its critical success to become a commercial one as well.

  • Safety Last! (1923)

    Safety Last! (1923)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2018) Not many films from the early silent 1920s are still frequently referenced today, but Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last! is a noteworthy exception, and watching it eventually reveals why. Lloyd’s bespectacled look has inspired numerous imitators (Cary Grant in Bringing up Baby and Harold Ramis in Ghostbusters being only two of them), but it’s the film’s concluding sequence, in which the protagonist climbs a Los Angeles high-rise with his bare hands, which still stands today as a virtuoso sequence of comedy and tension. There’s a new obstacle on every floor, and most of them are ridiculous. By the time we get to the clock, we’ve hit the iconic sequence of the film. It does take a while to get there—our protagonist is nothing more than an ordinary young man (despite the glasses, not necessarily an intellectual) wanting to impress a young woman, and much of the film’s first hour is spent leading to the skyscraper-climbing sequence, sometimes through rough narrative sequences and silly comedy moments. Still, those moments are amusing, even fascinating if you’re interested in 1920s Los Angeles. But the skyscraper sequence is an all-time classic, and it still works really well even today. [March 2019: Oh wow! The film being in the public domain as of January 2019, you can now play it straight from the film’s Wikipedia page in decent 720p resolution].