Reviews

  • Merry Switchmas (2021)

    Merry Switchmas (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2021) There isn’t a whole lot of Christmas in Merry Switchmas, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. While much of the film takes place as an upper-class holiday reception, the focus here is on a scheme by two twin sisters (one studious, one wild) to switch places for the duration of the reception, with the goal of telling people things that they wouldn’t be able to say if they were themselves. Or something like that — it’s one of the early warnings about the film’s quality that the motivations behind the big switch are either lame or unbelievable. Still, if you go with it, there’s a modest amount of fun to be gathered from the rest, especially when the twins’ boyfriends, also twins, realize what’s happening well before everyone else. I was surprised to be surprised that the lead characters are actually played by twins — Hollywood has done such a number on my reviewer’s brain that I expect twins to be played by one person and a special effects team. But not here—Rachel and Rebekah Aladdin look terrific as the twin sisters, while Joel and Joseph Harold get some good lines in as their twin boyfriends. Contrivances are the name of the plot twists here as professional, romantic and familial complications all come to the fore. What I like about Merry Switchmas, ironically, is that it’s not that good of a movie: the script is a slap-dash first-draft affair with more ideas than skill in executing them. Unconvincing plot elements are brought up, never integrated, barely developed, and quickly abandoned in such a way to make us wonder if we’ve missed anything. Nothing builds on anything else, except for a subplot involving a drunk aunt (a playful Sherrice Eaglin) that seems to be taken from another film and added without fitting. Director Christopher Nolen does what he can with the threadbare elements at his disposal, but can’t do much more than bring the script to the screen in an efficient matter. The ending relies on familiar bromides about the importance of family. Merry Switchmas is clunky and cheap and, in a way, that’s why I’m oddly fond of the result: it feels as if someone pulled together a movie with the barest elements, making elementary mistakes along the way. It’s got, in other words, a bit of character and roughness at a time when Christmas movies are all slick and polished to a single formula. More broadly speaking, that’s why I’m progressively watching nearly all of the BET-broadcast movie roster: the actresses are fine, and the movies are flawed in ways that simply aren’t found in bigger and better productions. It gives my movie reviewer’s brain something to do, and the failure point of less-than-perfect Christmas movies is still something fun and heartwarming. No, Merry Switchmas is not worthy of a recommendation unless you’ve used to the BET+ house style — but I liked it all the same.

  • Bando [Peninsula] (2020)

    Bando [Peninsula] (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Google Streaming, December 2021) No follow-up could match Train to Busan’s originality and intensity — even by the high standards of mainstream South Korean cinema, it was a rare treat in an overpopulated zombie subgenre. Loose follow-up Peninsula picks up four years later, in a future where the zombie outbreak has somehow been contained to the Korean peninsula and somehow the zombies haven’t all rotten away in the interim. Finding amusing parallels with quasi-contemporary Army of the Dead, the plot has to do with a very valuable gold shipment ripe to be extracted from the zombie zone. As our heroes assemble and enter enemy territory, various complications arise from the fact that the peninsula is not entirely populated by zombies, and everyone wants a slice of the treasure. After an intriguing setup, writer-director Yeon Sang-ho unfortunately loses himself in uninteresting shenanigans between human villains, captured zombies, “good” protagonists and anti-heroes. It all becomes curiously familiar and dull, but then the videogame segment starts: a very lengthy car chase from the heart of the zombie zone to the extraction point, executed with special effects that are both plentiful and substandard. It’s a terrible and preposterous sequence in many ways, especially if you judge it by the photorealism of big-budget Hollywood movies, but it’s easily what Peninsula has to distinguish itself. The chase lasts a surprisingly long time (especially considering the teeming hordes of zombies and the urban decay of four years of non-maintenance) but it involves light spots, car bouncing around without regards for physics and a climactic rain of zombies freed from a glass barrier. It’s not much, but it’s something. The ending sequence lasts too long after that, and doesn’t manage to make us feel much about the surviving characters. Frankly, if you’re looking for another South Korean zombie film, have a look at #Alive before you tackle Peninsula — if you refuse, prepare to fast-forward through much of it.

  • The Dissident (2020)

    The Dissident (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (TubiTV Streaming, December 2021) Like anyone paying attention to world news, I knew the facts of the Jamal Khashoggi assassination before watching writer-director Bryan Fogel’s The Dissident — the affair was front-page news for a very long time, and the nature of the events — a state-sponsored assassination deliberately carried out in an embassy—was horrifying, as was the lackadaisical reaction of the United States to the whole sordid affair. But, as usual, there’s always a difference between living the revelations in real-time over weeks and seeing it all methodically laid out in less than two hours. If you’ve been lucky enough to remain unaware of the facts of the case, or managed to forgot them, part of The Dissident will feel like a horror film — the transcript of Khashoggi’s assassination and dismemberment is bad enough, but the jocular banter between the perpetrators, the methodical way it was executed, the luring of the victim looking for a marriage license, the suggestion that a videoconference link was open while this was being carried out in an embassy meeting room, the strong suggestion that the remains were cremated on-site in an oven otherwise used for cooking… ugh. But it doesn’t stop there. As The Dissident explains by way of context, this event is at the nexus of a vicious power play between Saudi crown princes, a state-sponsored intimidation of expatriate and influential foreign figures (including the rather amazing suggestion that the personal cell phone of Jeff Bezos —richest man in the world!—was infiltrated by Israeli-bought malware personally sent by a Saudi prince!), and deliberate cyber-warfare waged on social media. That last element actually explains why I ended up watching the film:  In a rather revelatory section of the documentary, it describes the power plays between the Saudi-employed “flies” attacking opponents of the regime and the dissident “bees” fighting back. (Any Canadian paying attention back in August 2018 saw the flies at work — After a Twitter spat between both countries, social media was suddenly overflowing with anti-Canadian sentiment, all repeating the same cheap shots.)  Well, no one will be surprised to find out that The Dissident itself became a skirmish between both groups. Go to IMDB, and you will find not just a suspiciously polarized distribution of votes between the ones and the tens ratings, but a far, far higher total of votes than is the norm for a documentary — a voting total high enough that it landed The Dissident on my list of films to watch. A fine example of the Streisand effect at work — thank you flies (?), thank you bees. Curiously, or predictably enough, The Dissident is nowhere to be found right now on the major streaming platform — you’ll have to head over to the lesser-known niche/educational platforms to find it. It’s worth the effort, but you’re not going to be comforted by the conclusion of it all. The murderers still run free, so think twice about accepting an invitation to a Saudi embassy.

  • WolfWalkers (2020)

    WolfWalkers (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (YouTube Streaming, December 2021) I’m not that fond of Irish mythology (both in the sense of “mythology originating from Ireland” and also “look how wonderful Ireland is”), but WolfWalkers is a deft animated fairytale that looks quite unlike most other animated films and manages something new, while remaining faithful to the principles of the form. It’s not exactly coming from anywhere — it’s clearly kin to director Tomm Moore’s previous The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, but it seems stronger and more self-assured in its storytelling. Much of the story revolves around the young daughter of a hunter hired to clear the forest around Kilkenny circa 1650. But our heroine makes surprising discoveries that blur the distinction between human and wolf, hunter and hunted. It’s all gorgeously illustrated through 2D imagery that harkens back to Celtic iconography, but with enough of a fun modern twist to make it immensely accessible. The protagonist is quite likable, and the film effortlessly touches upon environmentalism, authoritarianism and family values as pillars of what the film has to say. It’s quite lovely, and I can think of far more objectionable family films being far more widely circulated. WolfWalkers will never become a mass hit, but it will endure a long legacy of favourable word of mouth and recommendations.

  • My Spy (2020)

    My Spy (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on-Demand, December 2021) As far as mainstream family action comedies go, My Spy hits pretty much all of the high notes. Action-focused actor looking to broaden his appeal to younger audiences? Dave Bautista! Perfunctory plot meant to act as scaffolding for the fun and games? CIA agents sent to keep watch over the ex-wife of an international terrorist! Young audience stand-in? The rather wonderful Chloe Coleman as a protagonist putting a professional spy through her paces. Comic relief? Have Kristen Schaal in a prominent supporting role and Ken Jeong as a shouting boss. Eye candy for the boys? Parisa Fitz-Henley. My Spy’s script is clearly put together according to the usual formula, but it works well — the idea of a nine-year-old girl besting a secret agent is amusing (one sequence is even inspired by Mossad training), and the screenwriters aren’t above poking fun at the thought that viewers are savvy enough to understand the game being played. From the likable gay couple revealed to be something quite different (yet the same) to characters wondering who would build an airfield next to a cliff right before an action sequence making good use of that contrivance, the film knows what business it’s in, and clearly relishes it. It amounts to a perfectly watchable film, perhaps a bit confused about its age rating but still entertaining enough not to disappoint. You know what to expect, and My Spy delivers.

  • Soul Santa (2021)

    Soul Santa (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2021) I’m watching all of the BET-broadcast Christmas movies this year, and while the films themselves are not particularly good, I’m surprised at how the network doesn’t simply churn out endless variations on the same tired Hallmark formula. They could, and, in fact, did for a few movies, but their films tend to go in other directions… to the point of sometimes almost not being about Christmas. You can’t say that about Soul Santa, though — as a film in which the protagonist takes on the role of a mall Santa to make some much-needed money while on the run from organized criminals, it’s clearly a film that could only take place at Christmas. David Mann is not bad in the lead male role, as he runs to his ex-wife’s house in Connecticut to escape gambling debt in New York City, and finds himself pressed into service to replace Santa at the mall she’s working for. (She’s played by his real-life wife, singer Tamela Mann — who does get to belt a song before the end of the film.)  The protagonist’s first attempts at SantaClausing are terrible — you don’t constrain someone like David Mann in a jolly white man’s job—but the film works itself to a reconceptualization of Santa Claus and the mall is saved — whew! Along the way, even a stereotypical Karen mom-from-hell is rescued from racism and intolerance, so that’s cool too. (I’m being too harsh in my sarcasm — the about-face for that character, who could have remained a cheap joke, is one of the better aspects for the film.)  In many ways, Soul Santa is not a good film — clunky, low-budget, with unexplainable plot development and even poorer justifications. It exemplifies the kind of underdeveloped, underfinanced projects that BET should think twice about greenlighting. But it has just enough to it not to be a painful watch — or rather, it’s put together in such a way that even its shortcomings become part of the charm. At the very least, it’s not about a woman going back to her hometown and falling in love again with her high-school crush, which is already a relief.

  • Christmas Belles (2019)

    Christmas Belles (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2021) Ask any cinephile about the films made by The Asylum, and you will get near-unanimous retching — it’s a low-budget studio that specializes in making cheap copies of blockbuster films with near-identical titles in the hope of drawing an easily fooled public, a business model that survived intact from the DVD to the streaming paradigm. (Oh, and they did the Sharknado series.)  Now imagine my aghast reaction and sinking expectations at seeing “The Asylum presents” as the title card of a Christmas romantic comedy broadcast on BET. But waaaait — I may have found the best Asylum movie of all times. In fact—and you may want to hold on to something solid and reassuring for my next few words—Christmas Belle may be among the better original movies broadcast on BET recently. I know, I know — that’s not exactly a very high standard to begin with. But under Terri J. Vaughn’s direction and especially Chad Quinn’s witty screenplay, it quickly becomes obvious that the film is punching above its weight through sheer better-than-average writing. Oh, it helps that the beautiful DomiNque Perry and Raven Goodwin have great BFF energy together as they compete for the same pastor’s attention— the way they go through their dialogue only makes it better. But there’s more than the usual BET romantic comedy going on here — some great lines, good comic moments, slightly racier humour than usual and decent breaks from the formula all help. (I knew that I liked the movie at the “Do you want to be gay? / Sure [beat] Naah, I’m done” exchange, which is innocuous and funny but well outside what other Christmas romantic comedies go for). The focus on friendship rather than romance (although there’s plenty of romance left) is also a welcome change of pace. Oh, I don’t want to let “better than BET average” be misleading: there are still plenty of odd plotting mistakes, missed opportunities and disappointing moments, alongside the very limited budget and consequently timid direction. But Christmas Belles is significantly better and more entertaining than many of its BET stablemates because it has understood one thing: if you’re stuck with a small cast, limited sets and a tiny budget, make those words sing. Dare something different. Offer something else. It does, and that goes beyond the can’t-dislike-Christmas, can’t-be-unhappy-at-romance feeling that many similar movies coast on. This is probably my favourite The Asylum production of all times, but once again let’s keep some perspective: director Vaughn is so outside The Asylum’s usual orbit that I suspect that the arrangement here is financial more than anything — The Asylum wanted to cash in on the Holiday movie market, so they paid for it. No matter how it happened, I’m happy with the result — this is one BET Christmas film that’s worth a look all year long.

  • Holiday Heartbreak (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2021) One of the reasons why I keep watching BET original movies is that I never quite know what weird plotting curveballs they’re going to serve within well-worn formulas. In intent, they almost always go for pleasing the audience, but in the details, there’s an almost-refreshing lack of polish and discipline in the way the narratives are put together that echoes the sometimes slap-dash direction and set design under low-budget conditions. So it is that Holiday Heartbreak is, at its core, a solid man-learns-better story set against a holiday backdrop: a womanizer is cursed by a heartbroken witch to see his daughter fall for the kind of wrong kind of man. There are a few twists, though. Some of them are even good — as in: the curse manifests itself so long after that the man has had time to mature and become a better-enough person to recognize its true horror. Some of them, however, are weirder and more difficult to accept. For instance, the story doesn’t have a clear protagonist in mind, as it shifts for long stretches between father and daughter, the other character disappearing from the film during those moments. That’s clunky screenwriting in the first order, and that lack of control over the result is reflected in other plotting issues and contrivances such as a near-stranger falling asleep on a couch because he’s needed in the next morning’s scene. Holiday Heartbreak is also so insecure in its audience’s ability to follow along that it will repeat the same footage of the curse three times in fifteen minutes just to make sure EVERYONE gets the point. Oh, and the character is reformed enough to have had a longstanding new wife, but not so much as to have remained a playboy legend for the younger guys. What? For viewers used to polished scripts, there’s an earnest clumsiness to Holiday Heartbreak that almost becomes endearing. The film does fare better in other areas: While it’s clearly low-budget, it makes the most out of what it has. The actors are also not bad: Michael Colyar turns in a decent comic performance as the cursed father, while Maryam Basir looks terrific — although if sex-appeal is your thing, no one else in the film comes close to veteran A. J. Johnson as she comes dressed to flaunt it. Still, not even an attractive cast can quite pull together the divergent strands of a script that flies off in various directions, not only in narrative twists but also in tone and humour. Another rewrite or two would have helped a lot in maximizing the potential of the premise and delivering a far more satisfying film. But I get it, though — BET original films being executed on a shoestring budget, there’s probably no time for such niceties. So, I’ll fall back on the quirkiness of the result as entertainment in itself… even though I’d rather enjoy a film unironically rather than be interested by the ways in which it goes wrong.

  • Laxmii (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Google Streaming, December 2021) I’ll admit it: I was really curious to see what an Indian comedy would do with a premise based on a transwoman ghost protagonist. As much as I like Indian cinema, there’s often a streak on conservatism going though its films that would not necessarily mesh well with the subject matter. I suspected trouble, but I couldn’t imagine the reality. Oh boy, did I not expect what I saw. Be reassured, readers and viewers, that Laxmii is not transphobic. In fact, in many ways, it’s far more progressive than many “innocuous” Hollywood comedies featuring transsexual characters. But that assessment best applies to very specific, very carefully selected segments of the film. Yes, there’s a fifteen-minute tragic flashback to how a transwoman fighting for acceptance gets brutally murdered by those coveting the real estate she owns. Yes, there’s a terrific dance number (“BamBholle,” an utter banger that you should watch right now) in which the transwoman character triumphantly bangs a drum for Shiva to ask for revenge on the man who masterminded her murder — “The one who works for the devil will die prematurely” is a sample lyric). But this comes after a terrible fifteen minutes of comedy in which the only joke is that the lead character, possessed by a transwoman ghost, acts in an effeminate fashion. Which comes after a laborious set-up with three successive prologues (one of which is a snappy but plot-irrelevant musical number) that do a terrible job at introducing the plot for the film. Akshay Kumar admittedly has moments of Jim-Carrey-esque vigour in the lead comic role, and Sharad Kelkar turns in a terrific performance as the wronged transwoman. Also, I do understand that, at 141 minutes, this masala-like film does try to have a little bit of everything for everyone. But while you can like the bits and pieces of the film (such as the Burj Khalifa musical interlude, fun but entirely irrelevant), Laxmii feels like it’s being pulled apart in various directions. Pieces of the film contradict each other, undermine each other, and weaken each other. The blend of silly comedy with light horror does not gel, and the film doesn’t feel as if it’s got a coherent identity. Something great could have come from the film’s premise, but instead it’s battered and trivialized by an incoherent execution that doesn’t know how to focus. Laxmii got terrible reviews in India and it’s easy to understand why — being so inconsistent ends up sabotaging even its best intentions.

  • Dara iz Jasenovca [Dara of Jasenovac] (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Google Streaming, December 2021) If I was in a flippant mood (which Dara of Jasenovac most definitely isn’t), I’d joke that the evils of WW2 are still being perpetrated through endless tales of misery and suffering unleashed on modern movie audiences, with repeated trips to concentration camps, further demonstrations of the evils of Axis powers and further proof that humans can be terrible. But while joking around on such matters is rude and inappropriate, it’s based on some truth: if you voluntarily subject yourself to Dara of Jasenovac, you should be aware of what’s in store for you. There is some historic merit in having a film focused on the only concentration camp not run by Nazis (the Croatian camp of Jasenovac) — the story here has to do with a girl being sent to that camp trying to survive and escape with her younger brother. But the way that Dara of Jasenovac chooses to take this premise and execute it has more similarities with exploitative score-setting than a sensitive wartime drama. The way the film showcases its atrocities is not only uncomfortable in itself, but in how director Predrag Antonijević seems to find joy in staging them. Some moments are so awful that even the visiting Nazis are disgusted by them, and the film takes delight in making a young woman one of the cruellest antagonists. If you start digging into why this film would make these choices, it gets worse. It’s a trite statement at this point to say that it’s impossible to look at the Balkans and escape unscathed by its long-running ethnic strife. This is often reflected in the art coming out of that region as well. You can’t have lived through the 1990s without having heard of Serbian war crimes and atrocities, and it’s not a coincidence if a Serbian film looked to history in order to highlight war atrocities committed by neighbouring Croatia against Serbians. None of this makes Dara of Jasenovac any easier to take, although it’s almost a relief that the film has something like a happy ending to offer. But it’s a reminder that war movies are seldom neutral. Sure, seeing Nazis punched in the face feels good because very few people still associate with Nazis these days… but such antagonists are rarer when you’re not talking about Nazis. Often, there’s still a clear trace running from then to now, and it’s a political act to remind people of that.

  • Sadak 2 (2020)

    Sadak 2 (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Google Streaming, December 2021) As I’ve often mentioned, I frequently use a quantitative approach (i.e.: lists of films ranked by popularity) to decide what films I’m seeing, and one of the advantages of such a practice is that I will often see a film completely cold to its context. Then it’s amusing to read more about the film (especially those issued from outside the Anglopshere) and understand why it’s so popular. Sometimes, it’s because a film was a box-office hit outside North America. Sometimes, it’s for other reasons. I’ll admit that I had a hard time understanding why Sadak 2 got such a high ranking on my popularity list for 2020 — it felt like a melodramatic but standard revenge thriller, perhaps bolstered by the pedigree of its 1990s predecessor (which I haven’t seen) but still a bit ridiculous, not particularly well-executed and unnecessarily complicated around the edges. Writer-director-producer Mahesh Bhatt doesn’t do particularly well here. The truth became clearer when I started reading about the film and took a look at the detailed ratings for the film. To put it bluntly, Sadak 2 was massively review-bombed in one of those tiresome social media firestorms. Out of 93K votes on IMDB, it received 89K 1-out-of-10 votes, which is a ludicrous indicator that most voters hadn’t even seen the film. No, it’s not a terrific movie, but it’s a professionally made one with a comprehensible plot and at least one decent performance. It’s nowhere near as terrible as the bottom of the barrel. I think I partially understand the reason behind the review-bombing, but it seems so convoluted that I’m not even going to try explaining it to you. There’s some irony in how, in trying to shut down a movie, its opponents ended up making it mandatory viewing for someone who otherwise wouldn’t have even heard of it, but I’m used to the Streisand effect by now — there’s between four and eight movies in my had-to-see Top-100 movies of 2020 list that are there because of straight-up vote manipulation. I was more bored than angry at Sadak 2: as a modern Indian road movie taking aim at modern cult leaders, it has intermittent moments of interest, and Sanjay Dutt does manage a good world-weary performance when compared against his younger, more superficial co-stars. But there’s plenty about the result that could have been made better, more credible, and more suspenseful. Even by the different standards of Indian cinema, Sadak 2 is a disappointment — certainly not worth a one-star movie bombing campaign, but not a good film either.

  • Dil Bechara (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Google Streaming, December 2021) My first reaction to Dil Bechara was not subtle nor positive: “Oh, no, not another teens-with cancer romantic tragedy. Oh no, not a remake of The Fault in Our Stars.” But once I got used to the idea of the film, my second reaction was more nuanced: I don’t want to sit through The Fault in Our Stars again, and I would not want to get through a sequel. But I will sit through an Indian remake of the film, if only for the change of scenery. And you know what? There is indeed something interesting in how the same story is adapted to another culture, taking intriguing freedoms with the base material. The core remains the same, as our cancer-stricken heroine meets friends in a support group and falls in love with a creative young man. Romance, creative endeavour, a trip to Paris to meet a reclusive artist and some mourning populate the rest of this teen drama. It’s noteworthy that the reclusive novelist of the original The Faults in our Stars has been replaced by a mysterious musician, Paris instead of Amsterdam, and that moviemaking ends up being integral to the conclusion. Relocating the story to middle-class India makes for an intriguing change of pace, and the film benefits from heartfelt performances from its lead couple Sanjana Sanghi and Sushant Singh Rajput. Western viewers may miss a crucial piece explaining the film’s popularity in that this proved to be Rajput’s final film, the actor having committed suicide before the film’s release. (His death led to a complex and impossible-to-summarize social media firestorm that ended up affecting much of Indian cinema in 2020.)  As far as doomed-teenage-romance films go, Dil Bechara is an honest solid example of the form, enlivened by its Indian setting for western moviegoers. I didn’t love it, but I found it more interesting to watch than I expected, and that was probably the best possible outcome for such a film.

  • Paris brûle-t-il? [Is Paris Burning?] (1966)

    Paris brûle-t-il? [Is Paris Burning?] (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2021) I thought I had seen most of the big WW2 epic movies, but as it turned out, there was at least one more waiting for me—Paris brûle-t-il?, an epic French-American co-production re-creating the last moments of Paris’ Nazi occupation. Adapted from an eponymous book by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, the script is from the legendary duo of Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola. The ensemble cast is nothing short of amazing, what with such notables as Orson Welles, Kirk Douglas, Robert Stack, and Anthony Perkins on the American side, with Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Leslie Caron, Simone Signoret and Yves Montand on the French side (plus Gert Fröbe on the German side, among so many others). Few of them have more than a few scenes given the scattered chronicle structure fitting weeks of complex diplomatic and military manoeuvers in less than three hours. Shot in black-and-white (reportedly to accommodate green-fake Nazi flags draped over mid-1960s Paris, but also to integrate period footage), the film is rarely more striking than when it re-creates combat in eternally recognizable Paris neighbourhoods without the crutch of CGI. There’s a reason why the 1960s were the heyday for expansive re-creation of WW2: the conflict wasn’t as fresh, but the people were still there to make sure it was credible. Unexpectedly engrossing, Paris brûle-t-il? is an admirable dramatization of an episode of WW2 that could have gone differently, but ended up showcasing some enduring images of victory over the Nazis. It’s just about essential viewing for WW2 cinephiles, and the amazing cast certainly helps keep you interested in even the slightest new character.

  • The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (2020)

    The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, December 2021) Having Kurt Russell as Santa Claus was so nice, they had to do it twice. Of course, Netflix wanting its own slate of holiday favourites clearly helps — The Christmas Chronicles was apparently a success, and the idea of bringing in Goldie Hawn in a bigger role as Mrs. Claus (after a short glimpse at the end of the first film) must have been compelling. No matter the reason, The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two is up and streaming, giving you another opportunity to see Russell-as-Claus hamming it up by playing the saxophone. The story has to do with an attempted takeover of the Claus empire by a renegade elf and eventually involves time travel, but the point is having a big budget, big star, big director (Chris Columbus), and a big-special-effect offering as prestige counterpoint to the multiple low-budget Christmas offerings from the Netflix roster. The initial novelty of the first film is gone, but this follow-up is sufficiently independent to work without immediate knowledge of the first. It’s not that impressive, but it works relatively well and offers a few things to see that simply would not be possible in a lower-budgeted film. As of this writing, there seem to be no plans for a third film in the series, which is not necessarily a tragedy nor a promise set in stone.

  • The Holly and the Ivy (1952)

    The Holly and the Ivy (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) As much as I’m not a big fan of glum, drama-heavy Christmas films, The Holly and the Ivy is hitting me at a time when I’m overdosing on insubstantial Christmas comedies that barely have any connection to the holiday or rely so heavily on platitudes and iconography that nothing of substance remains. Squarely confronting family issues, religion, generational divides and recent trauma, this British film bets on acting subtlety and dramatic intensity for a story that could take place at any other time of the year but gets an added touch of polish for taking a slightly different approach to the “family reunites for Christmas” tropes. (Coming from austere post-WW2 Britain, the film also predates, or, rather, sidesteps the super-commercialization of the holiday.)  Ralph Richardson is clearly the anchor of the film as a pastor who learns to better communicate with the rest of his family and makes them benefit from his advice in doing so. The Holly and the Ivy is not always fun or light or fast-paced — it’s a dramatic work that demands just a bit more from its audience. It will work if you’re in the right mood, but may not be the most casual viewing choice for December.