Reviews

  • Les Boys (1997)

    Les Boys (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2020) In the universe of French-Canadian movies, Les Boys is practically an institution. It’s not a great movie, but it’s close to the reality of its audiences, studded with local stars and was an immense commercial success. Not only was it the highest-grossing Canadian film of 1997, it was followed by no less than three sequels and a five-season TV series featuring more or less the same cast. You can call it essential viewing for French-Canadian fans… which makes it embarrassing that it took me 22 years to watch it. The film does start well, as it introduces the members of an amateur hockey team the likes of which pepper French-Canadian cities. Our characters work during the day so that they can play once a week at night: Hockey is their third place, and it wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the local brasserie after the game. Whatever plot is in the film takes the form of a high-stakes wager between the team sponsor and a local mob boss – leading to a match where either the sponsor gets his $50,000 debt erased, or he signs away the ownership of the brasserie to the mob boss. But that’s a mere pretext for following our ensemble cast, as they have romantic issues at home and come together to play. When Les Boys ends (with the expected victory, don’t worry), it feels like half of a movie: the cast is so large and so top-heavy in local celebrities that it spreads itself thin: We’re introduced to all the members of the team, and even just showing them all at home takes somewhere like fifteen minutes. Unable to focus, Les Boys ends up with half a plot, and an immensely predictable one at that. Of course, this is not a film to be watched for narrative intrigue – the point is the portrayal of characters not unlike their audience, and the triumph of victory that erases a number of their ongoing personal issues. Les Boys is not refined, but it’s quite a good time – While I’ve never played hockey, the people feel like people I’d know, doing familiar things and speaking in the thickest joual imaginable.

  • Cleopatra (1912)

    Cleopatra (1912)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) I admit that I didn’t watch the 1912 version of Cleopatra for the plot. I was far more interested in what a state-of-the-art feature film looked like at the time – this is almost certainly the oldest feature film I’ve seen so far (Un voyage dans la lune is older but much shorter) and it also ranks as one of the first American feature films ever produced. There are, obviously, two ways to see it: Either as its own thing, or insisting on comparing it to what came after. When measured against current movies, this Cleopatra couldn’t be more technically primitive: The acting is as broad as pantomime, the static camera never moves or zooms (although there are a handful of close-ups later during the film, as it attempts to film around the idea of a sea battle) and there are no less than 106 numbered title cards in an 88-minute film. The 2000 restoration is fine, except for the jarring inclusion of songs with lyrics. On the other hand, the film does remain impressive for what it tried doing at the dawn of the movie age: present a full narrative at a time when short films were the norm, and recreate a historical setting through costumes, outdoors shooting and the adaptation of a theatrical play. Cleopatra does remain far more interesting as an illustration of how far we’ve come in nearly eleven decades of movie innovation, but I can see why it wowed the crowds back then.

  • Ghoulies (1984)

    Ghoulies (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) There are a few good ideas in Ghoulies (a young man inheriting a house of evil power, notably), but they are certainly not given any justice here. An awkward blend of horror and ineptness, Ghoulies can’t even depend on low-budget limitations for its issues. Nothing works here — whether it’s a script that doesn’t know how to do even the simplest things, the substandard actors or the blunt directing. The script is so bland that it struggles to keep our attention. I know that some reviewers have called this film a comedy, but that’s being overly indulgent over something that just doesn’t work. I did like Lisa Pelikan as the voice of reason / possessed girlfriend, and the creature effects do seem to belong in a (slightly) better movie. But Ghoulies isn’t it – not much to see here, although I suppose that when it comes to horror, I will always enjoy a monster feature crossed with a satanic cult story over a straight-up slasher.

  • Killer Workout aka Aerobi-cide (1987)

    Killer Workout aka Aerobi-cide (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2020) The 1980s were a low point for many things, including made-for-video horror movies and exercise tapes. Now here’s Killer Workout doing its best to fuse the two. The premise is nothing more complicated than a serial killer selecting victims inside an aerobics workout studio. As with similar slashers, it’s schematic in its construction – clearly imitating better movies along the way. It doesn’t take a long time to realize that this is not going to be a good movie, whether it’s the primitive opening credits (displayed in VHS blurriness even on a high-definition channel – the film cannot be remastered in HD), the opening tanning bed that somehow catches fire, or the establishing shots of the workout studio that showcase an embarrassing amount of T&A. The rest isn’t much better, with a strikingly incompetent policeman investigating the murders, the attractive black girl dying first, a ludicrous murder weapon (an oversized safety pin!?!), action sequences thrown carelessly as filler between the slasher horror and a baffling conclusion that holds absolutely no surprise. Looking at writer-director David A. Prior’s biography is informative, as he spent his entire career churning out cheap straight-to-video features starring his brother. If Killer Workout is representative of the rest of his filmography, here’s nothing further to see there – it’s strikingly inept filmmaking, cheap and boring at the same time. Fans of terrible movies may get a kick out of it, but there are really much better, much funnier movies out there.

  • Nan ji jue lian [Till the End of the World] (2018)

    Nan ji jue lian [Till the End of the World] (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2020) Sometimes, a film has to choose between romance and adventure. Till the end of the world ends up picking romance, and that does not mean a happy ending. The premise of the film couldn’t be more evocative, as a shallow businessman and a serious scientist crash-land in Antarctica with scarcely any hope of being rescued. Making their way to an abandoned cabin, they set out to engineer their own return to civilization… but will they manage it in time? Impressively enough, the film resists the indulgence of flashbacks showing how we got there. A good portion of the film was shot in Antarctica itself, and the plot keeps focus on the characters as they learn to trust each other and fall in love along the way. When the third act comes rolling in, we’ve already seen all of what the southernmost continent has to offer in terms of dangers and wonders. All that’s left is the final rescue, but as I said – the film has to pick between adventure and romance, and goes for full-bore romantic tragedy. I felt that it was the wrong choice after so much hardship– but then again, it’s not my movie. Shot with impressive technical credentials (even though the special effects are, typically for Chinese movies, not always polished), it’s an adventure film not too dissimilar to The Mountain Between Us, if it wasn’t for a somewhat more tragic approach. I liked the film on a purely visual level (and had no choice at times, since the subtitles were often too small and impossible to read against a white backdrop at standard TV resolution) even despite the catalogue approach to the Antarctic features and some very unlikely scenes. (That whale skeleton on the beach? A bit too tidy.) There’s an admirable purity is keeping the focus on the two characters and the Antarctic continent itself… almost enough to forgive a disappointing conclusion.

  • Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

    Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) It took a remarkably long time for Jason and the Argonauts to deliver what I was expecting from it. Renowned for its Ray Harryhausen stop-motion animation, I was expecting a fantasy adventure with wall-to-wall special effects, or at least a continuous string of them. I was not prepared for a first half-hour of tedious Greek mythological babble, almost entirely absent any fantastic element. It starts building midway through, first with disappointing special effects (that bronze statue… ugh), but then with increasing confidence. It culminates in a captivating skeleton battle sequence that is easily worth the bother of watching the film. I probably overdosed on Greek mythology a while back and couldn’t appreciate much of Jason and the Argonauts, but the film gets better and better as it goes on, and has the good sense of culminating on a classic special effects sequence that’s still worth a look today.

  • Irma Vep (1996)

    Irma Vep (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) As someone who likes metafiction films, has watched rather a lot of 1990s Hong Kong films and who has a better-than-average understanding of French movies, I have a bit of trouble accepting that I hadn’t seen Irma Vep until now. After all, it’s a film about the making of a film featuring none other than Hong Kong icon Maggie Cheung as an actress asked to star in a French movie adapting a silent-era film to modern times. This being a low-budget production from an unstable director, the production is extremely troubled: Cheung (playing herself) is left to her own devices most of the time, hit upon by her production assistant, gradually fascinated by the tight-fitting suit she’s asked to wear, stuck answering dumb questions from incompetent interviewers, and has trouble explaining the director’s increasingly erratic decisions. It ends badly for the film, albeit not so much for Cheung. (In real-life, she ended up meeting, falling in love and marrying Irma Vep’s director for a few years.) There are clear echoes of Truffaut’s La nuit américaine, although Irma Vep is far more realistic about the process of making a movie – here we have people obsessed about financing, logistics, costumes and overtime, leaving questions of artistic merit as an afterthought. I probably would have liked it had it featured a stronger ending, but Irma Vep can be tons of fun along the way.

  • Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse [The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse] (1960)

    Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse [The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse] (1960)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2020) The only thing more amazing about Dr. Mabuse getting a second sequel nearly forty years after the first film is that the same director, the legendary Fritz Lang, was around to helm it. Updating the Mabuse mythos to the Cold War era (all the while following the previous two films), The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse is a satisfying follow-up: Mabuse seems more credible than in his silent film debut, and the action does end up updating the car chase of the second instalment to then-contemporary standards. I found it surprisingly interesting, and a further link between the original Mabuse and the supervillain archetype that became more popular in films during the 1960s. I don’t completely like it (some of the plotting is just ridiculous) and it can’t hope to touch the original in terms of historical importance, but The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse is probably the easiest one to watch these days. That it happened to be Lang’s final film rather puts a full-circle bow on his career.

  • It Came from Outer Space (1953)

    It Came from Outer Space (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) The title of It Came from Outer Space is now the stuff of easy clichés and a cheap summation of most 1950s monster science fiction movies. But imagine my surprise when the actual film ends up significantly more thoughtful and less paranoid than the usual examples of the form. Contrarily to other monster films of the time (and there are quite a few similarities between this film and Invasion of the Body Snatchers), the alien turns out to be largely benign, and more interested in repairing its ship than eating humans. The hero is the one who first figures it out and fights for the humans to leave the aliens alone – the conclusion is surprisingly humanistic by the era’s standards, albeit not surprisingly so when you learn that Ray Bradbury wrote the original treatment at the origin of the movie.  Friendly alien stories are now about as commonplace as killer-alien ones, but this was a real revelation at the time, and it does offer a counterbalance to most other well-known 1950s science fiction films. It’s also fascinating that the title of the film (much like the contemporary Them!, far more intelligent than similar films) has been appropriated to represent films that are almost entirely opposed to the lessons of this one. On a technical level, the cinematography is clever (including the use of fisheye camera lenses to represent the alien’s viewpoint), and both Richard Carlson and Barbara Rush make for credible protagonists. Holding up much better than many of its contemporaries, It Came from Outer Space emerges as close to being an essential 1950s science-fiction film.

  • Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

    Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) Some experiences transcend time and space, and so the premise described by Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House carries through the decades all the way to now. While I haven’t had the experience of contracting the building of a new house, I have enough experience with major renovations to sympathize with the lead character as he engineers his family’s move from a cramped Manhattan apartment to a Connecticut country estate… which has to be torn down and built anew. Cary Grant is perfect for the demands of the role: he can go from patrician to bewildered in the same scene, not to mention a climactic scene of righteous indignation at the accumulated costs of his new house. Numerous comic sketches pepper the rather simple narrative – obviously, this is a film meant to put one comic set-piece after another, and gradually crank the pressure on the protagonist until he cracks. Grant does get a few capable actors to play with: Myrna Loy makes for a very reasonable wife (except for her flower sink, whatever that is), while Melvyn Douglas brings the snark into the movie as a sarcastic friend/lawyer trying to keep the protagonist out of trouble, only to fall into the same madness from time to time. The picture of dealing with contractors is still hilariously accurate, although a jealousy subplot seems to fit badly. While the film is a comic success, modern audiences may find less to laugh about in a few scenes: There’s a tone-deaf breakfast table discussion in which the children talk about their progressive ideals, for instance… while a black maid works behind them. Later on, that same black maid provides a creative spark that the lead character desperately needs to keep his new house – and while the film acknowledges her contribution by giving her a whole ten-dollar raise, it does leave a less-than-ideal impression. Oh well – this is a film from the late 1940s, after all. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is about as funny as its titles suggest – it got quite a few honest laughs from me, and not all of the film’s success can be attributed to Grant as the headliner.

  • Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)

    Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2020) These have been some very disappointing adaptations of Jules Verne novels in the 1950s-1960s, but Journey to the Centre of the Earth is not one of them… even if it’s often not really faithful at all. A special-effects spectacle, the film spends far too much time on its first act, laboriously setting up plot elements that could have been handled far more snappily. Fortunately, the fun begins once the characters head deep under the Earth, and start encountering a series of special effects showcases, from geodes to gigantic creatures to table-size mushrooms to a volcano about to explode. It’s easy to like a film that features both the distinctive voice of James Mason and the luscious red curls of Arlene Dahl. Deservedly shot in widescreen colour, Journey to the Center of the Earth was meant as a special-effects powerhouse and feels like it: It won the 1959 Visual Effects Academy Award, and lavishly spends time showing off. Those special effects may look a bit ridiculous now, but the still get the message across. As a lighthearted adventure, it ends rather happily with our group of explorers returning to share their tales. Much of what’s in the film is a pumped-up version of the original novel – with added romance, murder and thrills. But the spirit of Verne’s novel, with its cheerful exploration and return to civilization, is completely intact… and that makes all the difference.

  • La cage aux folles (1978)

    La cage aux folles (1978)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second or third or fourth viewing, On Cable TV, August 2020) I came to La cage aux folles from a very strange vantage point: I distinctly remember watching this film a few times on French-Canadian TV as a kid, but my most recent memories are those of its Americanized remake The Birdcage. Comparing this film to its own remake may be a faux-pas, but it may not be as bad as you’d think given that the original definitely holds up. Perhaps my biggest surprise is how faithful the remake is to the original: Most of the story beats are common to both movies, and almost all of the characters are there in both movies as well. What the French original doesn’t have for viewers such as myself is the weight of the actor’s persona — Michel Serrault is terrific as an over-dramatic drag queen, but his presence doesn’t have the additional context of seeing Nathan Lane in the same role. It does, in many ways, make the La cage aux folles purer: you’re evaluating it on its own merits rather than through its star-power. Fortunately, its merits are considerable. Amazingly enough for a film from the late 1970s, the treatment of its homosexual characters may be comic and caricatural, but it remains remarkably respectful. The comic sequences are funny, and the internal workings of the plot engine are solid. It’s a strong comedy, playing with different characters, some of them flamboyant and others not so much. The actors deliver the material with confidence, and the complications and lies get crazier and crazier until the only way out is the truth. It speaks well to La cage aux folles that its 1996 remake wasn’t substantially different… even though we may wonder if the same film could be made today.

  • CinemAbility: The Art of Inclusion (2018)

    CinemAbility: The Art of Inclusion (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) The first step in activism is awareness, and CinemAbility: The Art of Inclusion certainly presents an impressive overview of Hollywood’s attempts at inclusiveness for differently abled characters and actors. It’s a longer history than you’d expect – Hollywood has often featured characters with various disabilities, but as the film points out, their portrayal has often been problematic – either as freaks or people to pity, often in Oscar-winning performances. Throughout its historical overview, CinemAbility tries to untangle the issues revolving around its topic – should able-bodied actors be selected over actors with specific disabilities? At its best, CinemAbility is able to feature contradictory points of view on the same topics. A very generous helping of celebrity and expert interviews pepper the documentary, discussing their own involvement in the topic and related issues. Still, those celebrity interviews often distract: they often are, after all, able-bodied actors talking about conditions that they have, at best, imitated. But then again– starpower is starpower, especially in attracting people to see the film. But even without those celebrity interviews, CinemAbility would stand as the definitive documentary on its topic – entertaining, detailed, erudite when it needs to be and easy to watch the rest of the time. Writer-director Jenni Gold has worked for years to bring the documentary to the finish line and the result was certainly worth it.

  • Larry Crowne (2011)

    Larry Crowne (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2020) It’s interesting that Larry Crowne came and went with nearly no lasting impact – after all, it’s a Tom Hanks movie: he produced, co-wrote, directed and starred in it, clearly making this film his by any measure. It’s not a large-scale film: it revolves around a middle-aged man struggling to find meaning to his life after becoming unemployed. He can’t find a job, can’t make his house payments, and even his SUV is too expensive to run. The natural solution is to enroll to community college, make better financial choices and start riding a scooter to school. As we know, college is an opportunity to meet new people and change your life, meaning that he gets the attention of a free-spirited student and his burnt-out public speech teacher. Subplots include him using the teaching of his economics course (led by a self-absorbed professor hilariously played by George Takei) to straighten his situation and let go of the past. Larry Crowne’s biggest assets are its considerable charm and a terrific ensemble cast led by Hanks himself (in his everyman persona) and Julia Roberts as a dangerously disillusioned teacher at the end of her rope and her marriage. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is a ray of sunshine as a kind of character that could only exist in a movie, but does brighten up the entire film. Other familiar names, sometimes in very small roles, include Pam Grier, Cedric the Entertainer, Taraji P. Henson, Bryan Cranston and Rami Malek. The plot definitely has issues, and a credible argument could be made that the last thing we need is another film about a white male mid-life crisis. But Larry Crowne is almost ridiculously easy to watch – it has that immaterial “pleasure to watch” quality that simply keeps us smiling until the end. The romantic plot seems far-fetched (aren’t rebound relationships a bad thing?) and the interest that the younger characters take in the protagonist smacks of fantasy, but everyone is just so likable that it doesn’t matter much. It all amounts to a film that works preposterously well, but may not have the hook required to make a bigger impression. On a purely directorial level, Hanks meets his objectives here – there are clearly similarities with his earlier That Thing You Do! in terms of easy watchability, even though his craft may not be as apparent on a modern piece as opposed to a period one focused on music. Still, I can’t help but feel that its poor box office and general absence in film conversations means that Larry Crowne remains unfairly overlooked by everyone.

  • Scaramouche (1952)

    Scaramouche (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) Hey, let’s head back to royal France for some good old-fashioned land-bound swashbuckling! Scaramouche is the kind of expansive epic film that Hollywood was able to execute so well in the early 1950s. Filmed in bright colours, it adapts classic literature into an adventure meant for the big screen. Our hero is a young man ably played by the square-jawed Stewart Granger, who finds himself tempted by two women (the gorgeous red-headed Eleanor Parker, and the no less good-looking Janet Leigh) as he makes an enemy of an aristocratic master swordsman (deliciously played by Mel Ferrer). Realizing that he doesn’t stand a chance in combat, he goes hiding in a theatre troupe, hoping to sharpen his sword-fighting skills until he can confront his nemesis. The emphasis on the theatrical performance of comedia del arte allows Scaramouche to have some intentionally comic interludes in-between the bouts of action and swordplay, but don’t worry: it ends with a magnificent eight-minute sword-fight that goes all around and behind a theatre, blending all of the clichés of Hollywood fencing in a rather delightful package. It’s all quite charming, and an almost pitch-perfect of the kind of Hollywood was churning out on an assembly line at some point. It’s far less leadened than many other historical movies, and Parker is a sight to see while waiting for the climactic sword-fight. The far-fetched plot elements are insane, but completely in keeping with Scaramouche’s slightly feverish pace and attitude.