Reviews

  • Le notti di Cabiria [The Nights of Cabiria] (1957)

    Le notti di Cabiria [The Nights of Cabiria] (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2019) Getting through writer-director Federico Fellini’s filmography is a bit like balancing the meat-and-potatoes (with early neorealist films) with the far more exciting desserts (his later, more expressionist material). The Nights of Cabiria is one of the duller meat-and-potatoes courses. It’s neorealism à la Fellini, following the adventures of a prostitute throughout heartbreak, murder attempts and complete destitution. While the tone can approach comedy at times, the unbelievably cruel ending is tough to watch despite last-ditch attempts to show joy. It’s clearly not as oneiric as later Fellini; in fact, it feels closer to other early neorealists like De Sica and that’s not necessarily a good thing when it comes to liking the result. I can’t say whether I liked the great performance by Giulietta Masina’s performance and the somewhat dispiriting depiction of mid-50s Roman slums—both are top-notch, but both made the depressing film even worse. That lack of enthusiasm also explains why the film feels overlong, with multiple episodes that keep on going long after any patience has worn thin. Still, the ending won me over, perhaps more out of beaten-dog sympathy than anything else. If you like Italian neorealism, you know it and you know if you’re going to like The Nights of Cabiria.

  • Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)

    Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) For all the flack that Hollywood social-issues drama films often get as insincere, award-begging performative exercises, they certainly can help chart the social evolution of the United States throughout the decades. Gentleman’s Agreement, having won a Best Picture Oscar (albeit being one of the most obscure winners of the award), can be considered a successful A-grade social-issues drama, and it does make for intriguing viewing. Gregory Peck is in fine likable form as a writer who, as an assignment in a new city, tells everyone he’s Jewish. Antisemitism being the topic of the film, you can imagine how well that goes: Ostracism, prejudice, snide remarks, exclusion, fights with his girlfriend and so on. Taking place in upstate New York fine society makes it more infuriating. By focusing as much on the bigotry than on the duty to stand up to bigotry, the film remains effective despite a few naïve moments and on-the-nose messages: nobody likes to think of themselves as bigot, but it’s not as obvious to be against bigotry, especially given the so-called “grown-up” desire to get along and not be perceived as a troublemaker … as happens to the protagonist here. It’s not a perfect film: the romantic ending seems to come out of nowhere—especially since the film seems to play with presenting a suitable alternative to the proudly prejudiced fiancée. It’s also a bit unlikely that a man of the world such as the lead character would be initially surprised at the prejudice he encounters as a self-proclaimed Jew—the film becomes more effective once it dispenses with the first few early scenes to show the tension in being part of that social circle and yet making sure that it is restricted from “these people.”  Finally, there’s the issue of “temporal inconvenience” that has dogged majority representation of minority issues, but let’s stop there—Gentleman’s Agreement was daring enough in 1947 that it should be assessed kindly. Few other actors than Peck or director Elia Kazan would be able to pull off the righteousness of his protagonist without coming across a sanctimonious and that ultimately is what separates Gentleman’s Agreement from other, less successful films. (There’s also the prestige A-list star treatment to help make sure this was the winning pick rather than the same year’s film noir Crossfire, but that’s an entirely different review…)

  • Kalifornia (1993)

    Kalifornia (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) Some movies are far more interesting in retrospect than during their initial release. Maybe they feature filmmakers and actors who became big later; maybe they anticipated or helped create a cinematic movement; maybe they reflect their time so well that they become period pieces. And maybe sometimes all three, like Kalifornia. The marquee appeal of the film is obvious in hindsight—David Duchovny as a journalist travelling across the United while visiting serial killer shrines, offering a ride to a young couple played by Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis who end up being serial killers themselves. While Lewis’s performance echoes the one in the following year’s Natural Born Killers, Pitt plays against type as a manifestation of pure id, uncouth and violent and absolutely fascinating to the protagonist. Kalifornia does feel very much of its time in content and presentation—the early 1990s were heavy on serial killers, and this film certainly tries for a meta-commentary on the trend. There’s probably a link between this film and the rise of the Tarantinoesque black comedy subgenre, built on a foundation of neo-noir plotting and stylish direction. The visual style here is very assured—director Dominic Sena makes his debut here, but he would later go on to direct two very stylish thrillers for Jerry Bruckheimer toward the end of the decade (and then two more rather ordinary films in 2009–2011, but that’s another review). Still, for all of the fancy camera moves and studied images appealing to pseudo-profundity, there isn’t a whole lot to the result beyond being yet another serial killer exploitation film—well shot but hollow. There’s no real understanding of the antagonist’s murderous motivation beyond simply being a cinematic psycho, and for all of the film’s superficial attempts at contemplation (such as the climax taking place on a deserted atomic test site), it doesn’t really lead to anything profound. The script fails to back up its own themes with anything beyond dull voiceover musings. Still, Kalifornia has aged better than many of its contemporaries—its enduring popularity is clearly linked to its lead actors, but it does remain a flavourful thriller with some visual style. It is more interesting than average … but not by much.

  • She’s Having a Baby (1988)

    She’s Having a Baby (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2019) On paper, She’s Having a Baby has the simplest story in the book, or perhaps the one that takes place years after the credits roll on any high school romantic comedy, as two high school sweethearts get married and try to figure out what to do as grown-ups. But the twist here is that our protagonist is a writer, which gives to the film both an ironic narration and multiple flights of impressionistic fancy that take the film in between reality and pure imagination. It feels a lot like an overly literal literary adaptation, even though it’s an original film from noted writer-director John Hughes. The result, with its tonal and cinematographic shifts, is still a lot of fun to watch today even though the result is significantly uneven: some of the (day)dream sequences are very funny, while others feel out of place and not especially insightful or funny. Still, Kevin Bacon is good as the protagonist, and a bunch of capable actors surround him. (This being one of Hugues’s late-1980s movies after a string of hits, he was able to arrange for several noteworthy cameos in the ending credit sequence.)  The 1980s soundtrack is dated, but thankfully not overexposed. The danger is having a film that leaps from reality to fantasy in such a way is that it creates a sense of unfulfilled potential, as whatever we can imagine doesn’t measure up to what the film gets up to. So it is that She’s Having a Baby leaves us slightly disappointed, perhaps wanting more, perhaps disappointed at the lack of surprises (making the fantasy even more important), perhaps feeling as if the film never reaches its potential. Still, it’s not a bad watch—and if my notes are correct, this was the last Hugues-directed film I hadn’t yet seen.

  • La Bamba (1987)

    La Bamba (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2019) It happened more than a decade and a half before I was born, but I’m still surprisingly mournful about The Day the Music Died — The February 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper” J. P. Richardson. Much of the story has been told in another film (1978’s The Buddy Holly Story), but La Bamba focuses on the life of Richie Valens, who died just as he was gathering attention as a rocker. The film is thin but satisfying, spending a lot of time on the rags-to-fame aspect of Valens’s life, occasionally delivering a musical number along the way. From a story perspective, it’s not much and not particularly uplifting (the film, knowing that many viewers already know the end of the story, heavily prefigures its ending by focusing on Valens’s fear of dying in a plane crash even from the first scene), so much of the appeal depends on the film’s musical numbers. Fortunately, there are a few high-powered numbers along the way, not only from Valens (“Donna” but especially his rock-and-roll take on the until-then folk song “La Bamba”) but also other musicians from the early rock-and-roll era in its fun and carefree atmosphere. The centrepiece of La Bamba, of course, is Lou Diamond Phillips’s first on-screen role, a tough part that requires good acting and performing skills. Fortunately, Phillips nails it—his stage performances are very enjoyable once he hits the big time in the film’s second half, with some underrated support from Esai Morales as his brother and Elizabeth Peña as his sister-in-law. While La Bamba isn’t perfect (I would have liked to see more time spent with the musicians) and seems cut short just as dramatically as Valens’s own career, it does have a few strong moments and its credit sequence, after a sombre ending, ends by highlighting its biggest strength once more—an uncut shot of Phillips performing “La Bamba” one more time.

  • The Lost City of Z (2016)

    The Lost City of Z (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) Considering that I really liked David Grann’s non-fiction book The Lost City of Z when I read it shortly after its release in 2009, I was certainly looking forward to its movie adaptation. Alas, for reasons that I can’t quite figure out, the film itself simply fails to launch. There’s a faux-philosophical leadenness to it all that didn’t move me, a ponderous rhythm that doesn’t even come close to capturing the danger and adventure of deep-jungle expeditions. The film does itself no favour with a deliberately super-processed colour grading that actually takes away from the beauty of the natural wonders discovered by the explorers. The film lacks a clear buildup, going from one expedition to another, then off to war. Director James Gray is ambitious, but the result of his efforts doesn’t take off. Another underwhelming factor is Charlie Hunnam in the lead role—time after time, Hunnam proves himself to be one of the most uninvolving leads of the last few years and while I believe he could be fine as a character actor, he seems determined to somehow overwhelm audiences through sheer ubiquity. As with other cases where a film simply “didn’t do it for me” absent obvious issues, I can chalk my reaction to an unreceptive mood … but I don’t think it’s that simple. At nearly two and a half hours, The Lost City of Z is a serious sit, and one I’m not eager to repeat. I’d rather re-read the book.

  • Chaplin (1992)

    Chaplin (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2019) Considering the influence that Charlie Chaplin had on cinema, it’s obvious he deserved his own big-budget glossy Hollywood biography. Not the warts-and-all one, though: the mononymous inspirational one: Chaplin. It begins, at it should, with an enjoyable look at early Hollywood history, from filming Keystone Cops shorts to hanging at parties with Douglas Fairbanks to going backstage at the first Academy Awards. Robert Downey Jr. ends up being an inspired choice to play Chaplin throughout his adult years, along what feels like a who’s who of early-1990s actresses (including a very young Milla Jovovich). The flashback-heavy structure of the film keeps things interesting, but there’s no denying that this is an old-school, lavishly executed biography with the pitfalls inherent in trying to cram decades within two hours. The film very lightly touches upon Chaplin’s least savoury personality traits such as his fondness for younger women, infidelities and cruel treatments of past lovers, but shies away from a full understanding of the character, and barely mentions the business savvy (including re-editing silent pictures as audibly-narrated ones, or his co-founding of United Artists) that contributed to his enduring popularity throughout the following decades. Having spent the past few years diving head-first in the archives of Classic Hollywood and seeing many of Chaplin’s best-known films along the way, I got quite a bit more out of the film than had I seen it a few years ago. But despite the lavish production means and Downey’s incredible performance playing Chaplin (especially toward the end of his life), there’s something missing here. Especially in the second half of the film, increasingly focused on Chaplin’s legal problems, exile from the United States and creative slowdown. Chaplin tries to put on a happy face on a life that doesn’t quite fit the pattern, and the tension is noticeable. Perhaps a slightly better film would have stopped earlier.

  • Thinner (1996)

    Thinner (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) One of the most wonderful things about Stephen King is he has written so much that you can have yourself a weeks-long marathon of King film adaptations, with a wide variety of quality from the grotesque to the sublime. In that Stephen King Cinematic Universe, Thinner is likely to go unnoticed. Not that it doesn’t have a good hook on its own—what with an obese lawyer accidentally killing a gypsy woman, and her father putting a fatal thinning curse on him. But good hooks aren’t rare in the King oeuvre—what’s more important is the care with which they’re executed and that’s where Thinner loses points. Clearly looking like a mid-tier 1990s film, it’s a horror film made like a horror film, with little intention to aim for anything more. There’s also a very specific aspect to the story’s requirements—the makeup—that would at best be weird, and here feel simply grotesque. Simply put: any story that has a 300-pound man thinning down to skeletal proportions was a tough special effects assignment without top-notch 2010s digital wizardry, and there’s no going around that much of it looks unconvincing, especially in the later stage where makeup is applied to lead actor Robert John Burke’s face in order to create hollow depressions. Then there’s the script, noticeably sillier than other King adaptations even when it does a fine job adapting a weird story. But those things combine make Thinner feel like a minor work—an extended Twilight Zone episode with enough filler required to make it to the end, the point of the film being in the ironic ending. Not unlike the novel, really—King wrote it as Richard Bachman at a time when he was still aiming for airport-grade potboilers. I still enjoyed it, but as a B-movie with a number of excesses rather than a better kind of film. This being said, there’s a lot worse in the King Cinematic Universe—being forgettable isn’t all that bad.

  • BlacKKKlansman (2018)

    BlacKKKlansman (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) You can’t really tell a creator like writer-director Spike Lee what to do. But with BlacKKKlansman, there’s a feeling that he’s back at his activist best, delivering a ferociously engaged film that does not compromise on its entertainment value. Loosely adapted from a true story, it focuses on a black FBI agent (played by John David Washington, son of Denzel but on his way to a stardom of his own) who works with a Jewish co-worker (Adam Driver, also quite good) in order to infiltrate a local KKK group. The clear activist intent of the film is made even better through a considerable amount of comedy, suspense and scene-to-scene interest: this is probably Lee’s most purely entertaining film since Inside Man, and it’s a welcome return to form for him, as his last decade-and-change of filmmaking has been erratic or eclectic. The result is one heck of a movie—funny, compelling, heavily ironic, pulling no punches against racists and ending with a coda that really drives the point home that this may be a story from the past but not a past story. Great performances also show Lee working at his best—It’s hard to miss with Driver, but Washington establishes himself as a compelling lead, and we get a supporting performance from black activist legend Harry Belafonte (!) and an eye-catching turn from Laura Harrier. I really liked BlacKKKlansman, and its existence says much about the state of black filmmaking in the 2010s—telling its own stories, being matter-of-fact affirmative, processing ongoing irritation with the current state of American society and having the power to draw in large audiences to buy into its uncompromising message. The Academy make a mistake when it gave the Best Picture Academy Award to the inferior Green Book.

  • Passion (2012)

    Passion (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2019) I only watched Passion because I’ve been hitting the vintage Brian de Palma catalogue a lot lately, and had been wondering what he’s been up to in recent years. This happens to be almost exactly the best state of mind to tackle this film, as it eventually makes its way to classic de Palma grand-guignol with murder, lust, affairs, twins, nightmares (meaning no less than two catapult awakenings) and bad people doing bad things to each other. It’s quite a bit of fun if that’s what you’re looking for. The beginning can be deceptive, though: the introduction of two marketing agency executives feels a bit too clean, too modern, too fun to be de Palma, but just wait—it doesn’t take long for the ugliness to come out, and the silliness as well. Perhaps the standout sequence has to do with a ballet, split screen, three characters and a final murder. This may not be great de Palma, but it’s definitely de Palma and that will be enough to please its audience. Rachel MacAdams is fine here as a grown-up Mean Girl, whereas Noomi Rapace is good enough as her antagonist (or protagonist—it’s that kind of movie). The ending doesn’t make sense, but it’s a good cap on an increasingly demented ride. While billed as an erotic thriller, don’t expect too much of Passion on that front: it’s got explicit situations, but no significant nudity nor extended erotic sequences. While there’s a sense that de Palma is churning familiar material, who can fault him for one last go to the same sources of inspiration?

  • Adjust Your Tracking (2013)

    Adjust Your Tracking (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) Even though I have a sizable DVD collection, I never really collected VHS tapes: They were expensive at a time when I had no money, and their self-destructive nature made it a dumb investment compared to optical discs. Adjust Your Tracking is not for people like me: It’s a documentary about VHS collectors, who keep accumulating vast libraries of obscure films (most of them in the horror genre) in spite of the medium’s obsolescence. At its best, the documentary is good fun, touching upon the thrill of collecting and of rummaging through old and potentially unsafe shops in order to find the rare collectible. I particularly liked the spotlight on a collector who has transformed his basement into a credible recreation of a video store as a way to showcase his collection. Other highlights include a few minutes talking about The Quadead Zone, an obscure film that nonetheless established records for eBay VHS sale prices. Some of the segments are illustrated through rough comic panels. If you know the horror community (and I have attended enough several consecutive years of the World Horror Convention to qualify), you can recognize its rough humour and familiar call-outs (such as referring to “pre-sellout Craven”). The film does get much weaker when it tries to extol the innate virtues of VHS (as if computers can’t be set up to lower DVD resolution and insert scan lines); but stronger when it points out that a significant fraction of those low-budget VHS films have never been re-released in digital format. Writers-directors Dan M. Kinem and Levi Peretic do well when they delve into the collecting impulse, finding echoes of other hobbies in the pursuit. I’m really not a fan of VHS as a format, but my congratulations go to all of those interviewed in Adjust Your Tracking—and I’d be really, really curious to get an update on the various projects outlined here.

  • The Party (1968)

    The Party (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) Is it possible that the more I see of Peter Sellers, the more I find him annoying? The Party does him no favour, with director Blake Edwards letting him go wild with improvisation, and showboat in brownface with an Indian accent. The plot is paper-thin, and really an excuse to let Sellers run set-pieces into the ground through repetition and predictable execution. His character, a bumbling Indian actor, is designed to be as irritating as possible and it’s not an accident if the film improves the further away it moves from him. He is, of course, immensely destructive, with a climax of bubbling proportions. If you’re getting the feeling that I didn’t like The Party all that much, you’d be half-right—I couldn’t stand Sellers most of the time, but even I have to admit that there’s something magnificent in the film’s fantastic set, its ability to avoid relying on dialogue, and the sheer anarchy of the last twenty minutes. Still, The Party should have been a far more disciplined film, a less stereotypical one, and it would have been better with someone else in the lead role.

  • The Goodbye Girl (1977)

    The Goodbye Girl (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) A guy, a girl, and an apartment—what more do you need for a comic drama? If you’re playwright Neil Simon, not much more—and so The Goodbye Girl becomes a comedy about mismatched roommates, an examination of struggling actors, and a triangular drama about two adults and a young girl. Given that Simon is scripting the film (with direction provided by Herbert Ross), it’s clear that it’s a joy to listen to. Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason do quite well with the material they’re given with specific highlights when they’re tearing into each other in a most loquacious fashion. (Dreyfuss would win an Oscar for his performance—with the film getting further Academy Awards nominations for best picture, its two other lead actresses, and Simon himself.) Compared to other Simon works, the mismatched roommate conceit in reminiscent of The Odd Couple, but the growing romantic attraction does add another dimension to the result. Dreyfuss couldn’t be better as the occasionally neurotic actor, his performance driving much of the charm of this romantic comedy. The look at the lives of struggling Manhattan-based actors isn’t unique, but it still works really well. The Goodbye Girl is not a hugely ambitious film, nor does it head anywhere unexpected. But it’s well executed in its chosen genre, and it’s very pleasant to watch.

  • The Human Comedy (1943)

    The Human Comedy (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) As much as I don’t like saying it, there is something frankly awe-inspiring in the propaganda efforts led by Hollywood during World War II. Scarcely any single branch of the US military wasn’t covered by some sort of heroic film, and Hollywood took care to address the home-front as well, boosting morale and preparing the population for the sacrifices of war. The Human Comedy is an exemplary take on inward-directed propaganda, taking a look at a small California town as it experiences the war from afar … except for the young men who have left and may never come back. “Teenaged” Mickey Rooney stars in this paean to salt-of-the-Earth America as a telegraph messenger whose job becomes to relay news of deaths to unprepared families. There’s some sports, romance, drama and comedy to make this film more than just a propaganda effort. It does eventually become a meditative slice-of-life narrative of quasi-anthropological interest—and narrated by a dead character. I found it strangely reminiscent to that other existential small-town drama Our Town. This being said, it remains a propaganda film, and the overall message that “sacrifices must be made for the good of the nation” is hard to ignore throughout. The wartime material hasn’t aged as gracefully as what surrounds it: the poignant episodes involving the ensemble cast, the last few antagonists, the generous outlook on life. Rooney is quite good on a purely dramatic acting level (as opposed to other films where he plays the matinee idol) and that helps a lot in further grounding The Human Comedy as something more than a wartime message.

  • Fyre Festival (2019)

    Fyre Festival (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) Canadians who had abandoned hope of every seeing Hulu’s Fyre Festival got unexpected help in spring 2019 from Super Channel, which secured Canadian distribution rights to the documentary offering another perspective than Netflix’s near-simultaneous Fyre. Much has been said about the ethical shortcomings of both documentaries—while the Netflix documentary was co-produced by the Jerry Media company behind the festival’s promotion (and its social media criticism suppression), this Hulu doc actually paid convicted fraudster Billy McFarland for interview footage. As one can expect, this Hulu production has harsher words about the social-media promotion of Fyre, and some largely useless footage of the main instigator. The angle is slightly different, and to its credit Fyre Festival offers more detail on the social-media aspect of the fraud, and on the complex web of scams that followed McFarland throughout his career. On the other hand, there are other things about Fyre Festival that are just annoying: its insistence on treating millennials as some sort of mystical generation is fit to launch my usual generations-aren’t-so-different rant, whereas the visual style of the film is huge on impressionistic visuals thrown nilly-willy in the narration. The Netflix documentary offered a more structured narrative, more striking moments, and a far better depiction of the increasingly disastrous project planning. It’s fascinating to see two interesting documentaries emerge from the same event—but then again disaster is always interesting. Some influencers come across very badly here, but Billy McFarland comes across as even worse, with evasive glances and lengthy pauses perhaps enhanced through editing but unmistakably portrayed as duplicitous in his answers. Despite the annoyances, Fyre Festival is also worth a look, even if you’re up to speed with the topic. At its best, it doesn’t forget to tie up the Fyre fraud with other signs of the time—The Soho grifter, Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes and, of course, the current occupant of the White House himself. How badly have we erred to end up at a time when reality itself is subservient to hype and fraud?