Reviews

  • Huang jin xiong di [Golden Job] (2018)

    Huang jin xiong di [Golden Job] (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2020) I was in the mood for an action movie, and Golden Job delivered on that itch. The story of five “brothers” carrying off dangerous assignments as a team, the film quickly twists the dynamic inward as one of the men betrays his ersatz family for the sake of a very large gold shipment. The narrative arc is very melodramatic, but it’s not a bad backdrop for the action scenes that are the film’s raison d’être. While Golden Job is not a great action movie, it’s a good enough one. Using rough CGI for demented stunts and more successful seamless shots, it’s a film that has a charge of action every ten-to-fifteen minutes, and has sufficiently different ones so that things don’t fall into a morass of undistinguished movement. (A common failing of many martial arts films.) There are a few good stunts and shots here and there, although it firmly upholds the tradition of action movies giving very little thought to the collateral damage of the smashed or exploded cars along the way. Some of the film is directed a bit too bluntly, but veteran action choreographer Kar Lok Chin doesn’t do all too badly. Acting-wise, it’s an ensemble cast, but Ekin Cheng does have the plum role as “Lion,” while Jerry Lamb is distinctive as “Mouse.” (I’m told that much of the main cast is the same as an earlier action film series, but I don’t think that this is an explicit sequel, despite the expansive backstory suggested. And, of course, the casting coup doesn’t quite work if you’re not aware -or don’t remember—the earlier series.) Visually, Golden Job does travel around the world for its set-pieces, adding slightly to the interest. Still, it probably doesn’t reach out of the action genre – I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those films that works well enough during its running time, but quickly decays in memory. Still, I’d rather have my action movie itch scratched for the moment than to be left wanting.

  • All Fall Down (1962)

    All Fall Down (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) While director John Frankenheimer is best known for his action movies, he does have an almost-parallel filmography of character-driven drama films. Take, for instance, All Fall Down, released the same year as the far better known The Manchurian Candidate – it’s a relatively low-stake family drama, featuring a charismatic but self-destructive young man who drags down his family into misery. Unusually enough –and you can credit the literary origins of the film –, All Fall Down rarely revolves around that young man, inelegantly named Berry-Berry (the repetitiousness of it becoming an unintentional gag at some point in the film) and played by a very young and charming Warren Beatty. Much of the film is clearly from the point of view of his younger brother, undertaking a journey to the realization that his older brother is to be pitied rather than idolized or harmed. We also have their parents, divided over their older son’s behaviour, and an older woman who becomes the crux of the brothers’ irreversible rift. There is some intense melodrama to the twists and turns of All Fall Down that hasn’t aged particularly well, and having a handsome but dangerous central character is always a cause for mixed impressions. There are some good performances here – aside from Beatty, there’s Angela Lansbury as a misguided mother, Eva Marie Saint as the girl that divides the brothers, and Karl Malden as a father drinking himself to death. For all of Frankenheimer’s skills in directing, he couldn’t quite manage to improve on the screenplay’s least believable elements enough to improve the credibility of the film – it all seemed like an elaborate plotting exercise, moving pieces around without quite thinking about whether it made sense. I eventually tired of Berry-Berry, and wanted him unable to hurt any more people ever again, no matter how we got there. All Fall Down does hold more interest than expected as drama, but it does feel a bit hollow when all is said and done.

  • The Story of Mankind (1957)

    The Story of Mankind (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2020) Oh, what a mess. Any movie that punches so hard through my suspension of disbelief that I start asking why it exists has already lost. In the case of The Story of Mankind, here we have a science-fictional “alien judgment” framing device looking at the history of humanity as an excuse to have small historical sketches conveniently casting as many known actors as possible. It’s hard to resist a film that had Hedy Lamarr, three of the Marx brothers, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Dennis Hopper (!) and Cesar Romero, but just wait until it begins and you’re served sketches that are neither funny nor profound, skipping ahead history to serve the usual bromides, with stunt casting that doesn’t really use the actors to their fullest extent – even the Marx Brothers appear in different scenes, and don’t play to their strengths. (I was waiting for the Groucho scene… I should have skipped it.) The film being directed by Irwin Allen, I half-suspect that the idea was for a grandiose statement with state-of-the-art special effects. Instead, we get sketches comparable to a high-school production, and a constant back-and-forth between trying to make a statement and trying to make jokes. The Story of Mankind is almost fascinating in its hideousness, but I really can’t recommend it as anything but a curio.

  • May (2002)

    May (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2020) While I can’t say that I loved May, I can recognize in it an attempt to deliver something like a slasher horror movie without necessarily wallowing in the same clichés as most movies of the genre. The base story will be familiar to horror fans, as a lonely young woman snaps after heartbreak and starts killing out of a lack of affection. But under writer-director Lucky McKee, the execution is somewhat different. For one thing, it does take a long time for May to fall into horror. Despite a bloody opening shot and several portentous moments, much of the film’s first half focuses on its lead character and her crippling loneliness – it’s an affective character study in that it creates sympathy for the (eventually) mass-murdering heroine that lasts long after she has settled for violence. Angela Bettis can be cute as the lead character, and there’s Anna Faris in a small role for those who enjoy seeing actors in pre-stardom roles. There’s some affection for the protagonist throughout, and a final shot that actually brings some comfort to her… and to the audience that still somehow cheers for her. May is not revolutionary or transcendent, but it’s different enough to be worth a look for those jaded, disaffected horror fans.

  • 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.