Reviews

  • House II: The Second Story (1987)

    House II: The Second Story (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, October 2020) As much as I was unimpressed by 1985’s House despite its good reviews, I’m sort of amused by House II: The Second Story despite its humdrum reviews. What certainly helps is that this sequel completely abandons any serious attempt at horror scares, style or atmosphere and goes all-out on the comedy adventure potential of a house with portals to other times and places. Weird house, sure, haunted house—not really: the tone is all jokey, upbeat and adventurous as the two protagonists explore the house, go on time-travelling jaunts, make new supernatural friends and see their girlfriend leave them without it bothering them. It’s profoundly silly, with very little to hold the plot together other than some sort of rule-of-cool. The links with the original House film are tenuous at best, and if the first film had any psychological profundity, it’s completely gone here. But House II does leave a stronger, or at least funnier impression than the first film.

  • Bombardier (1943)

    Bombardier (1943)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) There were so many WW2 propaganda films about the branches and sub-branches of the American armed forces that TCM could have a monthly spotlight on them and still not run out of material by the end of it. At least it’s easy to guess what Bombardier’s all about—the creation of a school to train a new kind of soldier—the specialized bomber tasked with releasing the bombs over their target while the pilot brings them there and back. (This was a real innovation at the time—the alternative being the “dive bombers” where the pilots themselves released the bombs.) Much of the film is set at bombardier school, with the characters getting into trouble of various kinds (academic, romantic, espionage…) and making mistakes from which they learn their trade. Then, once the war begins, they get to show what kind of living hell they and the US Air Force are capable of delivering. Surprisingly enough, the ending isn’t all triumphs and smiles. Reportedly rewritten on the fly to reflect real-world events, Bombardier does have an undeniable documentary value—even filtered through Hollywood directors and cinematographers, the film captures footage of bomber planes at the beginning of WW2 and a rough depiction of the training program needed to make use of the American “bombsight” device that eventually proved so successful. What’s less fortunate is that the film doesn’t really distinguish itself in more traditional filmmaking qualities—actors, script and direction aren’t anything noteworthy, although the romantic subplot can be lively. In other words—another splendid addition to TCM’s themed collection of WW2 propaganda films—just pick your favourite branch of the Armed Forces and there’s sure to be one for you.

  • Gui mi 2 [Girls 2: Girls vs Gangsters] (2018)

    Gui mi 2 [Girls 2: Girls vs Gangsters] (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) Ummm. Urrr… OK. Um, what? Chinese gender-flipped The Hangover (or should we just say Bridesmaids?) derivative Girls 2: Girls vs Gangsters features three young Asian women waking up in another country after a wild night, with a new tattoo, a mysterious suitcase, and no memory of what just happened. If the similarities aren’t big enough, consider the Mike Tyson shows up later for a brief role. Fine, so no conceptual originality here. What about the rest? Well, again, Ummm. Urrr… Under writer-director Wong Chun-Chun, the film struggles to either come together harmoniously, or have something like a female-centric point of view. Having Tyson show up, considering his checkered past with women, isn’t exactly a progressive mark of honour. Other crude jokes and sequences sometimes feel more akin to male fan service than a film by and for young women. Maybe that’s interrogating the film from an unsuitable angle, but even then—this young women’s comedy is often awkward, laborious and scattered. Now, I won’t exactly call it terrible—the three leads are cute and bubbly enough that the film does earn a few chuckles and sympathetic smiles. Absent too-pointed questions, Girls 2: Girls vs Gangsters is all quite silly—not particularly good, but likable enough to get a bare pass as pure entertainment.

  • Moby Dick (1956)

    Moby Dick (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) Considering the central place of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick in the American literary canon, any film adaptation would be an ambitious undertaking, roughly akin to Captain Ahab’s maniacal quest for the Great White Whale that maimed him. It’s hard to imagine a better director for that gigantic endeavour than a middle-aged John Huston, considering the ways his directorial style has been described. In some ways, this adaptation is quite good: With novelist-screenwriter Ray Bradbury cracking the case of adapting a very long book into a movie, the script is not bad. Some very good production means (for a mid-1950s movie) have gone into recreating the world of a whaling ship and the gigantic animal they intend to fight. Where Moby Dick doesn’t do as well is in a small but crucial detail—casting. Specifically, the casting of Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab—look, no one ever dislikes Peck, but he is far too well-mannered to be an effective Ahab. You want someone able to spittle around their grandiose rants, with crazy eyes and stabby hands. In other words: Not Peck. It’s not that he’s bad, it’s just that he’s not close enough to the ideal version of the character. This is driven even deeper with the knowledge that John Huston was right there, behind the camera rather than in front of it. Or that Orson Welles shows up briefly for a cameo but not as Ahab. Too bad—with a fresh coat of CGI paint and another lead actor, this Moby Dick could be much, much better.

  • Living in the Future’s Past (2018)

    Living in the Future’s Past (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) As its remarkably evocative title suggests, Living in the Future’s Past is a high-level, large-scope mediation on humanity’s place in its environment, how to think about a sustainable future, and what kind of world we create by our large-scale actions. Actor-producer Jeff Bridges narrates the film in addition to having had a substantial impact on its themes, and his gravelly voice is a joy to listen to. But better yet still is the sharp high-definition cinematography, reaching into nature footage and CGI to present a visual soundtrack to the narration. The editing is often too rapid, but it’s a nice change of pace from the film’s many talking heads. Alas, Living in the Future’s Past has many of its qualities’ flaws: it’s unfocused, shallow, a bit twee at times and unable to settle on a clear approach. But for its faults, I still found it irresistibly optimistic, hopeful and energizing—it’s not a documentary per se as much as an essay about tackling challenges.

  • Land of the Pharaohs (1955)

    Land of the Pharaohs (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) Years after the disappointing release of Land of the Pharaohs, director Howard Hawks admitted that he had taken up the job for the opportunity to work in widescreen CinemaScope. He did have a point—it’s impossible to watch the film and not be impressed by the sheer large-scale cast-of-thousands scope of the entire production. The story takes us to the construction of the pyramids, and it practically recreates the effort at scale: the making of the film involved official cooperation from the Egyptian government to unearth the foundations of an unfinished pyramid, and secured the cooperation of the army for the in-camera recreation of sequences with up to ten thousand extras. It’s a mind-boggling production story, one that will never be repeated considering CGI economies of scale, and an effort that is immediately visible on-screen. And yet, despite Hawks orchestrating such a production, Land of Pharaohs feels like a miss—by itself, but also as a piece of Hawks’ filmography. Gone is the whip-fast dialogue, the competent heroine and the sense of urban sophistication: this is a film that, in keeping with the sweeping historical epics of the time, deals in arch fake-profound dialogue, a very conventional role for the heroine, and a weird sense of historical recreation that never feels too far away from Hollywood’s sense of history rather than any real effort to commit to the historical era. The plot, about the pyramid’s architect trying to find a way to make the pyramid robber-proof while escaping being executed to keep its secrets, is fine without being as good as the setting. The eye-popping presentation of the pyramid’s construction far outshines anything in the plot, which doesn’t give as much weight to the rest of the film. The best-known star here is Joan Collins as the female lead, and while she’s very attractive, she’s not that good of an actress. While you can easily justify watching Land of the Pharaohs for its visual aspect, the rest of the film is a disappointment, and perhaps even a double disappointment considering the rest of Hawks’ filmography. This being said, I did find one aspect of the film amusing: as someone whose day job consists of managing “architects” of sorts, I had a load of fun passing on some of the film’s most pretentious lines of dialogue: “I do not intend to punish you, architect, but to reward your skill,” “Work swiftly, architect,” “Well, architect, you sent word you had a plan,” “I did believe in you once, architect,” “You have served me well, architect,” “I will not bargain with you, architect,” “Architect, I understand that you’re ready to start work on the inner labyrinth…”…

  • The Sea Wolf (1941)

    The Sea Wolf (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) Let’s see: A Jack London maritime adventure novel brought to the big screen by director Michael Curtiz, and starring no less than Edward G. Robinson as a sadistic sea captain, John Garfield as a hero protagonist and a beautiful Ida Lupino as the love interest? Oh yes, there’s ample reason to have a look at the 1941 adaptation of The Sea Wolf. Reportedly the best of the numerous film version of the novel, this one does get a crucial element right: Robinson as the antagonist, a formidable presence for an equally fearsome character. Lupino is certainly an asset as well, but the film’s execution through a foggy studio set means that the atmosphere of the seagoing ship is appropriately claustrophobic and oppressive. The plot goes a bit further than an already-interesting adventure story to become a small-scale illustration of the dangers of fascism, which adds quite a bit to the result. Good special effects (for the time) and tons of atmosphere complete the portrait. While it has the clunkiness of the technical means available to studio-bound 1940s filmmakers, The Sea Wolf is nonetheless a good adaptation and a fair adventure story in its own right.

  • The Naked Spur (1953)

    The Naked Spur (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) I’m somewhat familiar with James Stewart’s filmography of the 1930s and 1940s, but not so much about the movies he did during the 1950s, a time when he consciously sought to remake his image away from the young romantic premiers or everymen characters that made his success in previous decades. By the 1950s, he sought to reinvent himself in darker, more rugged roles, often in western settings. The Naked Spur does seem like a rather good introduction to that era, as he plays a bounty hunter who heads into the wilderness to track down a man with whom he has a very personal grudge. A mere handful of characters populate The Naked Spur, giving a quasi-theatrical focus on the story even as the film is set against expansive western landscapes. The story itself gets darker as it evolves, with the characters eventually working against each other in order to secure the reward or their vengeance. Stewart himself plays a harsher character this time around, obsessed with revenge and definitely not amiable as usual. Janet Leigh is there as a possibly unreliable love interest, with director Anthony Mann completing one of his many collaborations with Stewart. The result is a cut above most westerns—a close-knit, rather short character drama set against the grandeur of the Rockies.

  • “G” Men (1935)

    “G” Men (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) There’s a really interesting context to “G” Men that gives an added dimension to what could otherwise be dismissed as blunt pro-police propaganda, and it’s really no accident if this is a film from exactly 1935. At the time, producing studio Warner Brothers was far better known as a purveyor of gangster pictures, many of them taking a hypocritical approach to crime by glorifying the criminal… before ensuring that he was perfunctorily punished for his crimes right before the end credits. But this ended up being a factor in the drive to rein in Hollywood with an expansive Production Code of what could be shown on-screen—a code that went into effect in 1934, putting an end to the freewheeling Pre-Code era and posing a specific problem for Warner Brothers, as their best-known product was directly threatened. One of their solutions was to flip the script around and make policemen the heroes catching the criminals, and that brings us squarely to “G” Men, a film following an incorruptible young man (played by the roguish James Cagney, hilariously enough) as he joins the then-rather-newly named FBI to take down an organized crime boss. There’s a little bit of training, romance and action in the following scenes, as the film starts putting together the building blocks of the FBI’s reputation as a fearsome federal agency (a reputation that FBI chief Hoover would capitalize upon—indeed, the most commonly shown version of “G” Men is the 1949 re-release with an even blunter framing device introducing it as a training film for recruits. I can’t quite call “G” Men a good film—it plays in now-obvious clichés, outright propaganda and very familiar plot elements—but it’s certainly a fascinating illustration of the immediate impact that the Hays Code had on Hollywood… and the ever-creative solutions that studio executives will find to deliver more or less the same thing as per the tastes of the day.

  • Disraeli (1929)

    Disraeli (1929)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) It’s amusing to go back in time and find things that will strike you as being quite modern. There are at least two strands in Disraeli that still feel quite novel, even for an early-sound-era film. They’re certainly not technical: As befit a film from the 1920s that may or may not have been restored lately, the images are often-blurry blends of various grays with few strong black or white tones. The audio is marred by constant hiss and poor audio fidelity. But when you take a look at the script, two things are striking: For one, it’s an attempt to portray the grander-than-life British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, but taking the modern approach of looking at a moment in history for the historical figure rather than attempting a multi-decade sweeping epic, as was far more common through Hollywood history. (It helps that it was based on a play which, by definition, is more concerned about unity of time than most movies.) Here, Disraeli focuses on the events surrounding the purchase of the Suez Canal, encapsulating Disraeli’s character through the various manoeuvres required to achieve his objectives. But in an almost-equally important subplot, Disraeli is also portrayed as a semi-comic figure playing matchmaker to a young couple, echoing the amusing historical reinterpretation of such movies as 1994’s I.Q. The result is undoubtedly rough to watch from a strictly audio/video perspective (Wikipedia notes that the sole surviving version is a 1934 re-release, with material forever cut to appease censors) but the result is a great deal of fun from a script perspective, and gives an accessible reason to be interested in the historical figure.

  • Executive Suite (1954)

    Executive Suite (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) I am fascinated by tales of boardroom intrigue, a fascination that comes from my background as a white-collar office drone, constantly aware and at the mercy of senior management shenanigans. I also suspect that such high-level executive machinations are perhaps the closest modern equivalent to palace intrigue, what with the king having to deal with his scheming courtiers in modern attire. No matter the reason, I found myself very quickly drawn into Executive Suite’s steely-eyed depiction of the feeding frenzy that follows the death of a furniture magnate, as two visions of the company battle it out in a succession drama played in voting shares and personal grudges. The film’s opening moments are remarkable, as a first-person point of view of someone sending a telegram and going out to take a taxi turns tragic when the person dies and his wallet is stolen. It turns out that we’ve just seen the death of a company president, and the wallet theft means that no one (except for one executive using this knowledge for insider trading) will realize what happened for another day. The film settles down a bit after this fantastic opening sequence, but the sides are steadily described, what with a quality-conscious designer going up against a penny-pinching financial officer for control of the company. There are many similarities here with 1956’s Patterns, but Executive Suite is a solid drama of moves and counter-moves (with a seriousness underscored by, well, the lack of a score), with a likable hero played by William Holden and decent supporting roles for Barbara Stanwyck, Fredrick March and Shelley Winters. Director Robert Wise’s approach to the material is decidedly close to the ground, but there’s a decent understated flourish to the script, as it quickly sketches characters, and sometimes catches them in compromising positions. I don’t expect everyone to be as enthralled by Executive Suite as I was, but there’s something carefully balanced about its dramatic plotting and its almost realistic approach to the material.

  • B.F.’s Daughter (1948)

    B.F.’s Daughter (1948)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) I know, intellectually, that there are thousands of perfectly enjoyable movies that have been more or less forgotten by history. Still, it’s always fun to catch some random film on TCM and be unexpectedly charmed by the result. I probably recorded B.F.’s Daughter because it stars Barbara Stanwyck—she’s one of the few stars of the 1940 that I find interesting in her own right and not simply as a variation on leading lady stereotypes. But the story of the film does have a way of drawing audiences in, as our protagonist, the daughter of a rich self-made man, decides to trade off an ambitious upper-society lawyer boyfriend, for a humble working-class academic. It does help that the male lead is played by Van Heflin, a likable actor I’ve recently put in perspective thanks to such movies as East Side, West Side. But that whirlwind romance is only the beginning of a story that stretches over ten years and into World War II, as our hero becomes a noted academic and a trusted advisor to the upper sphere of the US government thanks to hard work… and an initial secret push from his wife. Their romance is prickly, complicated by other factors and severely put in jeopardy thanks to a crucial evening. Much of the third act is dedicated to the resolution of two crises, as the heroine suspects her estranged husband is having an affair (he’s not in the film, but he was in the original novel), and her old flame is presumed dead over the Pacific. It’s not really a great movie, but I thoroughly enjoyed Stanwyck and Heflin at work, and the look at the professional progression of an academic over a few years is the kind of material I actually enjoy watching. By the time the film raises issues about selling out principles in favour of access, I was as invested in those ideas as the central romance. Some movies, for lack of better descriptions, simply click and B.F.’s Daughter is one of those: I approached it without too many expectations and was very pleased by the results. Now let’s keep watching older films to see what other happy surprises are hidden in the archives…

  • Rose-Marie (1936)

    Rose-Marie (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) If I was in a cheeky mood, I could try to use the 1936 version of Rose-Marie to make a point about American cultural appropriation of Canadian iconography, and there are quite a few howlers in there. Rose-Marie (second of three versions of the same story, following a 1924 silent version and prior to a colour version in 1954) is about a singer searching for her criminal brother in the Canadian wilds, accompanied by a tall and handsome Mountie. It’s a musical, but musically, it draws its inspiration more from opera than Broadway musicals—the protagonist, like Jeanette MacDonald, is a soprano, and most of the songs (including the signature “Indian Love Call”) are very much tailored to classical singers. That means that the lighthearted comic tone that we often associate with musicals of the period is sorely toned down here—it’s a romance first, and a comedy merely by virtue of not ending horribly. It does satisfy, I suppose, but then there’s my maple-leaf emblazoned axe to grind. Playing with “Canadian references” as shoddily as any other non-Californian culture, Rose-Marie quickly accumulates howlers. The opening sequence has the protagonist being greeted warmly by the Premier of Québec, with the language question being almost completely absent in their exchange. (Well, she does sing Romeo and Juliet in phonetic French, but that’s it.) The English-French language question remains almost completely removed from the rest of the film, but there are more visual absurdities to take care of, including our protagonist travelling to “Northern Québec,” which has the backdrop of the Rockies mountains. The musical montage “The Mounties” is oddly affectionate in singing about how they always get their men, but we’re clearly playing with a bunch of Canadian clichés thrown in a blender at this point. It gets much, much worse once the native characters are introduced, with Eastern tribes wearing Prairies-type headgear and dancing around Western totems. My brain, normally adept at ignoring such cultural absurdities, basically broke down at this point and I’m not sure if I remember much more of the rest of the film than an early (and somewhat atypical) role for a young James Stewart as the protagonist’s criminal brother. (There’s also David Niven as a suitor, but he’s barely in the film.) Although I definitely remember the numerous howlings of “Oo-Oo-Oo-Oo, Oo-Oo-Oo-Oo When I’m calling you Oo-Oo-Oo-Oo, Oo-Oo-Oo-Oo Will you answer too? Oo-Oo-Oo-Oo, Oo-Oo-Oo-Oo.” I won’t even discuss the Metis character (or, for that matter, the Mountie) to spare you some harsh language. But let’s acknowledge one thing—Rose-Marie itself is somewhat innocuous: we know where it’s going, and it’s not because the film was shot in the Sierra Nevada’s Lake Tahoe passing itself for “Lake Chibougam” (an obvious bastardization of Chibougamau) that the rest of the film has to be thrown away. If you’re willing to be amused at its absurdities, it’s even charming in its own quaint way. Heck, it’s kind of interesting to feel first-hand the same kind of cultural indignation that other cultures must feel every time Hollywood comes playing in their cultural backyard: It does recalibrate the debate.

  • The Wizard (1989)

    The Wizard (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) As it happens, I was just about the right age to be fascinated by The Wizard when it came out… except that even then, I was a PC player rather than a console one. I distinctly recall the Nintendo-driven marketing push for The Wizard—the Power Glove, the reveal of Super Mario 3, the early glimpse at what would become the eSport scene… but somehow, perhaps fortunately, didn’t see the film until now. Which may have been for the best, considering the period feel that now distinctly lends some unplanned charm to The Wizard. The plot itself is a bizarre amalgamation between a video-game tournament entirely sponsored by Nintendo, and a teen road movie with some very dark undertones featuring runaway kids making their way across the continent for closure. Borrowing a page from the Tommy rock opera, our teen protagonists anoint themselves the guardians of a savant videogame player and decide to exploit his gaming skills by taking him to a tournament with a substantial cash prize. Following them are the worried sets of relatives (the genealogy of the characters is complex) and an unscrupulous bounty hunter. There’s more plot than expected here, although much of it does feel subservient to the demands of the film’s marketing-driven premise. A lot of it has aged, but the jury will stay out for a while as to whether it’s now dated or charmingly quaint. There are some sequences fit to make anyone cringe (I’m specifically thinking of the introduction of the !!POWER GLOVE!!), but there is some rather nostalgic value in seeing the characters react to now-classic gaming paraphernalia. It does add quite a bit to a story that, absent the videogame angle, would have been almost instantly forgettable. The film may have otherwise been only known as a minor early entry for Christian Slater and Beau Bridges. As it is now, it’s a bit of a time capsule for Nintendo’s glory days with the original NES—something that plays well to today’s 1980s nostalgia wave.

  • Johnny Guitar (1954)

    Johnny Guitar (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2020) I don’t normally like Joan Crawford (Mommy Dearest didn’t help), but she is a force of nature in Johnny Guitar, a film that, despite its title, actually revolves around her. The titular Johnny (played by Sterling Hayden) initially gives us the impression that he’s going to be one of those singing cowboys matinee idols as he enters a saloon in the middle of nowhere and starts strumming and crooning. But the drama quickly displaces the music, as Crawford’s character (the owner of the saloon) comes in and sets the plot in motion. Her saloon is not built in the middle of nowhere as much as on the path of a future railway; nearby townspeople are insanely envious, and she has close ties to one of the local hoodlums. Our guitar-toting hero is also an ex-flame, and when the local bank is robbed in her presence, everything goes up in flames. A somewhat unpredictable screenplay and a steady descent into heavier and heavier drama do help make the most out of Johnny Guitar’s western elements. Crawford finds an equally impressive opponent in Mercedes McCambridge’s vengeful antagonist (a somewhat unusual case of a female antagonist in western films, if I’m not mistaken)—it’s said that the two women wouldn’t stand each other off the set as well. Nice outdoors colour cinematography also helps in wrapping up a package that’s far more interesting than your usual western.