Movie Review

  • Four Hours at the Capitol (2021)

    Four Hours at the Capitol (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) I really did not enjoy Four Hours at the Capitol very much, but this has more to do with the subject matter than the way the film is put together. January 6, 2021, was a blight on the history of the United States: The executive branch of the American government deliberately attacking the legislative branch by inciting a mob of rioters to interrupt its vote-counting process. I watched most of it live on TV, aghast at the banana-republic antics taking place south of the border. Surely this will change things, I foolishly thought. But not really. Four Hours at the Capitol uses footage and interviews to go through those four hours once again, giving far too much time to the domestic terrorists in a misguided attempt to either strike a false balance between conspiracist nutjobs and everyone else, or to have them explain themselves. There isn’t all that much new material here for those who spent the day watching news channels—although the tunnel episode is harrowingly depicted. Some aspects seem elided, such as the late response of other police forces and their cleanup of the Capitol. It almost goes without saying that the entire leading-up to the events of the day is missing in favour of focusing on those four hours. Worse: Many of the terrorists interviewed for the film seem clueless about the true nature of their actions or their all-encompassing delusion at the altar of a hollow leader—there’s some satisfaction in seeing the consequences of their actions catch up with them, but it’s clear that there’s no rational discourse coming from them. Put together in a few months by director Jamie Roberts, Four Hours at the Capitol amounts to a first draft documentary—concerned about presenting a summary of events, but short on context and inevitably devoid of perspective. Frankly, it’s irresponsible to let crazy conspiracist statements go by without at least some refutation: if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that “both sides” rhetoric is corrosive by itself. But, of course, for those of us watching on the other side of the US border, what we have learned is that for Americans, there is no offence so beyond the pale, no transgression so unacceptable as to change things. Any nation that goes through Bush v. Gore, 9/11, Abu Ghraib, Sandy Hooks or 750,000 COVID excess deaths without rethinking its core values is, by definition, effectively beyond help. Something else, much worse, will come up. Let’s hope we’re not in the downwind fallout.

  • Old Acquaintance (1943)

    Old Acquaintance (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) While the TV Guide log-line for Old Acquaintance has something to do with novelists, don’t be fooled: the film is very much a woman’s drama in which the friendship between two childhood friends (Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins, who famously clashed during shooting) is described over decades through its highs and lows. It’s not uninteresting, but it does get familiar very quickly, with the usual melodrama and histrionics about wayward husbands, children and overdeveloped egos. The only welcome respite comes late during the film as Davis shakes and slaps Hopkins, bringing a bit more energy into the mix. Otherwise, the entire thing does feel like a Classic Hollywood theatrical production—humourless, technically accomplished, but perhaps more focused on getting the thing done during a difficult shoot. It’s watchable largely thanks to Davis, but hardly remarkable outside the shaking-and-slapping sequence.

  • Forbidden World (1982)

    Forbidden World (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, October 2021) As far as blatant Alien rip-offs go (you know: blue-collar crew stuck in ship/station/planet with a killer alien force), I have seen quite a bit worse than Forbidden World. Playing like a trashier, but more self-consciously entertaining version of the Ridley Scott classic, it features impressively gruesome gore effects, a dizzyingly incoherent storyline, some half-clever ideas and set-pieces, and some terrible editing. In other words: a mixed bag, but a rather bewildering one that keeps our interest. This being a Roger Corman production, there are obvious similarities with that other Alien rip-off Galaxy of Terror, but Forbidden World is just a bit less dour, and not tainted by a few repulsive sequences. Director Allan Holzman has an intention to entertain despite the gloopy creature effects, much gratuitous nudity, suicidally dumb characters and a rather darkly amusing sequence in which the humans attempt to negotiate with the murderous creature. No, Forbidden World is not great art. But I’ve certainly seen much worse, and in its best moments it recalls the glory days of rubbery 1980s horror cinema at its craziest.

  • True to the Game 2 (2020)

    True to the Game 2 (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2021) Considering my low opinion of the first True to the Game, I really wasn’t expecting much from the follow-up. To my surprise, it’s actually better than the original—not by much, and not enough to rate as a good film, but at least it’s not filled with annoyances as the first was. While the first was an unwieldy adaptation of a self-published novel, this one seems to be a purely cinematic expansion, picking up a short time after the events of the first film. Our protagonist (Erica Peeples, not bad) has become a NYC journalist, grown a more flattering hairstyle, and polished many of the most irritating edges of her personality. When she gets an offer to profile a rich businessman in Los Angeles, she drives there (what?!?), is romanced by two men (one of them white, the other black—and surprisingly enough for a BET-broadcast production, it’s the white guy who’s the good one) and gets a largely useless revelation from her interviewee. Meanwhile, shenanigans back in Philadelphia put the rest of her family once again in danger in what is largely a separate subplot. Finally, there’s a dangerous man who sets out to take revenge (or at least money) from the protagonist by seducing her before his inevitable betrayal. Those are big broad strokes of plot and they’re not even gracefully integrated together. Characters make decisions that only work because they lead to the next plot point (and sometimes not even that, such as the inexplicable decision to drive from NYC to L.A. rather than take a plane), there are nick-of-time coincidences and the film ends before resolving its own plot, obviously announcing the eventual arrival of True to the Game 3. Still, I did not dislike the brute-force entertainment of the results (macho gangsterism, cheap thrills, naked girls and all) and certainly liked it better than the clumsy original.

  • Annabel Takes a Tour (1938)

    Annabel Takes a Tour (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) You can take my review of The Affairs of Annabel and use it almost as-is for sequel Annabel Takes a Tour—hurray for consistency in series-making, I guess, but given that my first impression wasn’t good, the second film could have at least improved on the first. But no—once again, we have the peppy young Lucille Ball as a Hollywood actress being manipulated into all sorts of shenanigans by her publicist. More diverting than entertaining, this is recognizably a comedy taking aim at the Hollywood hype machine, except that the comedy feels laborious and half-hearted at best. Ball herself gets a few smiles, but only because she goes beyond what the script specifies. But once again, Jack Oakie mugs for the camera and doesn’t have a fraction of Ball’s appeal—history has it that the Annabel series, which got off to a roaring start with two films in 1938 alone, stopped dead in its track when he asked for too much money for a third instalment. He may have done the world a favour, not only terminating a humdrum series before it went too far, but also freeing Ball to play elsewhere.

  • Room at the Top (1959)

    Room at the Top (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) The taboos of one era are the snoozefests of later generations. While I’m aware of Room at the Top’s reputation as one of the first of the British New Wave, a taboo-breaking drama unafraid to go mundane and bitter in its conclusion, it plays like a dreary drama these days, considering how often it has been imitated and so thoroughly it has been outclassed by follow-ups. The story follows a protagonist of humble origins, as he deliberately pursues an heiress for social purposes. But wait! Things take a turn as he falls for a married woman of humbler origins. Of course, things don’t remain so simple for long, as the protagonist finds himself stuck in a trap partially of his own doing—all the way to the ending, which looks superficially happy but condemns him to a life of misery. Simone Signoret is reliably striking as the married woman (she earned an Oscar for the role). Compared to many other films of the time, Room at the Top was something unusual: dourly rejecting the pursuit of social status in post-war England, it took the glum worldview of noir and put it back into mainstream drama, leaving audiences without a clear-cut release. Even worse: it took a decidedly unromantic look at sex, marriage and affairs. Nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award, it does remain an effective drama, but twenty-first century viewers will have seen all of this, and better, in countless pieces of popular entertainment since then. That doesn’t make Room at the Top bad, but it does strip it of the distinction it enjoyed at the time.

  • The Knack… and How to Get It (1965)

    The Knack… and How to Get It (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) Even fifty-five years later, The Knack… and How to Get It is still in the running for one of the most distinctive movie titles in film history, a bit of originality matched by its still-unusual execution. At its heart the story of a romance between a shy young man and an eccentric young woman as complicated by the deeds and declarations of a vastly more experienced friend, the film finds its full expression in the way it’s presented on-screen. Eschewing traditional style, this product of the London-centric Swingin’ Sixties features jump cuts everywhere, occasionally humorous subtitles, older people shaking their heads at the actions of our young protagonists, a decidedly odd sense of humour and more time following the antics of its characters than drinking in the atmosphere of mid-1960s London. (And, if you have to ask, the titular “knack” is being attractive to the opposite sex.)  Rita Tushingham is very cute as the female lead, and the very long sequence in which she repeatedly (falsely) claims rape is either hilarious or offensive (or likely both) even today. To many viewers, The Knack… and How to Get It is somewhere in the middle of a line that touches upon A Hard Day’s Night (also from director Richard Lester the previous year), The French New Wave (with editing techniques borrowed from A Bout de Souffle) but also Benny Hill sketches with its character entering and exiting random doors, non-sequitur dialogue and everything-goes comedy. It’s a wild mixture and while it’s definitely dated, it’s still rather entertaining to watch if you give it a chance.

  • Monster Hunter (2020)

    Monster Hunter (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, October 2021) As someone who has played a lot of videogames, I always twitch when movie reviewers use “feels like watching someone else play a video game” as a slam against bad movies. But sometimes they do have a point, and it takes a surprisingly short time for Monster Hunter to become, well, about as boring as watching someone else play a video game. This is not helped in the slightest by a narrative structure that has the heroine (Milla Jovovich, in a familiar role) battling one type of monster after another in relative silence with a non-speaking NPC supporting character (Tony Jaa, good yet unremarkable) before a very thin amount of plot right before the final boss battle. Not having played the Monster Hunter video game series, I won’t have too much to say about the adaptation—but I remain impressed (not in a good way) at how the film manages to suck a lot of energy out of a dragon-versus-Ospreys battle. Writer-director Paul W. S. Anderson is now an old hand at that exact kind of film (i.e.: action-driven videogame adaptations featuring his wife Jovovich) and it’s troubling that he’s not really getting better at it: His screenplay barely touches upon the possibilities of his premise, his directing barely gets the point across, his cinematographic decisions are repetitive, and his frantic editing preference undermines the effectiveness of his own direction. (If anyone wants to pass a law mandating that one second is the minimum amount of time a cut should be, I’m all for it on the basis of this film alone.)  Even the wall-to-wall CGI feels uninvolving despite scary huge monsters. It makes for a curiously forgettable film—yeah, sure, Jovovich fights monsters but there’s really no reason to remember the rest. Monster Hunter seems determined to launch a new series, perhaps as a replacement for the played-out Resident Evil franchise. We’ll see how that goes.

  • The Farmer’s Wife (1928)

    The Farmer’s Wife (1928)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) Not many people know that Alfred Hitchcock directed pure romantic comedies—of those who do, most will name Mr. And Mrs. Smith. Fewer still will say The Farmer’s Wife for good reasons—it’s a silent, black-and-white film that predates not just the Hollywood classics that made him famous, but the British precursors that landed him on the map. It does reinforce the amazing achievement of a career that spanned six decades (from the 1920s to the 1970s), and gives credence to the theory that his mastery of visual storytelling was first forged in the crucible of silent cinema. From the get-go, with its exterior shots of the British countryside, Hitchcock doesn’t have much trouble getting himself understood without the use of title cards, even though the pacing is typically slowed down by repetition made necessary by a less movie-literate audience. The plot is simple and schematic, as a widower targets four single women in his village as a potential replacement for his dead wife, and strikes out with all of them before predictably ending up with the maid that faithfully helped him along the way. It’s all meant to be sweet, but twenty-first century viewers will have a harder time dealing with the unpleasant personality of the protagonist after being rejected by his romantic prospects—or simply the assumption that asking is good enough for romance. Still, the film does work even in its slowed-down pace (if you have a smooth fast-forward functionality, this is an ideal pick) and some of the visuals are interesting—I mean, who can resist the tidal waves of dogs going to a fox hunt? The Farmer’s Wife is also useful in that it truly separates the Hitchcock fans from the pack—who else is even going to remember such an atypical piece of juvenilia?

  • You Can’t Fool Your Wife (1940)

    You Can’t Fool Your Wife (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) Roughly as ordinary a product of Classic Hollywood as it’s possible to get, You Can’t Fool Your Wife is your average potboiler comedy—made by studios to showcase a rising star (Lucille Ball), with straightforward execution in service of a slight story. The film barely makes it to 68 minutes and relies on familiar comedic devices. As the story goes, a loving couple finds itself in a rut after a few years of marriage—not helped by an overbearing mother-in-law and some trouble coming from his office. It takes a long time for this dreariness to become funny—past the halfway point, past an ugly separation, past the point when it should feel like a comedy rather than something too dispiriting to be fun. But the comedy does begin in earnest in the second half, as the estranged wife embarks on a program to regain her husband by passing herself off as someone else at a party. It eventually works itself up to an amiable watch, albeit tempered by some outdated social mores that are not executed well enough to be charming. Ball herself is cute but not quite striking here—a trademark of her early roles. But in the end, You Can’t Fool Your Wife probably would have sunk in deserved obscurity if it didn’t feature her—it’s very ordinary, outclassed by much better similar films and not completely successful in its execution.

  • The Thing Called Love (1993)

    The Thing Called Love (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) I still have many films to go before I’m done with Peter Bogdanovich’s filmography: he’s had an eclectic career, and while his best-known films are almost classics, the rest of his work is practically obscure. I certainly had no idea about The Thing Called Love, although the circumstances of the film’s release (close to the untimely death of its headliner River Phoenix, ensuring a quasi-confidential release out of fears to be seen exploiting the situation) have not helped the film reach posterity. It probably doesn’t help that it also heads for familiar territory in showing the low-intensity struggles of four songwriters working to strike it big in Nashville. Despite a few romantic sparks, the film remains about struggling artists and how they congregate every week for a chance to play at an influential local bar. For many viewers, the draw here won’t be for Bogdanovich’s careful direction but seeing a main cast featuring young River Phoenix, Samantha Mathis, Dermot Mulroney and Sandra Bullock. The soundtrack is not bad (and I say this while having no special affection for the country/western genre), although the romantic subplots feel underwhelming compared to the performing aspects. The script does have a sense of humour, and the result is not much of a chore to sit through. Still, The Thing Called Love will never be considered an essential film—perhaps for fans of the lead actors, perhaps for those invested in songwriting (as opposed to simple vocal performance), perhaps for Bogdanovich fans.

  • Finding Love in San Antonio (2021)

    Finding Love in San Antonio (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) As of this writing, eleven days after its TV premiere, there is an exact total of zero reviews, votes or acknowledgement of Finding Love in San Antonio’s existence on the Internet, other than press releases and factual information about its production. (Don’t worry—by the time this review is published, with year-long delays, there ought to be more.)  This is not exactly surprising: As a low-budget romantic comedy made for daytime TV and niche streaming sites, this is not a film meant for popular acclaim, critical attention of anything more than a product fit to be licensed in bulk. It’s innocuous, charming in the most forgettable ways and assembled on a factory line. (Proof? Production company American Cinema International is already putting a “Finding Love in…” series that also covers Mountain View and Big Sky, Montana. That’s after a line of films called “Love Finds You in…”)  Still, I had a rather good time watching Finding Love in San Antonio—as a food-themed daytime romantic comedy, it goes slightly beyond the basic requirements of the genre. It has the welcome distinction of a heavy Hispanic-American component, with most characters being of Latin ethnicity and slinging bits of dialogue in what sounds like fluent Spanish. The film seldom skimps on the food itself (a surprisingly common flaw of other food-themed romantic comedies), and the romantic plot occasionally takes a back-seat to more inclusive familial problems for the protagonist and her entourage. The romance itself isn’t overly cloying and the sights of San Antonio are represented with a great deal of colour and flavour by director Sandra L. Martin. The actors are clearly second-rate, but they’re likable enough to mare it all work, especially Valentina Izarra as she anchors the film as the single-mom chef protagonist. This may not sound like much compared to heavier fare, but when compared to similar films of its kind, Finding Love in San Antonio is slightly more distinctive than most and that’s not too bad for something that will go largely unseen and uncommented by wider audiences. Too bad—sometimes, a little comfort food, slightly spiced, is exactly what hits the spot.

  • Girl Shy (1924)

    Girl Shy (1924)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) While Harold Lloyd is not as well-known these days as fellow silent comedians Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton, he was a comedic force then, and is still very entertaining today. While Girl Shy doesn’t have the madcap rhythm and invention of some of his other films, its romantic comedy still holds up decently well today. Eschewing rapid-fire gags in favour of more character-based moments until its more frantic climax, Girl Shy reprises Lloyd’s “Glasses” character—a young man with a good heart but crippling shyness in presence of girls. His problems begin once he gets a crush on a high-class beauty, all the while writing a book purporting to reveal the secrets of seduction. His book is predictably hilarious, which doesn’t play as he’d like in the publisher’s hands. There’s the usual number of complications, but it culminates in a suddenly madcap sequence in which a wide variety of transportation methods are used in order to make it from one town to another. That’s easily the comic highlight of the film, but (as with Safety Last!), the rest of the film, setting up the stakes, is not uninteresting.

  • Love and a .45 (1994)

    Love and a .45 (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) I have noted elsewhere how films working in an overexposed genre (or standing in the shadow of a far more famous film) are often best rediscovered years later, when the sentiment of repetitiousness has been replaced by a mild nostalgia for a genre no longer being overproduced. So it is that Love and a .45, as a road crime movie featuring a young couple of criminals on the run, was easily overshadowed by Natural Born Killers (released four months earlier in 1994) as well as other road/crime/romance movies à la Kalifornia, True Romance and going back decades to The Getaway, The Sugarland Express, Bonnie and Clyde, or even earlier to Gun Crazy. Suffice to say: There isn’t much new here in conception, but the execution still carries a kick. Executed in low-budget gritty charm, Love and a .45 does feature above-average dialogue and narration, some interesting characters, decent pacing and an intriguing soundtrack. As far as modern westerns go, it does work. For more fun, have a look at a young Renee Zellweger playing a character far more animated than her later, more sedate screen persona. While not a great film, Love and a .45 is probably better than the reputation it got back in 1994 as this pale shadow of Natural Born Killers. It’s entertaining enough, and the lack of Tarantinoesque movies in the past few years probably makes it a fresher experience than it was for the first decades of its existence on home video.

  • Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)

    Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) As a vocal opponent of torture films, gory violence and cinematic nihilism, I do have a softer spot than many would expect about the Saw series. While I don’t have much use for its elaborate traps or sudden sprays of bodily parts, I rather liked some of its more outrageous narrative twists, grimy industrial settings, go-for-broke editing (especially when it’s trying to cover up some plot nonsense) and moralistic intentions—even when it doesn’t stick to it. This being said, I wasn’t begging for another instalment: Considering Tobin Bell’s inimitable performance and the convoluted backflips of the narrative after nine instalments, the series can rest easy for a long while. Spiral wisely doesn’t try to fit even more material in the series’ overstuffed mythology—it plainly goes for an explicit spinoff, and adopts a slightly different tone by moulding itself into a police thriller. Chris Rock, of all possible choices, gamely tries to reinvent himself as a more serious dramatic actor by playing an outcast police officer who becomes the focus of a copycat killer working in Jigsaw’s tradition. Much of the film, from a narrative perspective, plays like one of those 1990s serial killer thriller, with the police racing to find the culprit. The distinction here is that the killer is targeting corrupt cops—alas, a concept that seems too timid now that everyone is grappling with the consequence of systemic police brutality. The result is something like a new direction for the series, but one that doesn’t manage to get very far in establishing itself as something worth pursuing. Sure, it’s interesting to see Rock (his face sculpted by age and facial hair) go for thrills and drama while still spouting his fair share of one-liners. Oh yes, Samuel L. Jackson does have something new to do here. Fine, the police procedural is a nice change of pace. Indeed, there’s a narrative twist worthy of the Saw series. But none of this is quite enough. The fascination for the traps is overdone and underwhelming: the film could have dispensed with them without problem, especially considering how insipid they become over time. (Worse: the film tries to have its cake and eat it too by allowing the victims to defeat the trap… only for them to die gruesomely anyway moments later. But this is far from the first instance of botched morality in the series.)  It’s all loud and quick on the editing, but the substance is just as lacking as in earlier repetitive instalments of the series. I’m not sure if Spiral will ever get a sequel, but I don’t think anyone will demand it.