Reviews

  • Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975)

    Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2020) Sigh. I suppose that I knew what I was going to get. Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS is infamous for having popularized the baffling Nazi Exploitation subgenre combining gore and nudity. Sadly, it’s a Canadian film and it spawned three sequels (the first of which I saw before the original, further establishing what I was going to see) and remains a standard reference for trash cinema buffs. Much like the wider torture-porn horror genre, I have a hard time understanding the appeal of such movies, and Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS remains its exemplar. The first thirty seconds are not bad, as we’re shown a buxom blonde (series protagonist Dyanne Thorne) having sex and then taking a shower. So far so good… but then the coercion becomes apparent (she’s the warden of a concentration/prison camp; he’s a prisoner) and then the film moves on to castration… The rest of the film is an unrelenting ordeal of nudity, gore, sexual abuse and torture. The Nazi camp setting becomes a plot permission to portray terrible atrocities, and seldom has so much nudity been so less arousing. By the first ten minutes, you will be contemplating existential questions such as: Why does this film exist? Who in their right mind would make this or watch this? What am I doing? In a charitable mood and with the ever-worse example of Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks in mind, I will recognize exactly three qualities to the movie: 1. Ilsa is a terrific character in her depravity and while the film is difficult to watch as it is, it would have been unbearable had that character been played by a man, which leads me to: 2. There is an unnerving sense of masculine fear running through the movie (which starts with castration) that, while common to exploitation movies and subservient to thrilling its audience, is still interesting to contemplate (the sequel would remove some of that female agency) even though: 3. There is an actual plot here and an all-out final rebellion that restores some sense of order to things (the sequel would have far fewer excuses and a more perfunctory ending.). But none of those actually make Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS worth a look except for strong-stomached film historians—it’s certainly not arousing, fun, thought-provoking, uplifting or any adjective we associate with worthwhile cinema.

  • Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)

    Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) I had a hard time staying interested in Ruggles of Red Gap despite elements that should have made it interesting. Blame mood if you want, but this story of an English butler going to America to eventually become a successful immigrant felt unusually turgid and dull. Coming from the first decade of sound cinema, much of the stiffness can be excused away—movies of the time aren’t always exceptionally dynamic, and the theatrical lineage of the story (first a novel, then a stage musical, then two silent movies) translates into a film that doesn’t move much. My lack of interest in the film is even more inexplicable given that it features the great Charles Laughton and one of my favourite early-Hollywood actresses Zasu Pitts. It’s a generally lighthearted comedy, and it ends on a somewhat stirring adoption of American freedoms by an immigrant who, until then, has always lived his adult life on other peoples’ terms. In short, Ruggles of Red Gap should have made much more of an impression but didn’t. I may revisit it under different circumstances to see if it works better.

  • Kill List (2011)

    Kill List (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2020) Maybe I was expecting too much. Kill List came highly recommended, hailed as a fine piece of British horror filmmaking from iconoclast writer-director Ben Wheatley. Of course, I’ve had mixed reactions to Wheatley’s other movies (High-Rise, Free Fire)—They get roughly three fourths of the way to a good movie, and sputter along the way. Worse yet; it seems to be an intentional refusal to go all the way, as Wheatley would rather follow his own artistic intentions than to deliver anything conventionally entertaining. So it is that from afar, Kill List certainly sounds interesting—it starts as a domestic drama that features a hitman with PTSD, then turns into an eerie contract killing film, then goes full bore in folk horror with mysterious cultists in modern Britain. But in the end, it’s intriguing, then annoying, then frustrating. The mysteries introduced are not resolved, the film gets increasingly violent and sadistic the longer it goes on, and it gets so dark (in a detached kind of way) that it’s hard to actually care about any of it—even the protagonist is severely flawed, and not necessarily someone for whom we’d feel anything. The lead actor himself isn’t particularly charismatic either, but the biggest issue is with the script or lack thereof—apparently, much of the movie was improvised, which is a surefire way to make me grumpy. By the end, I was more ready to shrug than care for the ending offered on-screen. Kill List is not a complete loss—the sense of domesticity gradually succumbing to unknowable horror is not bad—but it just doesn’t make the most out of its assets.

  • Empire Records (1995)

    Empire Records (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2020) I started watching Empire Records without great hopes, expecting that I’d go do something else while it played. But I ended up unexpectedly captivated by the result. It’s not much of a movie in strictly conventional terms: Structured as a day-in-the-life of record store employees (albeit on the store’s last day as an independent, as they also host a major 1980s singer), it’s a mixture of various short subplots thrown together around a common setting. But there’s quite a bit of charm to the result—and even more now as a time capsule of what it could have felt like to work in a record store in the mid-1990s. As befits the setting, Empire Records has a wall-to-wall soundtrack of 1990s alternative music, and it sounds even better today than back then. The script has a pleasant rhythm to it, with some characters inhabiting a slightly different reality from the others—at least two of them have a special relationship with the fourth wall, leading to some of the film’s funniest moments. Other characters have their own far more conventional dramas, and the ensemble show the fun dynamics of a close-knit group. The cast is remarkable for featuring early appearances by some actors who would go on to better things. Robin Tunney and Liv Tyler are both eye-catching enough, but the out-of-persona surprise here is probably Renée Zellweger as a promiscuous teenager. Empire Records is all slight but good fun, although I suspect that my age (I was twenty in 1995) has something to do with it. [January 2025: It’s funny what sticks in mind from a film, and five years later my favourite quote from the film is still “Empire Records, open ’till midnight, this is Mark. (beat) Midnight.”]

  • Boys Town (1938)

    Boys Town (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) There’s an immediately recognizable rhythm to Boys Town that works even eighty years later, so closely does it adhere to some conventions of Hollywood feel-good movies. It starts with our heroic priest protagonist (in an understated performance by Spencer Tracy) visiting a death-row inmate and resolving to do what he can to save boys from criminal destinies. Moments later, he’s establishing a reform establishment for troubled boys in the hopes of putting them on a straighter path. (It’s based on a true story.) As regular as clockwork, this is all a setup for the redemption of a particularly troubled soul played by… Mickey Rooney. That’s right. All-American ruddy-cheeked teenage heartthrob Rooney playing a bad boy, going against the establishment and vowing that nothing and no one will even tame him. You can imagine how the rest of the film goes, and that’s actually part of its charm—the utter comfort of watching a film eighty years later and still being able to know with confidence where it’s going. Boys Town was an Academy Awards favourite back in 1938 and the formula it adopts is still being used these days. Still, the fun of the film is in the details and the performances. Even if you don’t buy Rooney as a hoodlum, Boys Town (helmed by then-veteran director Norman Taurog) is a movie that clearly understands what it’s doing, and executes it with good details. The Christianity of the lead character is present without being overbearing; the bad-boy antics of its teenage co-lead are easily acceptable by the audience and the film rides this kind of middle-of-the-road sensibility all the way to a feel-good conclusion. Is it inspiring but predictable, predictable but inspiring or simply both?

  • Last Night (1998)

    Last Night (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) I can name at least three “the end of the world is coming and here is how the characters react” movies in recent memory—Melancholia, These Final Hours and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World—but Last Night predates all of them, and still offers its own unique take on the premise. Shot and set in debris-strewn Toronto streets, writer-director Don McKellar’s film feels like an exceptionally Canadian take on cozy catastrophes: the rioting and panic having taken place earlier and offstage (aside from a few brief moments of crowd craziness midway through the film), we’re left with characters reacting with dignity and black humour to the impending apocalypse as the clock counts down to the end. Some indulge in hedonism, checking off their bucket lists, while others retire home to pray. Meanwhile, our lead couple (McKellar and a captivating Sandra Oh) improbably connects despite very different plans. Add TTC streetcars, some French-Canadian dialogue with Geneviève Bujold, the eye-catching Sarah Polley and a rare (but dignified) acting performance by director David Cronenberg and you’ve got one of the most Canadian of all 1990s Canadian movies. I enjoyed Last Night far more than I thought I would, but then again, I have a soft spot for that exact premise, and it’s substantially funnier than I expected. The only thing that marred my experience is that Canadian Cable TV channel Encore must have dredged their copy of the film from their old TMN/Moviepix archives because the transfer here is markedly low-resolution with faded colours and standard aspect ratio—not a good way to present a good film.

  • One of our Aircraft is Missing (1942)

    One of our Aircraft is Missing (1942)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2020) A surprising number of WW2 movies were shot during WW2 itself, and while many of them were straight-up propaganda movies with little lasting power, a few of them managed to deliver an enjoyable adventure story that can still be rewatched today with some pleasure. Sahara and Air Force both come to mind on the American front, but One of our Aircraft is Missing is a good British counterpart, as it depicts the adventures of a bomber crew forced to parachute over the Netherlands and make their way home thanks to a sympathetic homegrown resistance movement. Written and directed by the legendary Powell-Pressburger team, it’s a well-handled thriller with some good character moments and a few unusual choices. I specifically liked the roles given to the actresses in what could have been an all-boy’s adventure: Googie Withers is spectacularly beautiful here, but her role as a resistance leader is interesting, and Joyce Redman gets a great dramatic role as another resistance participant actively fooling the Nazis. One of our Aircraft is Missing is a workmanlike film, but it’s handled well enough that we can watch it today without dissonance regarding later events, and focusing on the adventure thrills of the film rather than its role in inspiring younger viewers to enlist and fight.

  • Memory: The Origin of Alien (2019)

    Memory: The Origin of Alien (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) I’d like to think that I knew quite a bit about Alien and its making—after all, the film (in its “Quadrilogy” boxset) even comes with its own three-hour-long making-of film, challenging anyone to add to that. But that’s exactly what Alexandre O. Philippe attempts with Memory: The Origin of Alien, a 90-minute attempt to explore the roots of the film through the lenses of its first screenwriter Dan O’Bannon and his inspirations. There are critics and cultural commentators bringing their perspective on the film, sometimes flagging underappreciated aspects of Ridley Scott’s direction and sometimes tackling bigger cultural issues through the movie. Perhaps the most successful section of Memory is its short presentation of O’Bannon’s life prior to Alien (through testimony from his widow, as O’Bannon passed away in 2009) and the catalogue of possible influences on his script—including the reminder that O’Bannon suffered (and eventually died) from severe Crohn’s Disease, something fit to make any Alien viewer say, “I knew it!” Of the commentators featured in the film, the most entertaining is easily TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, who brings his usual charismatic humour to explaining aspects of Alien’s lineage in earlier Science Fiction stories. On a thematic commentary level, the documentary is most successful pointing out subtle class rivalry aboard the Nostromo, and less convincing in admiring the film’s feminist content. Memory also loses itself in self-importance once it starts discussing Alien in a wider cultural zeitgeist, almost imbuing the film with mystical importance—look, it’s a classic already, there’s no need to make it a psychic projection of the noosphere’s anxieties. I’m also not that happy about the weight placed on the filming of the chest-burster sequence: Memory spends comparatively so much time on it, even placing it as its conclusion, that it seems to trivialize other aspects of the filming and leave us wanting more. This being said, Memory is a slick documentary with some lively tricks up its sleeve to jazz up talking-head footage and clips from the film. It doesn’t duplicate much of the existing documentary material on Alien, and it should make existing fans of the movie not only happy with the result but eager to re-watch it once again.

  • The Ice Pirates (1984)

    The Ice Pirates (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) Even knowing that The Ice Pirates is supposed to be a B-grade Science Fiction satire is not quite enough to reconcile me with the daft result shown on-screen. The first few minutes are certainly laborious, as the film makes little attempt to camouflage its low budget or its ludicrous sense of comedy. As a crew of space pirates chases down water (already we’re in bad SF territory), it’s all cheap costumes, leather outfits, ridiculous attitude and campy intentions. The SF devices are dumb, the comedy is dumb and the film itself is dumb. Some of the gags are fit to make people gag rather than laugh, and the visual look of the film seems inches away from horror at times. To be fair, The Ice Pirates does improve slightly the longer it goes on, possibly because viewers eventually get used to the film’s low-end aims. There is a semi-amusing take on Mad Max 2 midway through, and the ending does sport a demented and relatively clever take on relativistic time, although I’d be overstating things if I advanced that it redeemed anything in the rest of the film. (For all I know, I’m reading too much into a plot development from a movie that seems to be making it up as it goes along.) Mary Crosby is deservedly featured on the poster, but most contemporary viewers will get a far bigger kick of seeing distinguished serious screen legend Anjelica Huston as a leather-clad space pirate pin-up able to swordfight and drive a spaceship. Alas, The Ice Pirates is nowhere near what it should have been even as a parody of SF movies up to that point. It’s too juvenile for adults and too smutty for kids and generally too dumb for everyone. Consider that its director, Stewart Raffill, is also responsible for Mac and Me, Mannequin 2: On the Move as well as Tammy and the T-Rex—geez. Wasted opportunities and all that—The Ice Pirates fails to meet even its low ambitions.

  • Blossoms in the Dust (1941)

    Blossoms in the Dust (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) If you want a specific illustration of the kind of overwrought melodrama that the major studios could produce in the 1940s (and get them nominated for an Oscar along the way), then Blossoms in the Dust can be your pick. Tackling social issues (in this case; advocating for adopted children) using a weeping dose of personal tragedy (a dead sister and child all in the first act), this is a film that wants to make you cry your eyes out and think that it’s all coming from an admirable source. Bleh. The film’s saving graces are its colour cinematography (still a rarity in the early 1940s, and a measure of how much of a prestige production this was despite the unspectacular nature of the visuals) and the first pairing of Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon as the likable lead couple. Garson could make even the most hackneyed material look dignified and she does not disappoint here, even as the entire film around her is a pure weeper. The plot itself is manipulated for maximum pathos—while adapted from a real story, it’s cheerfully tweaked for drama whenever it can, even at the expense of basic credibility. Director Mervyn LeRoy was a veteran at that point, but even he can’t make Blossoms in the Dust work for modern audiences.

  • State Fair (1962)

    State Fair (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2020) I’m on a mission to see all 1960s Ann-Margret movies, but that didn’t make it any easier to power through State Fair, a wholly unremarkable musical remake of what I presume are two better movies. As a family of four makes its way to the Texas state fair with distinct objectives in mind, the film slogs through useless and forgettable musical numbers until the base outline of a plot emerges. (“It’s dollars to donuts that our state fair is the best state fair in our state” is mind-numbing enough, and even more so the fiftieth time you hear it.) Ann-Margret finally shows up as a state fair circuit dancer with a long succession of momentary dalliances, but while her red mane remains spectacular, her character is far too dark to take advantage of her screen persona—and doesn’t fit the rest of the film. Time has not been kind to this remake, as it creaks under a story first thought in the 1930s and songs from the 1940s, and unable to take advantage of the story’s spicier moments given the context of the time. It’s movies like State Fair that show how dull the musicals had become by the 1960s.

  • Dragonheart (1996)

    Dragonheart (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, On TV, January 2020) I first saw Dragonheart in theatres on its opening weekend, and twenty-five years later, this is clearly a different time for movies. Most strikingly, circa-2020 viewers have been blessed by a long list of very convincing CGI characters over the past two decades… no wonder if this early-CGI creation feels creaky. But Dragonheart was a pioneer in that space, and the thrill of seeing an ILM-created dragon emote and speak with Sean Connery’s voice back in 1996 has inevitably abated in 2020. Still, there’s a bit more to Dragonheart than a talking CGI dragon, and the film does manage to establish itself as an average medieval fantastic adventure. Under Rob Cohen’s direction, it does suffer a bit from less-than-convincing battle sequences (clearly, the money went to the CGI dragon), but redeems itself through acceptable comic sequences (including a prolonged standoff between a knight and a dragon) and a sombre finale. While I’d watch Dina Meyer wearing red curls in nearly anything, the film does belong to Dennis Quaid as a knight who’s not above a bit of film-flammery, with some assistance from David Thewlis and Pete Postlethwaite. While Dragonheart doesn’t quite have what it takes to be a good or great movie (it’s a mis-mash of high and low material, especially at the script level—the film’s production history is a horror show of dramatically lowered ambitions and the studio/director is probably to blame) but I can understand its cult popularity even now.

  • Eden Lake (2008)

    Eden Lake (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2020) Well, well, well: Before becoming an acclaimed Oscar-nominated actor, then a headliner for baffling big-budget pictures, and then not doing much for a few years, Michael Fassbender headlined a nasty horror movie called Eden Lake. His presence, and the film’s ultra-bleak ending, are almost the only noteworthy things about it. Here we have an ordinary couple who eventually becomes the target of a group of disaffected teenagers who are evil because the script demands it. No further explanations being required (although there are links here with the reactionary “Broken Britain” movement), we’re clearly in grindhouse exploitation territory as the film inflicts torment over torment to the couple until there’s nothing left of them. Cheaply hand-waving “society” for the teenage cruelty, Eden Lake is never meant to be uplifting or generous—it’s one streak of bad luck after another, using its protagonists as bloody piñatas until the end. (It keeps one fatal coincidence in reserve just to drive the point home.) It would be depressing if it actually meant anything, but beyond elementary genre thrills from director James Watkins (who would go on to do far better and weightier fare), Eden Lake can easily be dismissed as nothing more than a mediocre horror film.

  • Lady for a Day (1933)

    Lady for a Day (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) There is a surprisingly wholesome quality to Lady for a Day that keeps going until the very end of the film, as a bunch of cynical high-class New Yorkers come together to help an old poor lady create an illusion of wealth for her visiting daughter. (The daughter is accompanied by her fiancé, and the film makes it clear that he won’t marry her if she comes from a poor family.) Our protagonist is transformed from an apple-selling old woman to a meticulously put-together matriarch, and it takes nearly an entire city to maintain the illusion for the sake of the two lovebirds. Mercifully, the film keeps going to the end and no further, adding to the fairy-tale nature of the story. May Robson does well in the lead role, handling an impressive transformation from near-homeless to near-royalty—and she was nominated for an Oscar for her troubles. Directed by Frank Capra, Lady for a Day is solidly in his tradition of uplifting films, although it’s far less political than many of his other movies. While it takes a solid dose of disbelief to enjoy, and constantly teeters on reality reasserting itself, it’s kind of sweet and a bit unusual for its choice of protagonist.

  • The Cars that Ate Paris (1974)

    The Cars that Ate Paris (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2020) You would think that a movie about a remote village making its living off causing car crashes for unwary tourists and then stripping their cars for part and lobotomizing any survivors would be more interesting than what ultimately comes out of The Cars that Ate Paris. If you’re watching for the iconic ultra-spiky VW Bug on the poster, then be warned that it shows up late and doesn’t stay long: The film is closer to an enigmatic arthouse drama blended with a gory exploitation film and if you don’t know what that means (I don’t!), then the movie itself will not necessarily enlighten you. Writer-director Peter Weir made equally frustrating movies later on, but The Cars that Ate Paris is noteworthy in that it vastly underperforms against expectations. The film is ugly, laborious, unfocused and unclear about what it’s trying to do. The third act, which finally opposes the town’s two factions, is a narrative mess of jumbled objectives and hazy characterization. It’s also disconnected from the film’s first act, which seemed to be about something else entirely. Even the film’s title is a misdirection. In other words, I really did not enjoy much about The Cars That Ate Paris—even as a low-budget Ozploitation film, the best we can say about it is that it seems to be a prototype for the Mad Max series. On its own, it’s a dud.