Reviews

  • Six Degrees of Separation (1993)

    Six Degrees of Separation (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, March 2020) An early entry in the “Wil Smith can act” section of Smith’s filmography designed to eventually get him an Oscar, Six Degrees of Separation is tonally very different from the films that ensured Smith’s success: It’s a rather quiet comedy-drama (adapted from a stage play) in which Smith plays a gay conman insinuating himself in the lives of upper-class Manhattanites. Smith looks impossibly young here—this was his first big role, and it happened right in the middle of his Fresh Prince of Bel-Air run. Not that he’s the only one worth noting here: In addition to a pair of lead performances from Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland, the film also sports Ian McKellen, Heather Graham and, improbably, J. J. Abrams before he turned from screenwriter to showrunner and director. Six Degrees of Separation itself is a bit more interesting than expected—not solely content with the con at the heart of it, it goes on tangents about degrees of separation, a discussion of Cats-the-movie (in which McKellen would later star), honours given to Sidney Poitier, and, perhaps most devastatingly, how a significant incident in our lives can become nothing more than someone else’s party anecdote. The theatrical origins of the film mean that the dialogue is better than average, and Smith is already quite impressive in a role that runs on pure charisma. We know how the rest turned out.

  • The Brain that Wouldn’t Die (1962)

    The Brain that Wouldn’t Die (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) Some movies endure because they’re good. Then there are the others… Movies like The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, which blends amateur filmmaking with a delirious premise and ends up coated in Grand Guignol hilarity. The body horror merely begins when a mad scientist’s girlfriend is decapitated by a car accident—he manages to preserve the head (in a liquid-filled tray), then goes hunting for a replacement body, settling for nothing less than a glamour model. While meant as horror, the film becomes a comedy for anyone past the age of ten thanks to over-the-top histrionics, baffling creative decisions (such as the protagonist grabbing his girlfriend’s decapitated head and just… running with it) and amateurish filmmaking such as the (cat)fight between two strippers that uses meows as sound effects. Plus, hey, a bit of chaste pin-up burlesque to round off the bases of early-1960s exploitation. And have I mentioned the telepathy? It’s all terrible and somehow quite entertaining even if the film itself is bottom-of-the-barrel nonsense. Much of The Brain that Wouldn’t Die’s popularity is due not only to its innate deficiencies, but to its accidental placement in the public domain, which ensured that dozens of distributors would make endless copies fit for late-night broadcast. Ironically, there’s a ferocious critique of misogyny accidentally hidden in the film’s portrayal of a monstrous mad scientist reducing his girlfriend to disconnected parts. The Brain that Wouldn’t Die is a piece of cinema history all right (an early gory effort, even as timid as it looks these days) and certainly not a respectable one. Later visually quoted in Re-Animator, Frankenhooker and countless others—which gives you an idea of how ahead of its time it was, even if unintentionally.

  • Seagulls Over Sorrento aka Crest of the Wave (1954)

    Seagulls Over Sorrento aka Crest of the Wave (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) A plain description of Seagulls Over Sorrento sounds like a madlib gone weird: Here’s Gene Kelly playing a lieutenant in a techno-thriller set on a small Scottish Island about the development of better torpedoes in a black-and-white film adapted from a British play by an Australian writer. Um, okay? Part of this madness can be explained by the fact that MGM had to make movies in England during the 1950s as a way to spend funds that could not be repatriated home—and how the era’s filmmaking could compress an entire film’s production schedule in a few weeks in order to allow its stars to fly away to another project. This was even easier for a project like Seagulls Over Sorrento, which added only a few Hollywoodish enhancements to a stage-bound project. (Like many military movies, at least one character has to die in order for us to take this seriously.) Perhaps given the weirdness of the premise, the film had a weak box office upon release, and is a bit obscure today, especially when measured against Kelly’s other projects of the time. Still, Seagulls Over Sorrento is something all right—clearly not the kind of film that should be your first, second or third stop for either 1950s cinema or Gene Kelly’s filmography, but something like an intriguing find at the bottom of the barrel, fit to cause wonder and amusement as you explore how it came to be.

  • The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)

    The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) As the title suggests, there is one potentially troubling March-June relationship in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer that would make any viewer apprehensive – especially considering that it’s a film from the 1940s. But fear not, enlightened twenty-first-century viewers: Even Classic Hollywood knew that thirtysomething bachelors (even one played by Cary Grant) should not mess around with 17-year-old girls with a crush. Much of the film’s comedy in this film is about the protagonist (Grant) trying to get together with an age-appropriate professional woman (Myrna Loy) while her younger sister (Shirley Temple) interferes. There’s just enough implied naughtiness to make things interesting—the rest is scene-by-scene comedy, as Grant plays both halves of his suave persona unafraid to be humiliated. Cleverly conceived (the script, penned by future potboiler bestseller Sidney Sheldon, won a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award), it’s unobtrusively put together by director Irving Reis and very easy to watch. Grant’s charm does most of the work, but there are also plenty of scattered laughs in the details—my favourite has to be a rapid-fire exchange about “The man with power of whodoo / Who do? / You do!” which sounds like the kind of period nonsense exchange immortalized on screen—and later quoted by David Bowie. While definitely a middle-tier Grant comedy, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer remains a charmer despite a slightly suspicious premise, and a great showcase for its three stars.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, January 2021) Cary Grant had the looks and the charm that could make any kind of creepy nonsense seem amusing, and there’s no better proof of that statement than watching The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, a film in which (as it says in the title) he suffers through an unrequited crush from a flighty teenager. Shirley Temple plays the titular bobby-soxer, but it’s Myrna Loy who’s the prize here as the teenager’s older sister, a judge whose tangles with Grant’s character leads to romance. Before that happens, however, there’s got to be plenty of sequences of misunderstandings, comic complications, bone-headed movie psychology, attempts from Grant’s character to divert his teenage admirer to a more appropriate partner, and some physical comedy along the way. To its credit, the film knows that pairing Grant (who was 43) and Temple (who was 19) is a terrible idea—and if that seems perfectly reasonable to you, keep in mind that other similar Hollywood movies, such as the 1954 farce Susan Slept Here, weren’t even able to do that. There are a few good set-pieces and lines of dialogue here: While I’m ambivalent about the outdoors sports scene, the last restaurant sequence is very funny—even if it ends in a way that leads the film to another ten minutes of decreasing interest as the conclusion peters out rather than build to a strong finale. (Hollywood obviously disagreed, because the film won a screenwriting Academy Award.)   The call-and-response, “The power of hoodoo.” “Who do?” “You do!” is also quite amusing, and wisely used as closing lines to wrap it up. In between Grant, Temple and Loy, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer is an amiable-enough comedy that manages to steer itself away from some pitfalls that befell other similar films. It’s worth a look, especially for fans of the three lead actors.

  • It Could Happen to You (1994)

    It Could Happen to You (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, March 2020) What’s most striking about It Could Happen to You—besides its famous policeman-gives-millions-dollar-tip-to-waitress premise—is how much it feels like an urban fairytale: the protagonists are tried and rewarded for their inner virtue, with vast amounts of money-making wishes coming true. In this context, even having a narrator (whose origin turns out to be rather mundane) adds another layer of “let me tell you a story” to director Andrew Bergman’s film. Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda make for a likable lead couple, with Rosie Perez being as beautiful as ever but playing an unusually evil character for a change. It all comes together rather well, with New York City providing the background to it all. While no cinematic achievement, It Could Happen to You remains a nice and cute romantic comedy and arguably great counterprogramming to meaner fare. One thing, though: If you really want to enjoy the film, try to watch it in the original English rather than the French-Canadian dub, since Cage’s voice is dubbed in a much lower, far less distinctively nasal voice, and I missed it.

  • Odd Man Out (1947)

    Odd Man Out (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) I don’t entirely agree with those who put Odd Man Out as a film noir, but I can see their point—this story of Irish nationalists evading police after a botched robbery, it’s definitely the kind of downbeat thriller that evokes mentions of noir. While the film predates James Mason’s Hollywood success, he was already a bankable star in the United Kingdom by the time the film was produced and that accounts for his self-assured lead performance. Often more dramatic than strictly concerned with genre thrills, Odd Man Out is a solid crime drama particularly well-directed by Carol Reed. Don’t expect stylistic flourishes, though—it’s straightforward and character-centric rather than play games with light and camera angles. The British origins do add something extra for North American audiences. All in all, a solid choice—although noir fans may feel as if the film is a touch too mainstream for them.

  • The Brood (1979)

    The Brood (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, March 2020) For David Cronenberg fans, The Brood is worth a few moments of interest. It was clearly part of Cronenberg’s professionalization, as he became an experienced filmmaker through the Canadian Tax Shelter era. It’s, by Cronenberg’s own admission, clearly influenced by his own divorce—down to casting an actress that looked like his ex-wife and having her character strangled in the film’s climax. And we haven’t even delved into the distasteful premise of the film, dealing equally with suggestions of child abuse, body horror, psychological trauma manifesting itself through monstrous creatures, and a birthing/licking climax that pushes the disgust needle all the way to “yuck.” As usual for early Cronenberg, it’s for a very specific audience—and there’s no guarantee that even the gorehounds will like it, considering the overall atmosphere of dread that permeates the film: there’s no humour here, and a surprising amount of thematic depth in how you can choose to interpret the material. Hey, if you’ve made it through Rabid and Shivers and Scanners, why not complete the early-Cronenberg set?

  • The Puppet Masters (1994)

    The Puppet Masters (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, March 2020) It’s slightly weird to call The Puppet Masters a disappointing imitation of The Body Snatchers, considering that it’s (loosely, almost accidentally) adapted from a 1951 story by Robert A. Heinlein that slightly predates Jack Finney’s 1954 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But you certainly know which version made it to the screen first—and that makes all of the difference. (What’s more, the film version eschews the explicitly science-fictional future setting of the novel.) Anyway: if film producers can’t get the remake rights, maybe they can get the rights to a similar novel. Suffice to say that the film adaptation gets back to basics: back-riding alien slugs taking over their human ride’s actions and going for world domination. An early script for screenwriting duo Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott (I remember reading an essay of theirs on Usenet describing their disappointment with what happened with their script), it ends up being a very middle-of-the-road alien invasion film—a bit evocative of a zeitgeist that was just getting started on The X-Files at the time. There are a few good sequences here and there, and a somewhat exemplary performance from Donald Sutherland making a B-movie more fun. More thriller than horror, The Puppet Master can be a reasonably entertaining watch if you’re interested in mid-1990s SF paranoia, but keep your expectations firmly in check.

  • Too Many Girls (1940)

    Too Many Girls (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) In Hollywood history, Too Many Girls usually gets a footnote mention as “the movie where Lucille Ball met Desi Arnaz,” leading to their long and fruitful marriage/partnership. Some commentators often feel compelled to comment in the same breath on the film itself being not good. Well, phooey to that—I’m here to tell you that Too Many Girls is a perfectly entertaining blend of college comedy, implied naughtiness and some football thrown in for good measure—plus the excellent Ann Miller tap-dancing. The premise is something that could have become a splendid 1980s sex comedy: As a millionaire’s daughter (played by a good-but-not-yet-great Lucille Ball) decides to attend a college far in the west, the rich man hires four strapping lads to act as bodyguards unbeknownst to her. Complications ensure when the four young men turn around the winning record of the college’s football team and one of them falls in love with the heiress. While an adaptation of a Broadway Musical, Too Many Girls is curiously forgettable when it comes to the songs and dances. Also not present enough is Ann Miller—while she’s there and performs, she’s clearly in an early-ish supporting role with little opportunity to shine in the spotlight. OK, all right—Too Many Girls is, at best, an average musical of the era for low-budgeted RKO: watchable, even amusing, but not all that memorable. It would be far less fondly remembered (and for that, largely for Ann Miller’s filmography) if Lucy and Desi hadn’t met on set. [April 2022: Being the Ricardos even features a scene meant to recreate the film—complete with what’s supposed to be Ann Miller’s legs!]

    (Second viewing, On Cable TV, March 2021) As a silly college comedy (yup, they had those in the early 1940s!), Too Many Girls is perhaps more interesting for its setting than its content, although it does have an unusual spark to its premise. Everything begins as four ace football players are convinced (somehow, by a billionaire) to let go of a bright college career in order to act as bodyguards/chaperones to his rebellious daughter going to study in the American south-west. What makes the film a bit unusual is the location of the college, and its refusal to stick to Ivy-league atmosphere: “Pottawatomie College” in New Mexico is proudly set in a desert, and the Mexican influence is felt throughout: Too Many Girls is colourful despite being in black-and-white, and Ann Miller plays a character meant to be of Hispanic origins (which mostly consists in letting her curls run wild and calling her “Pepe”) – her signing segments are predictably some of the highlights of the film. Many musical set-pieces take the form of vigorously choreographed crowd dancing, which is not a bad thing at all. The cast does have its attraction as well – other than Miller, who really plays a supporting character, there’s Lucille Ball as the supposedly rebellious daughter (she’s mildly energetic at best), the very likable Desi Arnaz as one of the bodyguards (not the one who romances her, but no matter – in real life, they married two months after the film was released!) Perhaps overly slavish to the original Broadway musical, the plotting sort of loses its way midway through and the ending doesn’t quite satisfy. Too Many Girls is a pleasant-enough time, but there are many ways in which it could have been better: Shooting in colour, letting go of Broadway in order to focus on more cinematic qualities and working on the film’s last half would have been obvious starting points. Still, it’s fun enough, the scenery is a change of pace and the parallels with other, more modern campus comedies are intriguing enough.

  • Jennifer Eight (1992)

    Jennifer Eight (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, March 2020) The 1990s were a good-to-great decade for thrillers, and while Jennifer Eight isn’t that good of an example of the form, it’s not without a strong atmosphere throughout. It does feature an interesting cast as well, what with a young Uma Thurman playing a blind woman targeted by a serial killer, Andy Garcia as a burnt-out police detective, Lance Henriksen as a policeman colleague and John Malkovich in a supporting turn as an FBI agent. The story has to do with the hunt for a serial killer, but as usual the film is more interesting for the details than the plot—the conclusion seems particularly disappointing in its rush to present something different. A touch too long at two hours, Jennifer Eight doesn’t really manage to wring all of the possibilities out of its premise and setting, but it’s a workable-enough thriller if taken at face value.

  • Fast Color (2018)

    Fast Color (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) I like a few things about Fast Color—a starring role for Gugu Mbatha-Raw, for instance, or writer-director Julia Hart’s intention to get away from traditional comic book plot devices to feature a rural matriarchal setting with unusual superpowers. It’s enough to make the film interesting to watch. On the other hand, it’s not enough to overcome a growing disappointment with the film’s threadbare worldbuilding, languid pacing, scattered effectiveness and shrug-inducing finale. While the intention to get away from familiarity works in some cases, it hurts the film in others because the familiar works. While I’ll bristle at anyone calling this a superhero film rather than a science fiction one, they do have a point: Fast Color is designed for effect first, with logical plausibility or coherence running a distant second — Little in the film makes any sense unless you accept the premise and stop wondering about it. On the other hand, it does have chances of reaching an audience that doesn’t usually find itself compelled by more traditional Science Fiction films. As with all things, opinions will vary.

  • Babettes gæstebud [Babette’s Feast] (1987)

    Babettes gæstebud [Babette’s Feast] (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) Casually asked what I think of Babette’s Feast, I’ll probably answer with the usual platitudes: Great movie, won an Oscar and offers an interesting vision of how to reconcile pious self-sacrifice with epicurean delight, stripped-down cinematography and unusual story. I’ll even throw in a plot summary, as a servant spends her newfound fortune preparing a sumptuous meal for people used to food-as-fuel. Pressed further and I’ll dig into the film’s subtleties, its complex lessons, its delight for eating and its intentional intention to set everything against a bleak setting. But if you really want to know, I’m liable to become less complimentary—the words “unbearable” and “interminable” are going to show up, as well as an overall desire to never revisit this specific area in time and space. Sure, Babette’s Feast is made for easy liking: the focus on food, the jabs at mirthless life and the extraordinary monetary sacrifice from its protagonist are made to attract attention. But it’s also a slow-paced subtitled film made with artistic intent and voluntarily alienating devices. Some people really do love it, but not everyone has to.

  • A Life of Her Own (1950)

    A Life of Her Own (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) There are so many examples of how the Production Code undermined the substance of films told between 1934 and the 1960s that it’s hardly useful to throw another example on the pile. Still, there’s A Life of Her Own as yet another example—a visibly toothless portrait of a young woman trying to make it in New York City that flirts with a more mature outlook than other 1930s films, yet can’t quite have the creative freedom to really make any kind of point. (It’s even worse when you measure the film against the original novel, which is remarkably darker.) Lana Turner stars as a Midwestern girl coming to Manhattan, meeting an older woman who didn’t make it (and who then kills herself), becomes successful, gets involved in an affair with a married man, and—well, this is where the film gets particularly fuzzy. The original ending had her kill herself in a cyclical commentary on the process that grinds young hopefuls into washed-up husks (and as evidence that under the Production Code, no one gets away with adultery); the rewritten ending is an unsatisfying step back from the ledge without much meaning to it. Clearly, A Life of Her Own isn’t one of director George Cukor’s finest works—but then again, the film’s production history suggests that he knew that the project was doomed under the Production Code.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, February 2021) Thanks to a large-capacity DVR, I record movies indiscriminately and while my memory (and record of movies watched) is good enough that I don’t accidentally end up re-watching too many things by accident, there’s an entire class of not-too-memorable movies that I don’t necessarily recall watching in the first place. (Also: The pandemic lockdown is playing tricks with my perception of time.) A Life of Her Own ended up (again) on my DVR based on it being directed by George Cukor, but it turns out that I didn’t have too many memories of my first viewing. The somewhat well-worn plot probably explains much of a lack of recollection: As a small-town beauty leaves town to enter the bustling world of Manhattan modelling, it quickly turns to melodramatic romance as she embarks on an affair with a man married to a paraplegic. It’s all quite dull, and my lack of particular affection for star Lana Turner probably further explains why the film washed over me a second time without registering anything specific. Not all of Hollywood’s golden-age movies were good, and even fewer of them were memorable: now that I’ve seen the top films of that era, it’s no accident if I’m going to end up seeing more and more forgettable ones, and be condemned to watch them again if I don’t cross-check my lists at some point.

  • Men of Boys Town (1941)

    Men of Boys Town (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) Hollywood’s infatuation with sequels is pretty much a century-old tradition by this point, and so are the most common factors why sequels disappoint. An artifact of relevance: Men of Boys Town, sequel to 1938’s Boys Town, once again finds Spencer Tracy finely playing the wise helpful priest heading an educational establishment for troubled boys. Meanwhile, Mickey Rooney is once again the youthful sort-of-delinquent getting in trouble (but not too much trouble). Both could play those roles in their sleep, but that’s not important if the point of the film is repeating a formula. In this aspect, then, Men of Boys Town is a success—it delivers more of the same in the way viewers of the first film would expect. It’s shameless about emotional manipulation, dead dog and all—but the entire film careens from one big emotional register to another, whether it’s comedy in the form of a slow-motion fight sequence, or much darker suggestions of abuse when delinquents are sent to a reform school, quite unlike Boys Town. Of course, the film’s flaws will be magnified if you had no interest in Boys Town in the first place—repetition, manipulation and actors not challenging themselves being the most visible of them. Still, Men of Boys Town is traditional Hollywood filmmaking at its most exemplary, for better or for worse.

  • Broadcast News (1987)

    Broadcast News (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2020) This almost counts as a second viewing of Broadcast News for me—I distinctly recall seeing the last half of it sometime during the 1990s and being both impressed by the film’s intelligence and disappointed at the somewhat sad ending. But half a film isn’t the same as the entire one, and watching this in middle age doesn’t hit quite the same as an older teen. One thing remains constant, and it’s that Broadcast News still captures the organized madness of TV news like few other films: writer-director James L. Brooks uses the medium’s fundamental tension (entertainment versus substance) as an engine through which to propel a romantic triangle and a series of thorny ethical crises. Holly Hunter is the rock on which the film rests, as a news producer attracted to two very different reporters—William Hurt as the pretty-boy anchor, and Albert Brooks as the solid but prickly expert. (Meanwhile, Joan Cusack is very cute in a supporting role, and owns a flashy action sequence in the first act. Oh, and Jack Nicholson has a cameo as, well, pretty much that universe’s equivalent to God.) It’s all very clever and witty—filmmaking for middlebrow adults able to tolerate a bit of theatrics in order to illustrate a more subtle point. I liked Broadcast News even more this almost-second-time around now that the ending doesn’t strike me as particularly sad, just appropriate.