Reviews

  • Varsity Show (1937)

    Varsity Show (1937)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) When measured against other musicals of the late 1930s, Varsity Show definitely comes across as a second-tier film. It doesn’t have snappy songs, barely ekes out a rousing finale thanks to Busby Berkeley, breaks no ground in matters of originality, and while it sports a fine Dick Powell, the rest of the cast isn’t particularly remarkable. (Well, except for Mabel Todd, very cute as a bespectacled blonde “class pest.”) On the other hand, Varsity Show does keep viewers’ attention and has a lot to offer if you’re willing to engage with it. Part of its fun is how it combines the archetypical “let’s put on a show” structure of a movie musical with the college campus culture of the 1930s—meaning that if you ever wondered what it would feel like to walk down a campus a few decades ago, then Varsity Show has a Hollywoodized answer for you. William Keighley’s direction is surprisingly interesting in the first few minutes, despite substandard actors—there are some Altmanesque ensemble cast-juggling and quick cuts to briskly introduce characters within the film’s 80 minutes. The first half of the film has strong comic moments, as students looking to put on a show hired an alumnus now on Broadway—while unaware that his last three shows have been a failure and he needs out of Manhattan fast. For twenty-first century viewers, there’s something utterly fascinating in seeing students from the 1930 complain about the stodginess of an authority proposing ideas that were in vogue back in the… 1910s.  The second half of Varsity Show cranks up the musical numbers as the troupe goes to New York City and the show does go on. It concludes with one of Busby’s signature epic numbers, where human figures are a mere component of something much bigger. Some of the film’s sauciest moments bring to mind pre-code film—I could have sworn at times that this was an early-1930s film. For all of those reasons—Varsity Show is not a great musical, but it’s a fun one as long as you’re indulgent.

  • Step Up Revolution (2012)

    Step Up Revolution (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) I’ve bounced all around the five-film Step Up series, from seeing the third in theatres to going home to watch the first and then the fifth and now the fourth. (Don’t worry—I’ll see the second soon.) The decision to locate Step Up Revolution in sunny colourful Miami is a good one, although the dubstep and flash-mob fascination date this film more solidly in 2012 than anything else I would have imagined. The plot itself, what with its promoter-destroying-neighbourhood hook, is rather jejune and more fitting to a kid’s movie starring a dog, but the point of the movie is the dance sequences, and there are quite a few good ones here. Never mind that our ragtag dance troupe requires props and costumes that would bankrupt any professional dance group. There are a few callbacks to the previous entries of the series (Moose shows up!), but Step Up Revolution generally stands alone. The calling card of the series is that it’s about as close as we’ll get to modern MGM musicals, and in that regard this fourth entry delivers the goods in energetic fashion: It’s best to look at it as a collection of dance numbers than a cohesive narrative. From that angle, the film’s highlights include a massive number on Ocean Drive, a cute bit at the Miami Museum of Fine Arts that pays homage to Miami’s art scene, a hilariously on-the-nose bit featuring a “businessman” flash mob and a finale set against a colourful stage made of shipping containers. The plot makes no sense, but the numbers are high-energy, Cleopatra Coleman has a supporting role, and the anti-capitalist message is good for the kids. All told, I can’t find any problem with Step Up Revolution. Why isn’t there a box-set of this series available for purchase?

  • 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)

    7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) Producer George Pal specialized in big special-effects heavy spectacles, and that’s how we ended up with SF classics such as Destination Moon, The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. It’s also how we got the much stranger piece of western fantasy 7 Faces of Dr. Lao—and I here mean “western” as in “American west,” considering that the plot of the film gets started once the titular Dr. Lao stops by an Arizona town as it awaits the construction of a railroad. Lao isn’t a medical doctor—he’s a seven-thousand-year-old magician from the mysterious Orient (but played by Tony Randall under layers of makeup) with seven alter egos. All of them will be useful to untangle the romantic and financial complexity of the small town. Adapted from a fantasy novel by Charles G. Finney, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao ends up being another ideal special-effects showcase for Pal’s mixture of practical effects, heavy makeup, stop-motion animation and other visual effects tricks. Both the best and the worst thing about the film is that it’s almost chaotic in going from one special effect sequence to another. It’s definitely weird by the standards of Hollywood cinema at the time, and it clearly hasn’t aged particularly well in a CGI era. One can imagine 1964 audiences being wowed by the effects, although nowadays they’re often more grotesque than anything else. Randall is problematically cast as the Asian Dr. Lao but throws himself entirely in the seven (ish) roles required by the script. There’s something to be said about a “man comes into town” story in which said man isn’t a gunslinger but a magician with near-infinite wisdom. Sometimes, weird is a virtue in itself when it comes to Hollywood.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, November 2020) Director-producer George Pal was always about spectacle, and it’s not because 7 Faces of Dr. Lao constrains itself to a small wild west town that it’s any less intent on wowing the rubes than Pal’s other more outlandish movies. Here, we have a one-man travelling circus rolling into town, what with a mysterious and desperately stereotyped Dr. Lao promising untold wonders to the local newspaperman while taking notes on the local controversy. It feels like small potatoes compared to the time-travelling, world-altering, lost-continent-sinking scope of previous Pal movies, but the draw here is still on the special effects as the circus springs up and multiple special effects are presented in episodic segments. Tony Randall is arguably the film’s central special effect, as he plays more than a handful of roles under heavy makeup. The film plays off spooky circus tropes, with a heavy dose of now-uncomfortable ethnic clichés. The result may be worth a look for visual purposes (it did well in Academy Award technical categories), but as an overall film or story, it’s scattered, offensive, dull and overdone in rapid intervals. 7 Faces of Dr. Lao is interesting because of its uneven tone and its special effects, but I will stop short of a recommendation.

  • Nightbreed (1990)

    Nightbreed (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2020) There is something far more interesting than usual in Nightbreed when compared to most other horror films of that era. It has authentic sympathy for the monsters that would be antagonists in other horror films, and much of the protagonist’s journey is joining and protecting those monsters from human opponents. (As per Wikipedia, there’s an entire queer subtext to Nightbreed that flew over my head upon watching the film.) When writer-director Clive Barker set out to make the film, he was aiming for a menagerie of creatures on par with Star Wars, and a quasi-mythological resonance to the story. He doesn’t quite get there, but his intentions certainly resonate in the final result. The version I was the much-decried original cut of the film rather than the more definitive “Cabal Cut,” so quite a bit got lost—The serial killer subplot does make the film far trashier than it should have been and the result isn’t quite as interesting as the creatures it features. As an American backwoods gothic, Nightbreed brings to mind an approach not dissimilar to Guillermo del Toro’s love of monsters and empathy in approaching the other. If you’re looking for another reason to watch the film, there’s David Cronenberg playing the antagonist, which is good for a chuckle or two. Still, and perhaps to the chagrin of Nightbreed’s considerable cult following, this film is more one of missed opportunities than outright success—it doesn’t quite work, and I’m not sure that even a recut version would be significantly better.

  • Warlock (1989)

    Warlock (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2020) By the standards of late-1980s horror, Warlock is both different and somewhat sedate. It follows the titular warlock (Satan’s son, we’re told) as he’s propelled from 18th-century Boston to circa 1989 Los Angeles, pursued by a witch hunter. While some of the details used in the narrative (the use of salt, notably, or some fish-out-of-water comedy from the two 18th century characters in modern times) are lively and show some imagination from screenwriter David Twohy, much of the film is a shrug-inducing battle between good and evil involving spells, magic artifacts and incomprehensibly end-of-the-universe high stakes. What does work well, however, is Julian Sands’ very charismatic performance as the warlock. While not horrible and tastefully restrained in matters of gory violence, Warlock is a bit of a snooze—it doesn’t come together as anything more than a middling fantasy/horror. It probably would have done better had it leaned more into comedy, or drama, or horror—but not in its current indecisive state.

  • The Reckoning: Hollywood’s Worst Kept Secret (2018)

    The Reckoning: Hollywood’s Worst Kept Secret (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) Surely, I can’t be the only one who’s uneasy watching ripped-from-the-headlines crime documentaries? Oh, I’m fine with seeing powerful Hollywood figures finally facing justice for their crimes and terrible actions. And I’m fine with victims telling us their stories—truth will out, and truth cleanses. What I’m not too enthusiastic about is the idea of a documentary produced so soon after the events—before the verdicts, before the dust falling down, before being able to take a look at all of it and extract lessons and conclusions from it all. Veteran documentarian Barry Avrich takes on a topic that’s both touchy and obvious in The Reckoning: Hollywood’s Worst Kept Secret—starting with Harvey Weinstein in exploring a culture of sexual abuse within Hollywood. I say “obvious” because it’s been impossible to take in entertainment news since 2017’s #MeToo hashtag and ignore that several high-profile actors, directors, comedians and producers have been accused of sexual harassment and worse. Barely a few months later, The Reckoning is jockeying for relevance, with newspaper headlines still revealing details about the many accusations and ongoing investigations. At the same time, it’s a live wire of a topic—it illustrates not only the criminal actions of the accused, but also the bad behaviour of those around them that enabled, tolerated or ignored the sordid actions of the aggressors. But what we get is a sketch of what will eventually become the final story: As of this writing, Weinstein has just been convicted in New York state, and awaits another trial in California—meanwhile, other investigations are still pending on other accused abusers. As to what this means in general, we don’t know: the optimists believe this will help purge Hollywood of its offenders, while cynics state that the rot will always be there. Whoever’s right will only be determined much later, possibly in a documentary with more facts and conclusions at its disposal. Until then, The Reckoning, even as good as it is, feels like a newspaper—vital upon publication, but increasingly obsolete every following day.

  • Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind (2020)

    Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) Considering the richness of Natalie Wood’s life (the films, the forty-year-long career, the child star, the beauty, the men she dated, the family, the clashes with the studios, the awards) and the tragic circumstances of her death in 1981, any documentary about her has an embarrassment of material to showcase. Documentarian Laurent Bouzereau chooses a middle path in Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, trying to strike a balance between the film that her daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner (the film’s defining voice) wanted to see as a celebration of her mother’s life, and the more sensitive discussion of her death, which is what most viewers are interested in. After the rapid-fire overview of her career, the film moves to a climax of sorts when Gregson Wagner interviews her stepfather, Robert Wagner, about what happened on the boat the night Wood died. While Wagner’s responses are emotional, they’re also incomplete and don’t reveal anything new. While clearly designed to exonerate Wagner of any wrongdoing, the film ends up being this semi-hagiographic, semi-regurgitated look at Wood that packages her life and one version of her death into content fit to feed into the streaming maw — but does not bring any new light on the topic. So, Wood fans, keep your expectations in check and take the documentary for what it is—a reminder of a vivacious screen presence gone too soon, a celebration of her less-visible facet as a mother, and a public statement by her family. Considering that of the four people that were on the boat that night, two are dead and the two others are Christopher Walken and Robert Wagner, maybe we’ll eventually get a more satisfactory answer. But then again, maybe not. One thing’s for sure—if you’re looking for a more even-handed approach to Natalie Wood’s life and death, read a book.

  • Tirez sur le pianiste [Shoot the Piano Player] (1960)

    Tirez sur le pianiste [Shoot the Piano Player] (1960)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) Many cinephiles think the world of François Truffault’s debut feature Les 400 coups, but for me he starts hitting his marks with Tirez sur le pianiste, where (having said what he had about his childhood in his first film), he starts playing with the topics that he would then revisit over and over in his career—Hollywood homage to crime films with gangster subplots and a murder somewhere in the narrative; complex unglamorous relationships between his protagonist and women; the stylistic hallmarks (jump cuts, guerilla-style shooting, voiceovers, nonlinear storytelling) that would mark the French cinema for the next two decades. Tirez sur le pianiste explicitly looks at the United States for inspiration (film noir for style, an English-language novel for the plot) and blends it into its own execution. The mixture of crime thriller and talky French romantic drama is in line with the entirety of French cinema, from poetic realism to the impending nouvelle vague. A young Charles Aznavour (yes, him) is remarkable as the protagonist, a piano player trying to escape his dark past. Amazingly enough for French Canadian viewers, the soundtrack features some Felix Leclerc! While not flawless (it’s long, sometimes dull), Tirez sur le pianiste is generally better than many similar examples of French cinema at that time, and clearly announces Truffaut as the director he wanted to be.

  • Mixed Nuts (1994)

    Mixed Nuts (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2020) I’m somewhat nonplussed by Mixed Nuts. It’s a weird, very Americanized adaptation of the pitch-black French Christmas comedy classic Le père Noël est une ordure (which I haven’t seen in ages), set in snowless Los Angeles on Christmas Eve. Much of the weirdness is due to it being pulled in two different directions—the very dark comedy of the original (which ends with body parts of a serial killer being wrapped up in Christmas packaging and fed to zoo animals) and the innocuous audience-friendly style of writer-director Nora Ephron. I mean—this doesn’t feel like an appropriate match, and it isn’t. What were they thinking? This is the kind of premise (dark comedy hijinks at a suicide prevention hotline on the day before Christmas) that calls for a low-budget anarchic approach, not a glossy Ephron-style comedy. This is nowhere as dark as it should be, and it’s wrongly engineered for guiltless Christmas cheer. The high-budget slick approach also ensures that the film is made to be safe, and that, in turns, means that its approach to two sensitive topics—mental health and transgenderism—now feels half-outdated rather than transgressive. (It’s not as bad as it could have been—Liev Schreiber’s transwoman character is treated with some respect—but it clearly wouldn’t be remade the same way today.) As a result, the comedy feels both forced and neutered, and the laughs usually take the form of mildly amused smiles. But even then, as the film’s title jokes on my behalf, Mixed Nuts is also a grab-bag of other, more interesting bites: The cast is admittedly impressive, with a mixture of names that were familiar at the time (dark-haired Steve Martin as the hotline director, Rita Wilson as the attractive co-worker with a crush, Juliette Lewis, Madeline Khan and Rob Reiner), and other ascending actors used in sometimes small roles (Adam Sandler doing ukulele, a Steven Wright cameo, Parker Posey and Jon Stewart as rollerbladers, Haley Joel Osment and others.) Martin and Wilson, in particular, get nice roles even in the middle of a confused comedy. Still, The biggest takeaway I’m getting from Mixed Nuts is that I need to re-watch Le père Noël est une ordure soon.

  • The Price of Everything (2018)

    The Price of Everything (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) You would think that having watched another feature-length documentary about the modern art world (Blurred Lines: Inside the Art World) two weeks earlier would have been an issue in appreciating the similarly-themed The Price of Everything to its full value. But no—it speaks to the insanity of the modern art market that there is more than enough space for two, three or even more fascinating documentaries about it. This one takes a gently confrontational approach in interviewing artists about what they think of the bull run on their artwork, then goes on to show what’s happening at auctions with art critics, curators and collectors. The field’s remarkable absurdity is highlighted by the contrast offered between the artists (most of them far humbler than you’d think) and the ludicrous amounts of money thrown at one auction after another. (In one of the film’s best moments, it gets a live aghast reaction from an artist being shown how her art was essentially “flipped” in speculation.) Director Nathaniel Kahn gets access to two opposite artistic heavy hitters—corporate Koons, unpolished Poons—and uses their work as a springboard to examine the question of expensive art, bought for millions and stored away from the public, only reappearing to be sold as investments at higher prices, safely out of reach of all museums. Other talking heads span the spectrum from collectors, salespeople (oops; “gallery representatives”), and commentators. There are some intriguing juxtapositions in the way The Price of Everything’s material is presented, perhaps none as hard-hitting as the end-credit sequence in which art is taken down from a gallery wall, driven to an off-Manhattan storage facility and unceremoniously stored in an anonymous high-security storage locker. Completely fascinating—I have a feeling I could line up a day’s worth of modern art documentaries, and they would all be great.

  • L’âge des ténèbres (2007)

    L’âge des ténèbres (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 2020) There are movies that I probably should have seen earlier, and L’âge des ténèbres is one of them—a major French-Canadian movie, featuring a roster of circa-2007 working actors and with substantial science fiction plot elements tinged with dark comedy. It takes place in 2007’s near future with striking similarities to present-day 2020, what with technology-obsessed people and facemasks in schools and public transit. Its story revolves around a bureaucrat beset by middle-age ailments and escaping into reveries à la Walter Mitty. Denys Arcand is not subtle at all in presenting a non-stop carnival of modern problems and evidence of the fall of civilization—I normally wouldn’t be impressed by yet more suburban malaise, but there is something impressive and often hilarious in the completeness of Arcand’s vision. It gets funnier and funnier, as even the fantasies start turning against our protagonist. Lead actor Marc Labrèche is very good in the lead role, with a hangdog expression complementing an undeniable comic fluidity. Some of the background details are very good—although they may be lost on non-French-Canadian audiences, such as the dubious wisdom of setting up a government office in the Olympic stadium with its falling concrete beams (although this is alluded to). It’s fascinating that the protagonist would find an antithesis in incarnating fantasy to its fullest by going to a Renaissance Fair. Still, I’m not sure about the ending—I’d like to see at least once a film about midlife crisis that didn’t necessarily end with the protagonist quitting his job, trashing his car, leaving his marriage and ending up in a shack (admittedly one with a great view of the Saint Lawrence). Surely, there are ways to achieve a better synthesis of how to deal with modern ailments than to reject all of them. On a more serious note, L’âge des ténèbres is probably the movie that best represents (even with large discrepancies) the lowest point of my adult life around 40—fortunately, things are better now, and despite thinking that I should have seen it earlier, I’m actually happy that I’m seeing it today rather than a few years ago when I was in the thick of it.

  • Affairs of State (2018)

    Affairs of State (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) The duality of political thrillers is that they can be very cerebral affairs dealing with the abstract, even lofty ideals essential to the fabric of the state… or they can be trashy sordid affairs mixing petty transgressions and crime magnified by the whiff of power. Affairs of State reveals its true salacious colours early on with a sex scene featuring Mimi Rogers, and then the congressman having the affair goes on to also have sex with her daughter (but not at the same time, that would be too much). The rest of the film is this fantasy of American politics as being a mush of blackmail, affairs, hot sex, corruption, murder, coverups, people shouting at each other and more hot sex. (I listed hot sex twice because I like what I like.) Directed efficiently by Eric Bross, Affairs of State is at its best whenever Mimi Rogers is on-screen, or failing that whenever it’s wallowing in its own trashiness as if there was no tomorrow. Conversely, it’s at its weakest whenever it tries for loftier political statements, like a new conservative party somehow being viable. David Corenswet does well as the oversexed protagonist—but he’s not going to do well if he sticks to those low-budget potboilers. The ending, unfortunately, doesn’t quite cap off the wild ride to get there and feels as if Affairs of State ends on an anticlimactic letdown.

  • After Darkness (2014)

    After Darkness (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) Before getting into the meat of this review, let’s clear up one thing: What some movie sites call After Darkness (2019) (sometimes 2018) is known as After Darkness (2014) on IMDB, so that’s what I’m going with—it’s not rare for disappointing low-budget movies to be widely released in the United States a while after production, but the five-year gap between its 2014 Singapore DVD release and 2019 US video release is significant enough to cause confusion. What’s even more unfortunate is that this release delay is by far the most interesting thing about After Darkness, an almost-theatrical dining table post-apocalyptic drama about a rich family cooped up in their mansion while waiting for rescue after the extinction of the sun. The mansion is well lit and temperatures seem to be holding up nicely considering the now-eternal night, but if you’re looking for scientific rigour here, you’re going to be disappointed when elementary plausibility itself seems to elude the filmmakers. While the impending apocalypse means a definitive ending to the film, this isn’t anywhere near von Trier’s similar Melancholia in terms of dramatic tension: as the script throws in the expected tropes (family tensions, last-minute relationship rifts, crazy mom, additional guests, home invasion, home birth, extinguished hope), it doesn’t feel intense as much as perfunctory. Sure, the overprotective father is a worse threat than the blown-out sun or armed intruders, but so what? Everyone’s going to die, and while After Darkness does some crazy tap-dancing to avoid showing the inevitability of the ending it’s pursuing, it’s still not particularly edifying nor enjoyable. It’s directed with a certain comfy elegance by Batán Silva, except when the matter turns nasty and unpleasant. Still, I go back to the conclusion as proof of After Darkness’s creative hollowness: if your point is to show how characters crack under the worst pressure imaginable (the inevitable end of everything), then go with them to the final moments—don’t chicken out with a narcotics-induced hallucination that makes everything falsely pretty. If I want existential depression, I’m going back for von Trier next time. At least he knows what he’s doing. And his movies don’t get shelved for years before being released.

  • Jue di tao wang [Skiptrace] (2016)

    Jue di tao wang [Skiptrace] (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2020) The weird pairing at the heart of Chinese action blockbuster Skiptrace—Jackie Chan plus Johnny Knoxville!—isn’t so weird once you realize that both have a comic daredevil persona, and that their differences (Chan as the affable one; Knoxville as the abrasive one) work pretty well as counterbalance. The film’s slight story has them embark on a travelling odyssey while pursued by the mob across Asia (especially Mongolia—when was the last time you saw a film set in Mongolia?), but the point is getting them into one action-comedy set-piece after another. Of course, there’s now a limit to how much bone-breaking behaviour both of them can engage now: They are both getting older and can no longer quite defy the insurance requirements of a major scripted film production. This means action-lite material for Chan (although he can still bring it—the collapsing river houses moment is fun), and largely an observer role for Knoxville, thankfully more subdued than you’d expect. (In another universe, Knoxville could have become an action-movie leading man, and this will show you how.) While the result isn’t one for the history books, Skiptrace nonetheless becomes and remains watchable—it’s amusing and pleasant, even if the climax doesn’t have much grandeur. Renny Harlin directs with professionalism in what’s getting to be the “international action director-for-hire” phase of his career. Of note to action movie fans is how the film deals with globalized mayhem, and relies on Russian mobsters for antagonist—is this going to become a fixture for Chinese movies from now on?

  • The Domestics (2018)

    The Domestics (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) If you’re looking for a strong Science-Fictional reasoning behind The Domestics’ post-apocalyptic worldbuilding, hah, don’t bother: The opening visual of B-52s chem-bombing the United States is a great opener, but it’s explained more by the film’s cartoonish plot requirements than anything else. Years after a massive die-off, we’re to believe that American society has neatly divided itself in five violent gangs and the “domestics” trying to remain good Americans without the Mad Max cosplay. More of a horror road movie than anything else, The Domestics features a couple of ordinary Americans going from one thrill to another as they try to travel back to her parents’ place and reconcile through the mutual killing of enemies. Cannibalism, deadly games of Russian roulette and the likes are the film’s stock-in-trade, and while writer-director Mike P. Nelson’s execution is at least competent, it’s not a lot of fun, not likable, not uplifting, not pleasant to look at and not really interesting. Kate Bosworth looks out of central casing as the generic blonde lead and doesn’t bring much to the result. The Domestics hits its best moments whenever Lance Reddick is on-screen—otherwise it’s a lazy, cheap, tedious half-hearted attempt at post-apocalyptic fiction that will disappear without a trace.