Reviews

  • Model Shop (1969)

    Model Shop (1969)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) I got interested in Model Shop simply because I was curious to see more of Jacques Demy’s work after The Parapluies de Cherbourg and Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. I was curious to see his take on late-1960s Los Angeles, whether he’d carry his stylistic quirks over, and whether it would feel more like New Hollywood, Nouvelle Vague or the kind of Old-School Hollywood that Demy pastiches in his best-known movies. As it turns out, Model Shop feels like pure undiluted New Hollywood in its downer ending, small-scale character study and obsession with satisfying the filmmaker’s artistic intentions rather than providing entertainment to audiences. The story, as slight as it is, follows an unemployed Los Angeles man whose life is spiralling out of control — his girlfriend is about to leave, his draft notice has come in and (horrors!) his car is about to be repossessed, a sure sign of failure in car-centric L.A. As a film it’s not much: your liking for it will depend on how you feel about New Hollywood’s artistic aims in general. I still have moments of affection for the result, or rather specifically how its naturalistic approach credibly portrays 1969 Los Angeles without artifice, as the protagonist drives through the city and we take in the sights of an utterly generic city street. Otherwise, Model Shop is a very specific kind of film, somewhat undistinguishable from so many other similar movies if it wasn’t for its specific setting.

  • Only You (1994)

    Only You (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2021) Capsule reviews are often about finding interesting things to say about a film, and there are a few hooks through which you can discuss Only You. As a bubbly romantic comedy set in Italy, it brings to mind both the wave of comfortable romcoms of the 1990s and the pedigree of Italian-set romances from Hollywood history. As directed by Norman Jewison, it’s another shining example of how versatile the Canadian-born filmmaker could be. Featuring a surprisingly featureless Marisa Tomei and a pre-downfall Robert Downey Jr. (plus a remarkable supporting turn from Bonnie Hunt), it’s a romantic comedy that knows that it has to be anchored by likable leads. With a narrative that initially straddles the line between romantic fantasy and magical realism, it plays a little bit with expectations before delivering exactly what is expected from it (including a finale at an airport). The Italian setting is pleasant enough — so much so that the film does lose steam once it gets back to the United States for its conclusion. But what does it amount to? More or less the romantic comedy that is advertised in the blurb, albeit with a few eccentricities to make it spiky and slightly more interesting along the way. Only You is not a great movie, but it’s charming enough to be what it aims to be.

  • Jane Eyre (1943)

    Jane Eyre (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) For anyone even remotely knowledgeable about gothic romances, Jane Eyre is the ur-example for the form — with its likable governess becoming entangled in a romance with the mysterious owner of a large estate, and a crazy woman locked in the cellar. This version of the much-adapted Charlotte Bronte novel does have a truly impressive cast and crew — a script featuring contributions from Aldous Huxley and John Houseman, Joan Fontaine in the titular role and, perhaps best of all, Orson Welles (who also produced) as the mysterious Edward Rochester. The film plays up its sombre era of abandoned children, cruel orphanages and mysterious manors halfway between Dickensian social criticism and film noir visual melodrama. The result is curiously enjoyable, although now in a self-aware register that wallows in the overdone style of the piece. Welles is credibly menacing here, already channelling the scene-chewing nature of many of his later performances. It’s a period drama of a far more mysterious nature than many of the literary adaptations of the time, and it fits remarkably well will the mini-wave of domestic thrillers of the mid-1940s. As usual with stories adapted so frequently to the screen, the 1943 version of Jane Eyre is more remarkable for the cast and crew assembled for the occasion, as a snapshot of what Hollywood could do with the source material at the time than for the innate qualities of the story itself.

  • Mulan (2020)

    Mulan (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, February 2021) I’m not sure when Disney’s recent rage for live-action adaptation of its own work will taper out — We’ve reached diminishing returns a few movies back already, and there’s presumably only a limited catalogue to suck dry before risking dicier sequels. The live-action Mulan certainly doesn’t help make the case that the live-action remakes are a worthwhile artistic endeavour: As with many of its live-action predecessors, the conversion of an animated tale to live actors produces something technically impressive but generally inert, and culturally risky that the project is doomed to criticism before even the first frame of it is seen. The anthropomorphic animal sidekicks are gone, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but in sticking close to the rest of the original film, this remake opens itself up to accusations of repetitiousness. Mulan’s best sequence is probably a down-to-the-ground training sequence that needs none of the special effects making the live-action version possible. There are plenty of battle sequences, but they don’t add much to the film. For a narrative so concerned with gender-bending, the transition to live action doesn’t really help: There’s only so much that you can do to Liu Yifei to make her look like a man, and the film isn’t particularly credible on that point. I’ll leave to other better-informed commentators the task of commenting on the film’s cultural authenticity, but I’ll note that anything related to China and pop entertainment at this point is so fraught with points of contention that Disney deserves whatever it gets from courting dollars with this project. All in service of what? A visually polished story already done to good effect, which is roughly the capsule summary of the half-dozen previous Disney live-adaptation projects so far. I struggle to remember at least half of them, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out, in a few years, that I have similar issues in even remembering this version of Mulan.

  • Holiday (1938)

    Holiday (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) I was somehow under the impression that Holiday was a major film, but that may have as much to do with it being a reunion between Cary Grant, Kathleen Hepburn and director George Cukor than any specific merit in the film itself. Oh, it’s not bad— but it’s liable to come up short when compared to either Bringing up Baby or The Philadelphia Story. The story does make near-perfect use of Grant as a promising young man who, as the story begins, discovers that his holiday romantic partner is a rich heiress and that her family expects a man of his accomplishments and potential to become a potential successor to the family dynasty. He has other plans, though: Tired of having worked nearly twenty years before taking this first recent holiday, he intends to retire young in order to enjoy life. His fiancée doesn’t have the same hopes, but as it turns out her free-spirited sister does, and given that she’s played by Katharine Hepburn, it’s practically over for the other one as soon as Kate walks into the film. Directed by Cukor, Holiday is a mildly funny comedy of self-discovery and affirmation rather than the kind of silly screwball farce that could have been. Adapted from a theatrical play (with one supporting actor, Edward Everett Horton, reprising the same role), it’s gentle and often melancholic, leading to a very quick conclusion that almost raises as many questions and doubts as it resolves. Still, Grant is Grant, and you do get a classic moment of growing exasperation as a curl pops out of his perfectly manicured hair. He gets to demonstrate his skills as an acrobat and shares a great rapport with Hepburn, all the way to a classic sequence in which they perform dangerous-looking spills together. The 1930s humour feels familiar and strange at once, especially during a scene in which the characters throw a Nazi salute to mock some of their stuffy relatives. Considering that one of the film’s major themes is about breaking free of the dull orthodoxy in order to live a free life, it makes sense that entire stretches of the film don’t contain many laughs nor opportunities for Grant to shine. But if Holiday is not the laugh riot I was expecting, it’s still absorbing enough to be worth a look, and a great showcase in Grant’s first decade of acting.

  • Made in Italy (2020)

    Made in Italy (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) There is a well-worn quality to Made in Italy’s narrative that both helps it feel comfortably familiar, and makes entire sequences feel redundant. It starts as a young British man convinces his painter father to go back to their family house in Italy, with the intention of selling it so that he can buy an art gallery. Once over there, our young protagonist discovers that the house is nearly dilapidated, that heroic efforts will be required to make it sellable, and that there are plenty of unresolved issues between himself, his father and his dead mother. Much of the film is very, very familiar — to the point where we’re just waiting for a cute Italian girl to show up so that the protagonist can realize the folly of his current goal and start planning to stay and grow as a person. (Spoiler alert: this is exactly what happens.)  On one hand, this does help the film reach part of its objective as comfort viewing — the thrill of the house renovation arc is familiar, and so are the gradual romances that involve the main characters. Part of the point of Made in Italy is to enjoy the luminous Tuscan scenery, the way the house gradually becomes a terrific place to live in, and the copious references to great food. (Would it be surprising to learn that the Italian love interest is a cook? Not really.)  On the other hand, the same familiarity also requires the two male leads to work out their tragic repressed trauma in a series of conventional sequences that everyone must suffer through in order to get to the next charming bit. Writer-director James d’Arcy errs in putting too much emphasis on the melodrama at the expense of the stronger romantic/rustic qualities of the film, although it’s easy to see on the page that the dramatic material would be required to give enough substance to the result. The casting of the film is uncanny, though: Liam Neeson is up to his usual high standards as an aging artist afraid to go back over the biggest trauma of his life, but the magic happens once you realize that his son is played by his real-life son Micheál Richardson, their characters echoing the real-life grief of Natasha Richardson’s death. Knowing this, their big confrontation at the end of the film adds a bit of oomph to otherwise familiar scenes but also feels a bit voyeuristic. Still, Made in Italy does have enough going for it to be mostly charming most of the time — the third act is a bit drawn out, and you can see the pieces fall into place well before it happens, but there’s comfort in anticipating how it’s all going to come out.

  • Euphoria (2017)

    Euphoria (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) I hate when a promising concept is extinguished by the weight of pedestrian execution, and the latest example of that is found in Euphoria, a low-budget drama that delights in being as dull as it can be after a promising beginning. Although, let’s not overpraise those opening moments: As two estranged sisters reunite, the mystery that accumulates through their interactions and strange behaviour is already overshadowed by a heavy ponderousness. This is going to be an overwrought drama, quickly says the film through its execution. Before long, we have both the explanation to the mystery and nearly the last interesting thing about Euphoria: One of the women is mortally sick and has chosen to go, accompanied by her sister, to a secluded euthanasia clinic when she’ll be able to live her last days in peace before undergoing a fatal injection. It’s a sign of the script’s overwrought melodramatic tendencies that this (including the terminal cancer) is all explained to the protagonist once they’re already at the clinic rather than at any reasonable moment before then… you know, like normal people would do. But no — Euphoria is about creating a pressure cooker of an environment in which the sisters can hash out their recriminations, childhood traumas and repressed feelings in time for a conclusion that isn’t nearly as climactic as the filmmakers hoped for. Despite the acting talent of Alicia Vikander and Eva Green, the film struggles to make it past the finish line, weighed down by a graceless exploration of familiar themes that completely forgets the spark of mystery that led its first few minutes. Director Lisa Langseth is clearly trying for artistic drama here and succeeds too well: the film feels interminable even at less than two hours, and not even Charlotte Rampling as a therapist nor Charles Dance as another terminally-ill patient can quite manage to save the film even if they manage to make us temporarily interested again. It’s a bad, bad sign for a film when you start wishing for the lead character to die so that it can finally end. I still think that there was potential here for something much better — and a purely theatrical take on the same elements may be far more effective than a film that seems to exhaust itself in aimless meanderings. But as it is, Euphoria is anything but exhilarating.

  • Enola Holmes (2020)

    Enola Holmes (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, February 2021) Sherlock Holmes reinterpretations have become something of a cottage industry at this point, so the idea of following Holmes’ younger sister as she wanders in Victorian England having exciting adventures is perhaps not as fresh as it could have been once upon a time. Still, there’s a lot to say about execution, and it doesn’t take long for Enola Holmes to draw us in its enthusiastic take on the mythos. Millie Bobby Brown turns in a winning performance as Enola, with some able support from Henry Cavill (as Sherlock) and Helena Bonham Carter (as their mom). Assigning the detective smarts of Holmes to a teenager does a lot to get away from recent takes’ tendency to indulge in difficult-man worship. The plot, in-keeping with this female-centric reimagining of Holmes, eventually makes its way to the debate about women’s right to vote. Still, it’s the moments and the fizzy rhythm that make the film, as Enola directly speaks to the viewers and the fast-paced editing works to keep up with the deductions and machinations that are de rigueur in dealing with the Holmes family. Harry Bradbeer’s direction is surprisingly assured, especially given the rapid rhythm and busy editing. The historical re-creation is convincing, making good use of CGI and practical re-creation. The one note that annoyed me is the role assigned to Mycroft Holmes, who here plays the shouting repressive antagonist more than anything resembling the character in the accepted mythos. Still, Enola Holmes is not a bad entry in the subgenre, and considering that it’s based on a series of novels, there’s a fair chance that we’ll get a few sequels before the well runs dry.

  • The Nightmare Stacks [The Laundry Files 7], Charles Stross

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace, 2016, 400 pages, C$35.00 hc, ISBN 978-0425281192

    Hello Laundry Files, it’s been a while.

    There’s some heavy-duty irony in how my review of The Apocalypse Codex, the previous book in The Laundry Files series, began with an appreciation of how it was my favourite ongoing fiction series, that I stuck by it even as my reading volume was going down across the board, and how I was lucky to have one more book in the series on-hand to read as quickly as possible.

    That was in 2016. Six years ago.

    Of course, I didn’t plan it this way. Stuff Happened. To borrow from the vernacular of the series itself, 2017–2018 was CASE NIGHTMARE BEIGE time — a culmination of personal catastrophes across many separate domains of my life and I didn’t get much recreational reading done at all during that time. Even the laborious reconstruction that followed did not include much fiction reading. Ironically, it took a global pandemic crisis to bring a bit of personal peace and contentment, and the intention to renew with past hobbies. I played a lot of videogames in 2020, and oversaturation was part of the plan so that I would renew with recreational reading (on paper!) in 2021. Carving out pre-bedtime reading ended up being easier than I thought, and beginning slowly (with scripts, comic books, biographies of classic Hollywood crushes) ended up being a winning strategy. But if my videogame re-immersion experience of last year is any indication, I can expect a fairly long first phase of catching up on series/authors/styles, and The Nightmare Stacks (long purchased, never read) was high on the list.

    I still think that The Laundry Files remains my current favourite ongoing series. As I’ve mentioned before, its blend of high-octane speculation, universe-wide scope, geeky sensitivities, niche humour and public sector thrills intersects with a surprising number of my own personal interests. I’ve bought and read most of Stross’ published output so far and I’ve never been even slightly disappointed by its entries… until now, that is.

    The sixth entry in the series, The Nightmare Stacks, does feel a lot like the previous two books in how it fully pivots the series in weirder and more diverse territory — unlike the opening tetralogy that kept stretching the series’ original novella’s trans-dimensional horror/humour ongoing narrative in a way that spoofed British Thriller writers, the next three books in the series pivoted to include elements of urban fantasy in the Laundry framework, not-so-coincidentally moving away from the first few books’ narrator with the intention of creating a looser framework that could accommodate many more kinds of stories. At the same time, the series also set up the ticking time bomb at the heart of the developing narrative: CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, or the unfolding and possibly unavoidable Lovecraftian extinction-level event that is clearly rushing up to meet the characters.

    But that gets put on hold during most of The Nightmare Stacks, which makes a book out of a semi-comic conceit: What if the Laundry was so focused on avoiding one kind of threat that it missed clues about another kind of threat? Freshly-minted vampire protagonist Alex is at the centre of the unfolding narrative this time around, as his assignment to prepare The Laundry for the coming apocalypse by finding new headquarters in Leeds gets him in contact with the advance scout for another trans-dimensional invasion force. But while the Elfin antagonists of this volume may feel like the C-team to the series’ main threats, they do have the advantage of surprise — by the end of the book, the long-awaited intrusion of occult threats finally makes the front page of British media with a mega-death body count.

    While much of the book does feel like a semi-interlude (which is patently untrue once you get to the next book in the series — but I’m anticipating my next review), it does offer Stross a chance to take a breath, play with new characters, have fun in a semi-romantic comedy narrative (!), slightly reconfigure his universe and ultimately set up the next few instalments on firmer ground.

    I did have a few problems getting into the book. It had been a long time, for one thing, and getting used again to the series’ very specific jargon did take a few pages and reference refreshers. I was also initially unsure about Alex as series protagonist, although that doesn’t last long: While the series’ initial protagonist Bob Howard aged out of his charming wide-eyed innocence a few books ago, Alex is still sufficiently low-level (but skilled at what he does) to be interesting, and meet challenges that can be appreciated at a more relatable level… such as meeting a cute girl that ends up being a trans-dimensional spy. On the other hand, I did have a constant difficulty staying interested in the segments written from The Other’s perspective — those were more successful once The Other got closer to humanity, but most of the time I was tempted to skip entire passages. I didn’t and only half-regretted it — which points at some weaknesses in the result.

    Consider that the book’s best and most enjoyable sequence is a family dinner gone severely awry when the expectations of the parents regarding their progeny are simultaneously and severely challenged: a big comedy of discomfort and half-truths laid bare by a four-ring circus of clashes set around a common dining table. Meanwhile, an aerial engagement between jet fighters and dragons later in the book feels a bit perfunctory. There’s a clash of styles and interest between the novel’s lower-level character drama and its higher-level war narrative that doesn’t quite gel. It feels as if Stross found himself ill-equipped in trying to humanize the big events in the final third, having to introduce many new minor characters in order to describe the events, but without the connection that we have with the recurring characters of the rest of the series. It’s interesting to read, but it’s not gripping or enjoyable like the book’s other passages. It’s also clear that this is meant to be the narrative of a defeat: In The Laundry’s universe, the good guys are (so far!) always fighting to preserve normalcy in the face of intrusion, and no matter if this intrusion is stopped before it got worse, it’s still a resounding loss and shift in the scenery. The Nightmare Stacks ends far too soon to get an idea of the repercussions of what just happened, but it’s clear that plenty of cats have clawed their way out of the bag, some of them are lion-sized and they’re all hungry.

    I also suspect that the book is sufficiently off-rack compared to previous instalments that I wasn’t feeling as much affection for the result. There’s a noticeable down-tick in the humour of the series’ tongue-in-cheek approach that’s not quite compensated by the result. The narrative here isn’t as strong on public service concerns (what with its protagonist being an unwilling civil service recruit), nor does it delve as much in the murky funhouse reflection of spy thriller narratives. Sure, one of the main characters is a one-woman spying agency, but it’s in service of a new and unfamiliar antagonist.

    All of this should explain my somewhat muted reaction to the result. Oh, The Nightmare Stacks does nothing to stop me from getting the next book in the series — I’m still eager to learn what happens next. What’s more, Stross is too canny a writer to keep his series in statis: things change, evolve, inevitably lead to nuclear Armageddon and readers should be prepared to keep up.

    More to the point, it’s not as if The Nightmare Stacks doesn’t have its share of good moments. The titular stacks are a collection of weapons accumulated by the British government to prepare for any kind of eventuality, both conventional and occult. I did like the taming of an alien invader forced to appreciate humanity when she takes over a bubbly drama student. Alex eventually grew on me as a protagonist, with his part in the book’s climax standing out as the best aspect of the book’s last third. We also get a glimpse at new facets of the Laundry universe, although the integration is clunkier than usual — an entirely new “DM” character is presented as if we already knew about him (Stross apparently meant to write a novella introducing him but never got around to it), although the closer look at “forecasting ops” is suitably mysterious and portentous. Stross remains an engaging, hip, compelling narrator (at least in those human-readable passages) and the book has its share of really good lines.

    Ultimately, The Nightmare Stacks does have the advantage of being an episode in a longer series — even a temporary side-step has to be evaluated in a bigger context and may mean something else in the long run. Without spoiling too much about my next review, I’m writing this one while I’m one day and a hundred pages in the next volume — and I can reassure everyone that The Delirium Brief gets the series on familiar tracks, and recontextualizes The Nightmare Stacks as a crucial precipitating factor in a far more unnerving narrative. I suspect that I’ll eventually come to regard this seventh volume as mild bump in the road that sets up far more interesting later instalments.

  • Orphans of the Storm (1921)

    Orphans of the Storm (1921)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (YouTube Streaming, February 2021) When it comes to early film director D.W. Griffith’s work, I should probably take a look at his best-known work rather than more minor productions such as Orphans of the Storm, a film about two orphan girls during the French Revolution. Still, you can often learn more about average entries than masterpieces, and it doesn’t take two minutes for Griffith to start lecturing through opening title cards that “The lesson — the French Revolution RIGHTLY overthrew a BAD government. But we in America should be careful lest we with a GOOD government mistake fanatics for leaders and exchange our decent law and order for Anarchy and Bolshevism.” (Emphasis his.)  This naïve political science lesson sounds stupid coming from someone whose infamously racist Birth of a Nation led to a resurgence of the Klu Klux Klan, but that’s Griffith for you. Cheerfully using the French Revolution to score domestic political points, Orphans of the Storm is perhaps best enjoyed as a showcase for Lillian and Dorothy Gish, as well as for Griffith’s undeniable talent, even at this early stage of cinema history, for re-creating lavish historical scenes with hundreds of extras. The story itself is the kind of melodramatic hokum that was in vogue at the time, adapted from a well-known novel and featuring not only orphans, revolution and anti-aristocratic resentment, but plot-convenient blindness as well. It’s… interesting in the way many first-rate 1920s silent productions are, which is to say that it’s often a slog to get through the historically relevant material. I still have a few more Griffith movies in my future as a cinephile, but I’m not really looking forward to any of them.

  • The Fortune Cookie (1966)

    The Fortune Cookie (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) One of the reasons why Billy Wilder’s films have endured better than many of his contemporaries is the clever wit with which they’re built. Uncommonly smart at working within the confines of the Hays Code, Wilder’s movies still speak to us through their cynicism, imperfect characters and atypical narratives. The same goes for The Fortune Cookie. To be fair, I don’t think that the idea of a man being manipulated by their wily lawyer into faking an injury for insurance purposes is as fresh today as it must have been in 1966 — it’s the kind of thing that has become a cliché. But the way Wilder goes about it remains entertaining and compelling. It does help that he can benefit from some solid actors in the lead roles: The Fortune Cookie is perhaps best known for being the first of many on-screen pairings of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Here, Lemmon plays the injured party encouraged to remain bedridden, while Matthau plays the slimy lawyer going after an insurance settlement. (Matthau suffered a heart attack during the film’s production, returning to set weeks later and thirty pounds lighter — he won an Oscar for his troubles.)  The result is a comedy that’s not particularly heavy on the laughs, but still maintains a lighthearted touch throughout. It even ends with a certain moral fortitude while allowing all characters to keep their heads high. Unexplainably shot in black-and-white at the close of that format’s relevance in Hollywood, The Fortune Cookie remains a solid film, clearly showing the Wilder touch as a filmmaker who continues to impress cinephiles.

  • Pathology (2008)

    Pathology (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2021) If horror movies can get away with one thing, it’s being as unpleasant as possible. Pathology, alluding to the double meaning of its title, delights in making its viewers as uncomfortable as possible, combining the lurid horror of a pathological killer with a clinical depiction of the work performed by its pathologists. It’s a film largely shot in cold antiseptic tones in autopsy rooms, as our protagonist faces down killer colleagues with a penchant for toying with victims and setting up disquieting hypotheticals. Pathology doesn’t have much of a plot, but it does have an atmosphere — the kind of atmosphere fit to make viewers recoil from the gallows humour, caricatural evil antagonists and unflinching surgical procedures. (If you’re the kind of person to flinch at scalpels cutting into bodies, well, Pathology isn’t the film for you.)  Nowadays most remarkable for being written by Neveldine/Taylor with their usual touch of narrative wildness, Pathology is not exactly a good time at the movies but it is more unnerving than most horror films. I’d be surprised if it raked up many repeat viewings, but then again that’s another thing that a horror film can get away with.

  • The Star (1952)

    The Star (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) The more I explore Hollywood history, the more I’m struck by the meta-textual aspect of good casting, where factors outside the confines of the fiction end up contributing to its effectiveness. For instance, you can watch The Star and appreciate, at face value, its story about a washed-up Hollywood star struggling to relaunch her career. You can watch the lead actress and the younger actress playing her daughter and think, “Hey, they’re pretty good!”  But once you’re aware of the vast tapestry of Hollywood history and learn to recognize Bette Davis and Natalie Wood, having them in the lead role gives an added dimension to the entire film — taking advantage of those two actresses’ careers spanning decades of history before and after The Star. It gets wilder once you read the film’s production history and learn that the lead character was based on Joan Crawford — and that Davis, who famously loathed Crawford, was only too eager to play a version of “her rival” rather than a character too much like her. (Davis was rewarded for her honest portrayal in an unglamorous role by an Academy Award nomination.)  As for The Star, it’s actually quite good — if you like Hollywood inner baseball, it’s a credible portrayal of an aging star who comes to grips with fame having passed her by, and it’s not quite as lacerating nor as satirical as similar treatments of the topic have been in other circumstances. But really, it’s the casting that makes the film special.

  • The Final Countdown (1980)

    The Final Countdown (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, February 2021) I’ve known about The Final Countdown for a long time before finally seeing it — even today, its premise (an aircraft carrier sent back in time to the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack) is striking enough to be of interest to anyone with a liking for alternate history. Alas, as so often happens, the execution doesn’t quite measure up to the hype. To be fair, there’s a really interesting techno-thriller built in The Final Countdown: Filmed with the cooperation of the US Navy, this is a film that takes us inside an aircraft carrier during operations, with plenty of naval aviation footage and scenes obviously shot on location. Military personnel are portrayed honourably, and the nuts-and-bolts details of a carrier being caught in a time portal are convincing. As a portrayal of early-1980s naval aviation, it’s quite interesting even today. Unfortunately, the problem comes when the script has to switch from military thriller to actual Science Fiction: Seasoned viewers will spot the opening of a closed loop almost from the first scene, and as the film advances, it’s clear that there will be no major deviations from history, severely limiting its impact. The rhythm of the film becomes increasingly slack, as it spins its wheels while not making any changes to history and waiting until the closed time loop can be established. The meaninglessness of one civilian consultant character who should be significant also becomes apparent, although the impact of that is somewhat diminished by the character being played by Martin Sheen, going toe-to-toe with none other than Kirk Douglas as the captain of the aircraft carrier. By the time the film concludes, the obvious time loop closes with a whimper and the film’s final revelation can be seen coming hours in advance. You can reasonably argue that doing justice to the premise would have required far more time and special effects than was available to the film’s producers, and that’s largely true: When a real Science Fiction author sat down to work out the implications of a modern carrier group being sent back in time to WW2, the result was John Birmingham’s messy “Axis of Time” trilogy. In The Final Countdown’s case, the limited imagination was built in the script from the get-go to prevent the film, largely aimed at military-friendly audiences, from getting too strange. As it went on, it struck me that it wouldn’t be the worst thing to see a modern remake, possibly executed as a miniseries. As a bonus, make sure that the captain is played by Michael Douglas and the civilian consultant is played by Emilio Estevez (or Charlie Sheen) and I think we’ve got a nice high concept going on.

  • Before You Know It (2019)

    Before You Know It (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2021) If we’re going to chat about movie genre, let’s have a bit of a discussion about how “indie dramedy” has become a genre and how its stylistic quirks often work against itself. Case in point: Before You Know It, a low-budget family melodrama that wastes a good premise, a fascinating atmosphere and some good actors with a script more interested in pointless and irritating tricks than telling a story in a credible fashion. Set in the intriguing world of early 1990s Manhattan showbiz, it features a level-headed woman trying to manage a family-owned off-Broadway theater despite the loopy flights of fancy of a has-been playwright father, an absent mother and a whimsical sister. Things come to a boil when the father dies and the two sisters discover that their mother, long believed dead, is a successful soap opera actress who actually owns the building they live in (and its associated debts). So far so good, and once you throw in the acting talent of Mandy Patinkin as the father, Jen Tullock as a flighty sister (who steals pretty much every single scene she’s in) and Hannah Pearl Utt (who also directs) as the level-headed protagonist, you can reasonably expect something interesting. Alas, the script seems determined to be too cute — even considering the grief and lack of common sense from its over-dramatic characters, some fundamental plot points are manipulated beyond reason, revealing the artifice of the script. (You’d think that “Hey, Dad is dead” would be the first thing a grieving daughter would tell her mother, but the manipulative script somehow doesn’t get around to it until much later. You’d also think that a mom would keep an eye on her daughter while she’s gallivanting around town, but then again: manipulative script). To the dubious plotting, we can also add some irritating character touches: There are at least two hideous examples of terrible parenting here, and neither quite get the scrutiny that you’d expect (but then again: see manipulative script). It doesn’t help that in-keeping with much indie dramedy, Before You Know It thinks that “comedy equals discomfort” — nearly all of its decisions seem designed to annoy audiences, and there’s a limit to the effectiveness of that specific artistic intention. Given that Utt and Tullock co-wrote the script, there’s not a lot of wiggle room to blame some unseen screenwriter or studio interference: this is the film they wanted, notwithstanding production constraints. A less slavish adherence to the quirks of indie dramedy could have polished most of the roughest edges of the result — as it is, it’s simply too irritating to do justice to its likable stars, or to showcase what Utt and Tullock can do on the page or behind the camera.