Reviews

  • The Seventh Sign (1988)

    The Seventh Sign (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2019) Somehow, I expected something both worse and better from the 1980s apocalyptic horror movie The Seventh Sign. The first two sequences set the tone, with a quasi-hilarious storm of clichés meant to foreshadow a biblical apocalypse of global proportions, executed in a gloriously overdone fashion. I was ready and primed to enjoy the campiness … and then the film goes dull. Really dull. Still ponderous, still overdone but not enjoyably so. Round-faced Demi Moore is cute enough as a pregnant woman only gradually noticing the portentous signs surrounding the upcoming birth of her child, but Michael Biehn is dull—only Jurgen Prochnow seems to understand the kind of film he’s in, playing every scene with unabashed menace. To be fair, some of the dumb fun comes back at the end, with a climactic sequence of such melodramatic magnitude that we’re finally back in camp territory. Alas, this lasts all of five minutes, leading to a pat ending that doesn’t quite manage to cap it off successfully. It doesn’t help that the film’s middle section is humdrum 1980s stuff, familiar without being comfortable. The Seventh Sign is by no means a good movie and never could have become one, but it’s not unreasonable to think that with a slightly different touch, it could have become an enjoyable one.

  • Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

    Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2019) There is a surprisingly robust subgenre of romantic time-travel movies out there, and Peggy Sue Got Married qualifies for inclusion even if it arguably hovers on the edge of it-was-all-a-dream justification. Here, no time-travel machine or magic potion: Our protagonist (played adequately by Kathleen Turner) faints at her high school reunion and wakes up in 1960 to relive her senior year. Much of Peggy Sue Got Married is a mixture of now-exasperating (because overdone) boomer nostalgia, with the expected comedy of a woman reliving her life with everything she’s learned over the next twenty-five years. Technology jokes, romantic do-overs and horrifying realizations about 1960 are all included. It feels very familiar (especially so close to the much more dynamic Back to the Future), but director Francis Ford Coppola keeps it together. For modern viewers, one of the best reasons to see Peggy Sue Got Married would be the grab-bag of before-they-were-famous actors, starting with Nicolas Cage but also including Joan Allen, Jim Carrey, Sofia Coppola and Helen Hunt. It works modestly, but it does work.

  • Tooth Fairy (2010)

    Tooth Fairy (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 2019) Nearly every modern action star has one in their filmography—a kid’s movie, meant to humanize their four-quadrant image, give them something to watch with their own kids, and provide them with an alternate side-line if ever they get too old for the action stuff. Their quality is … variable. Tooth Fairy is Dwayne Johnson’s kid’s movie, and it’s not one of the better examples of the form. It’s about nothing less than a disillusioned hockey enforcer (so renowned for dental harm that he’s nicknamed the Tooth Fairy) discovering that there is such a thing as tooth fairies … and that he’s been summoned in their ranks. Never mind the trite believe-in-your-dreams stuff—that’s on par for the form. What’s more annoying is the film’s choppy rhythm, occasionally dubious morality, multiplying subplots, syrupy execution and weird chronology. The hockey details are also often ludicrously wrong, but that’s to be expected from a Hollywood movie. Few things manage to distinguish Tooth Fairy from the morass of similar films, but there are a few: some of the worldbuilding details of the fantasy tooth fairies are fun, and the repartee between Johnson and Stephen Merchant has its moments. One thing that doesn’t count as much is Johnson’s charm, and that’s due to the same reason why I suspect he wouldn’t make the same movie today—his character here is portrayed as far more abrasive than his current screen persona: even as part of the film’s “here’s how he acted before knowing better” act, making the hero an arrogant dream-sapping hockey enforcer celebrated for the physical damage he inflicts on others is a curious choice, not to mention the sequence in the middle of the movie where he cheats his way to personal satisfaction. I don’t quite think that today’s mister-positivity Johnson would go back to that kind of character. And maybe that’s for the best. In the meantime, there’s Tooth Fairy to remind you of early-Rock movies.

  • The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger aka David Copperfield (1935)

    The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger aka David Copperfield (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) As faithful an adaptation of Dicken’s semi-autobiographical novel as could be expected from a mid-thirties Hollywood super production. (Today, David Copperfield would be best handled as a miniseries.)  Great production values, from costumes to sets to then-rare outdoors shots. But the film is perhaps best seen to the semi-amazing cast, including W. C. Fields in a more or less serious role, the incomparable Edna May Oliver in a likable role, and other 1930s notables such as Basil Rathbone and Lionel Barrymore. Directed by George Cukor, showing early prowess handling complex ensemble cast.

  • Buffalo ’66 (1998)

    Buffalo ’66 (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) The Classic Hollywood system of making movies had, for the longest while, the fortunate side-effect of segregating responsibility of a film in multiple roles. In old-school Hollywood, the studio hired craftsmen to execute a vision, diffusing responsibility in case of failure. (The same remains true today for large tent-pole projects.) This diffusion of responsibility cracks when you turn to the director-as-an-auteur theory, and dissipates even further when a single person assumes writing, directing, producing, and often acting duties. At that point, the film is so aligned with a single person that it’s not only easy to find blame for what goes wrong, but it’s possible to dislike a person because of their movie. So anyway—here we are talking about Buffalo ’66, a film in which Vincent Gallo is the writer, director, composer and star. (Everything I’m reading about the film’s production history also suggests that Gallo effectively produced and cinematographed the film himself, despite not being credited as such.)  It’s not necessarily good news for Gallo that for most of its duration, the film is a near-constant irritant. Built on a shaky foundation of an unhealthy relationship (as an ex-convict kidnaps a girl to become his girlfriend), the film is voluntarily low-budget with a muddy cinematography and gritty-to-dirty atmosphere. Gallo isn’t that much more likable as a protagonist, apparently testing audiences to what they’ll still find acceptable in an intensely unlikable protagonist. But Buffalo ’66 does have its saving graces. The cinematography is frequently inventive, and Gallo works his film toward a redemption arc both for himself and for the narrative. Improbably enough, considering the film’s refusal to play to conventions, it ends up in something that feels like a happy ending, no matter what we can think of the terrifyingly bad way our lead couple gets together. So … congratulations are in order, I guess—Gallo could have made a thoroughly detestable film and didn’t, which does help us think better of him. (On the other hand, he did reportedly alienate nearly everyone involved in the film’s production from Christina Ricci on down, so there’s that…)

  • While You Were Sleeping (1995)

    While You Were Sleeping (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, May 2019) It’s amazing how many romantic movies are built on a foundation of aberrant behaviour. At least While You Were Sleeping acknowledges that issue in the complications that follow when a lonely woman sets herself up as the fiancé of a man in a coma, and finds herself embraced by the rest of his family. It is, to be fair, a small triumph of execution from director Jon Turteltaub that the film comes across as sweet and romantic rather than problematic and stalkerish—although the filmmaking team wisely nixed the original idea that saw the roles gender-flipped. It certainly helps that the female lead here is Sandra Bullock in one of her breakthrough performances: she sells the “cute lonely girl” element essential for the film’s success, and having Pull Pullman as the true male lead also contributes. It’s all very familiar but well executed (with the tick-tick-ticking time bomb of the upcoming revelation adding dramatic tension), wrapped in Chicago flavour and set in the Christmas/New Year timeframe as a further excuse to be indulgent. While You Were Sleeping is still very much not a kind of behaviour to imitate in real life, but it’ll pass as a 1990s excuse for a romantic comedy.

  • Valley Girl (1983)

    Valley Girl (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2019) Considering that Valley Girl is a quasi-anthropologic study of life and love between Los Angeles neighbourhoods playing off the eponymous stereotype popularized by Frank Zappa, I clearly made a mistake by watching it in its French-Canadian dub: No amount of repetition of “… genre…” as an accurate translation of “… like…” is as charming as the stereotypical overuse of the word as punctuation in the original Valley dialect. At least the translation is on firmer footing when it comes to presenting a different-sides-of-the-track romance between a hippie Valley girl (Deborah Foreman) and a punk rockfish boy (Nicolas Cage) from Hollywood—the vaguely disreputable Hollywood as seen from another L.A. neighbourhood. Amusingly enough, Cage is here introduced by teenage girls squealing in admiration about his body, screaming, “He’s like a god!” One thing that doesn’t get lost in translation is the time-travelling aspect of going back to 1983 and taking a look at how teenagers (approximately) lived at the time, in between malls and music joints. (And that strange thing called sushi.)  The soundtrack may not be to everyone’s liking, but it is certainly evocative of a time and place. Director Martha Coolidge wasn’t looking to make a document for the ages with this low-budget romance, but that’s roughly what happened—Valley Girl wasn’t just a sizable hit at the time, but it endures as a fond memory. Next time, I’ll watch the original dub.

  • The Black Stallion (1979)

    The Black Stallion (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, May 2019) As someone who’s indifferent or immune to horse stories, I don’t have much to say about The Black Stallion, except perhaps that I’m glad it exists for those who do love horses and horse stories. The plot, summarized as “a boy and his horse,” spends a lot of time detailing how they meet in dramatic circumstances involving a shipwreck, then speeds up to describe the events leading to a big race. But much of the film is not as much about narrative than it is about visual presentation, atmosphere and simply enjoying the growing bond between the human protagonist and the horse. Mickey Rooney shows up in a late-career supporting role, while director Carroll Ballard keeps a tight rein over the film’s visual aspect. The Black Stallion is a specific kind of film for a not-so-specific audience—and you can see the parallels here with other stories such as Black Beauty and War Horse.

  • The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2018)

    The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) I have a few pre-existing objections to The Girl in the Spider’s Web, starting with the idea that it shouldn’t exist. Following the death of author Stieg Larsson, the Millennium series was set to remain a trilogy despite ambitious plans for more. In a fit of now-commonplace literary necrophilia, the publisher couldn’t stand to let potential profits escape them, and authorized the continuation of the series by another author. Hollywood, also disinclined to let potential profits go uncashed, soon greenlit the film adaptation of that additional novel and so here we are. (There’s also the additional complication of the initial trilogy being adapted to the big screen in three Swedish films and one American film, but let’s not go there.)  This second/fourth/reboot film doesn’t go light on convoluted tropes, as it pits series heroine against an international crime syndicate, links it all to her abusive childhood, brings her sister back from the dead (not literally) and uses a nuclear-code-access program as magical MacGuffin. Mikael Blomkvist is sidelined as a supporting character in his own series so that Lisbeth Salander gets all of the attention. Director Fede Alvarez jumps from horror to thriller with this film, but can’t do much with an ordinary script that seems content to nudge fans of the character while saying, “See, there’s more of what you wanted!”  Claire Foy exists as Salander but does not impress in the shadow of two far more striking performers in the same role, while the cold aesthetics of the film aren’t particularly striking this time around. It is slickly executed, though, and places more emphasis on action that the previous instalments’ sometimes very dialogue-heavy style. But in the end, The Girl in the Spider’s Web is a disposable product—not particularly memorable as a thriller, unable to escape the idea that it’s a film that can’t even justify its existence on anything but a coldly commercial level.

  • Irma la Douce (1963)

    Irma la Douce (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) Some Billy Wilder fans will probably be upset to see that I rank the writer-director’s Irma la Douce as second-tier Wilder—but in a long storied career like his, even a second-tier film can be quite respectable. The point being that I’ve seen all of his first-tier films by now, so what’s left is the rest. And while you can call Irma la Douce a good film, there’s no way you can call it a great one: its staggering length, at 147 minutes, runs against its lighthearted romantic comedy genre and gives far too many opportunities for the film to wander. Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine return from Wilder’s The Apartment as, respectively, a former policeman and a prostitute in the disreputable Parisian neighbourhood of Les Halles, where he hatches a devious plan to get her out of the prostitution racket. The lies and impersonations required for his scheme soon escalate, and power much of the film’s last half. All of this is shot in bright colourful tones, with green clothing being strongly associated with Irma. Lemmon is dependably funny, but considering that I don’t like MacLaine all that much, it’s a significant disappointment to learn that the project was originally meant to be for Marilyn Monroe. Adapted from a French stage musical (which explains some of the length without excusing it), Irma la Douce is a reasonably entertaining film, but it does overstay its welcome in ways that Wilder’s top movies don’t.

  • Suburban Commando (1991)

    Suburban Commando (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2019) The problem with star vehicles is that they make sense when the star is a star that people want to watch, but not so much once everybody wonders what the fuss was about. Made near the peak of Hulk Hogan’s fame, Suburban Commando is a pure vehicle that seems to revolve around a single gag: A super-strong extraterrestrial having trouble coping with the peculiar customs of American suburbia. Washi, rinse, repeat: It’s not very different from that other star vehicle Hercules in New York, which is somewhat ironic considering that this film was originally also intended for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Considering that Hulk Hogan was almost a comic character himself, the film logically lends itself to much comic violence. The script is meant to be a buddy-comedy kind of thing with a meek earthling learning how to be courageous from the fearless alien, so it’s Christopher Lloyd who gets the ingrate role of assuming the film’s character development quota. Meanwhile, Shelley Long doesn’t have much to do, although she does have a fun scene with a curly wig. Still, much of the film writes itself with few surprises along the way. You can watch the trailer and have a near-exact idea of Suburban Commando’s tone, plot and best jokes.

  • Sydney aka Hard Eight (1996)

    Sydney aka Hard Eight (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) I can’t say I’m a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson’s entire filmography, but a look at his first feature film reveals something far more conventionally enjoyable than his later, more ambitious but also more esoteric efforts. Hard Eight is a straight-ahead neo-noir, taking place in the demimonde of professional gamblers and small-time criminals. Here we have an elder gambling pro with a shady past (Philip Baker Hall, a bit of a revelation in a leading role), taking a younger, definitely dumber man (John C. Reilley, not really breaking out of his screen persona) under his wing. Things spin a bit out of control when the younger man gets enamoured of a cocktail waitress/prostitute (Gwyneth Paltrow, back when she deigned take on such roles), and a dangerous crook (Samuel L. Jackson, up to his usual standards) realizes he knows a secret. It’s not much of a plot (and one key element is far too much of a coincidence to be explained away), but Hard Eight plays it with restrained focus, leaving the spotlight for the actors to deliver understated work. The lean and mean crime plotting means that the film doesn’t try to bite off more than it can chew, and the entire result feels accomplished. Frankly, I liked it better than many of Anderson’s more acclaimed films … and I find it interesting how many of today’s leading filmmakers emerged in the mid-nineties by doing neo-noir (see Following and Seven).

  • The Net (1995)

    The Net (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2019) There would be nothing special about The Net being a mediocre cyber-thriller if it wasn’t that it’s an early mediocre cyber-thriller, presenting with breathless excitement a few things (online pizza ordering being the least of them) that we have since come to take as granted. It’s a profoundly paranoid and silly film, with familiar tropes dressed up in implausible graphical front-ends. Still, it’s good as an archeological expedition down the early strata of the Internet in popular fiction. I’m still a bit amazed that, being a computer science student building his own web site at the time, I never saw The Net in theatres—no matter: the second-best time to see it is right now given its mid-1990s charms. Speaking of which, there’s Sandra Bullock being cute and reacting to computer screens, while pre-insanity Dennis Miller turns up as a semi-repellent helper. Still, it’s the various cinematic attempts to make the early Internet accessible that hold our attention today, with graphical avatars and hidden identities being predictably part of the whole thing. In many other ways, it’s a bog-standard woman-on-the-run movie, with omnipresent cathode-ray monitors. There’s a definite charm to those 1990s cyber-thrillers (Hackers being the other one), and frankly The Net has aged better than more extreme examples as The Lawnmower Man or Johnny Mnemonic (as is; has become less remarkable in its overall plotting elements given how they’ve seeped into real life.) I’m not sure I’d recommend The Net as a movie, but as a period piece it’s already remarkably twenty-five years later, to a degree seldom as noticeable as other movies of the time.

  • Rudy (1993)

    Rudy (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) Despite a decade-long exposure, few aspects of American society have me going “You’ve got to be kidding me” more than its devotion to football. If I only knew American society through its movies, it’s clear that the world would be divided between winners (those who played, play, or will play football, plus its cheerleaders) and losers (everyone else). According to that logic, Rudy makes perfect sense—being about a simple-minded man whose biggest wish in life is to play football with the Notre Dame college team. It wouldn’t take much to see the film as a grotesque overblown parody, considering that it seemed convinced from the get-go of the rightful self-evidence of the protagonists’ quest. Football is love, football is life, football is God and everyone associated with Rudy, from the extras to the director, agree with that and if you don’t, well, you may not be an American. Never mind the thirst for concussions. This is a film about those people. It seems to have worked, with numerous outlets calling it an inspiring or even a definitive sports film. You do you, America.

  • The Snake Pit (1948)

    The Snake Pit (1948)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) Let’s face it—the 1940s aren’t known as a decade that promoted humane psychiatric treatments in institutional settings, and yet here we have The Snake Pit (adapted from a 1946 autobiographical novel) being an early attempt as a social-issues film decrying the extreme treatments practised at the time. Much of the film focuses on a young schizophrenic woman (Olivia de Havilland in a courageous performance, looking unglamorous and distressed) who finds herself in an insane asylum with no memory of how she got there. The depiction of the conditions at the psychiatric institute for women and the treatment she gets at the institution is far more realistic than you’d expect from a film from the Classic Hollywood era, making the film feel more like a product of the 1960s. Many directing flourishes from Anatole Litvak help unmoor the film from objective reality, taking cues from film noir and impressionistic cinema to portray the detached mind of its protagonist, elements of the environment (such as the titular snake pit, where patients are essentially abandoned without care) and treatments such as electroshock therapy. It’s recognizable as an early social-issues film, arguing for humane treatment. As a time capsule, it’s still compelling—helped along by a sympathetic attitude in portraying, with a certain accuracy, the lengthy and gradual healing process for mental illness rather than an irremediable condition. The Snake Pit’s production history teaches us that great care and research went into the making of the film, and while the result is rarely fun to watch, it does make for absorbing viewing and a product that, thanks to its humanity, stands the test of time.