Reviews

  • The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)

    The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) The documentary evidence that is The Incredible Mr. Limpet suggests that once upon a time, Don Knotts was considered a bona fide movie star. Okay. While we process this, a look at the film itself also suggests that this was the special-effects family movie event of 1965. It describes how an ordinary bookkeeper (Knotts, obviously) transforms into a fish (animated, with glasses), falls in love with another fish despite being married, befriends a crab, gets a lieutenant’s commission with the US Navy, helps the war effort by locating U-Boats, and runs away with his new fish-wife after the war is over. Again: Okay. Mystifying charm of the leading man and insane plot summary aside… all right, I can’t keep kidding: there is no “aside” of those two things. Even the copious amount of animation required for the concept only highlights just how weird this whole thing is. Knott disappears from the screen once he’s a fish, but his voice carries through the end of the film. So, someone so unhappy in the world becomes a fish and kills a few hundred people? Top-notch family film right there. Kids’ propaganda film for the US Navy, kids’ propaganda for extreme body dimorphism, kids’ propaganda for interspecies polygamy… I don’t know. Maybe I’ll see this in a few years and laugh all the way through. Right now, I’m just overwhelmed by the weirdness. Just listen to “I Wish I Were a Fish” and see how you feel after. Sure, the film was a hit with kids and still has its fans. But: Okay.

  • Martyrs (2015)

    Martyrs (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) American remakes of foreign horror films are usually disappointments, and the advantage I had with the original Martyrs is that I could watch it in my native French. So, really, I have no excuses other than I was curious to see how the film would be adapted to an American context rather than a French/Canadian one. Well, it’s entirely unsurprising if I report that the American remake is just as expected: Slicker, Americanized, not that different and yet significantly tamer to the point of stripping off what was unnerving about the original. If you thought that the French Martyrs was effective more because of the way it was put together than what it was about, then the American remake will confirm your impression. Directors Kevin and Michael Goetz clearly haven’t taken the right cues from the first film. I’m not going to lionize the original, but there’s no argument that, despite not changing much, this remake is clearly inferior to the first film. But that was pretty much what everyone expected.

  • Menteur [Liar] (2019)

    Menteur [Liar] (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) French-Canadian absurdist comedy Menteur takes a fantasy concept (an inveterate liar suddenly wakes up in a world where his lies have become truth) and runs with it as far as it can. Perennial French-Canadian marquee name Louis-José Houde leads the film along with Antoine Bertrand, but the fun here is in the script’s comic invention—even if the result is a bit too scattershot to be completely satisfying. The first part is generally more interesting than the second, which seems to escalate matters into a disappointing dead-end. Still, this is the kind of film that the French-Canadian cinema industry does best: a fast-paced crowd-pleaser comedy, not particularly refined but able to deliver what it intends to.

  • Blinded by the Light (2019)

    Blinded by the Light (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) The musical flashbacks continue apace with Blinded by the Light, following into the footsteps of musical biopics of other acts such as The Beatles, Elton John and Queen. But while this film idolizes Bruce Springsteen, it takes a slightly different approach than the straight-up life retelling. More political, more personal than a biography or a Yesterday-style comic homage, it follows a British teenager of South Asian ethnicity in Thatcher’s England as he discovers Springsteen, becomes a better person and travels to the United States to meet his idol. While the Boss’ music occupies a central place in Blinded by the Light, much of it is a journey of self-discovery and affirmation, with many subplots being familiar riffs on immigrant families adapting to their new surroundings. Viveik Kalra makes for a likable lead, with Nell Williams making a good romantic foil. Politically, it’s a film that doesn’t miss an opportunity to highlight the commonalities between working-class people on both sides of the Atlantic. While Blinded by the Light, like many musical-themed pictures, doesn’t quite work if you don’t already idolize the featured artist, it’s watchable enough, amusing, honest and joyous. Better yet, it doesn’t attempt to rewrite an artist’s biography.

  • Firestarter (1984)

    Firestarter (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2020) 1980s Stephen King adaptations span the scale from terrible to terrific, and Firestarter lands right in the middle of it, meaning that it’s both mediocre and bland. Anyone who has read the novel will be disappointed at how much of the humanistic material has been stripped away, leaving in its place a blunt blend of paranoid thriller, paranormal powers, secret government experiments and endangered children. Some of it does work, mind you: the father-daughter relationship is effectively sketched, and Firestarter remains more interesting than it could have been because it doesn’t settle for a simple chase narrative. Special effects are not bad for a lower-budget mid-1980s film, with some spontaneous combustion out of thin air. A very young Drew Barrymore stars, and much scenery is chewed by George C. Scott. Still, while much of what works here is taken straight from the novel, the film itself simply refuses to go anywhere beyond a mediocre middle-of-the-road adaptation. There’s little life to Mark L. Lester’s direction, and aside from a climax that appropriately burns everything up, the film has trouble sustaining the pacing that a thriller should have. I suppose that King fans weren’t too disappointed in Firestarter back in 1984—after all, no less than seven King adaptations were released in 1983–1985. Not all of them could be complete successes.

  • Tumbledown (2015)

    Tumbledown (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2020) Rebecca Hall and Jason Sudeikis make for an interesting pairing in romantic comedy Tumbledown, although the “comedy” here may be a bit more muted than you’d think considering that the story happens during the female lead’s final stages of grieving for her dead husband. The plot has to do with a writer (Sudeikis, in an unusually toned-down role) travelling from New York City to Maine in order to complete his biography of a dead singer. Alas, the singer’s widow (Hall, as beautiful as ever) is not a willing participant and the complex relationship they have eventually moves toward romance. It’s all a bit predictable in a good way, with Hall’s character moving on from her grief into something else. It’s perhaps a bit sweeter than usual for those kinds of films, considering the more dramatic aspect of a dead husband hanging over the romantic component of the film. The late-winter small-town setting echoes the larger thematic aspects of the script and the darker undertones of the backstory. There are a few issues with the script—Sudeikis’ character, who has elements of wish-fulfillment for the female audience, isn’t always written in the most believable ways. Elsewhere in the cast, I did enjoy seeing another late-career role for Blythe Danner –and Griffin Dunne too! While uneven and arguably a bit too wrapped in the conventions of romance (although, you know, those are likable characters and we want them to be happy), Tumbledown isn’t bad considering its slow pace.

  • Hard Target 2 (2016)

    Hard Target 2 (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2020) It had been a while since I had taken a look at a Roel Reiné film. Reiné, for those unaware, is a reliably competent vulgarian author specializing in B-grade action movies. He does a lot with little, usually shoots in poorer countries with lower production costs and in doing so gets amazing visuals and quality action scenes. This generally holds true for Hard Target 2 as well. A sequel-in-name only to the first 1990s film, this one takes place in Myanmar, with our protagonist being hunted for sport. Decent screen fighter Scott Adkins stars and Rhona Mitra plays a bad girl, but the star here remains Reiné as he uses audacious camera moves, aerial photography and all sorts of other stylistic tricks to give a very high level of polish to this low-budget film and, incidentally, pay homage to John Woo, who directed the first film. Of note: the movie’s introduction sequence/credit sequence is moved to the end of the film—weird. Despite Reine’s efforts at making things interesting on a low budget, Hard Target 2 is not a great movie… but it’s a well-executed one in its genre. Approach it as its own thing rather than a sequel and it will feel more interesting.

  • La belle et la bête [The Beauty and the Beast] (2014)

    La belle et la bête [The Beauty and the Beast] (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2020) Considering the innate French-ness of most interpretations of The Beauty and the Beast story, from Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve to Cocteau’s first film version to both of Disney’s takes, it’s somewhat rightful that it should get another French-produced version. Fortunately, the Christophe Gans version of La belle et la bête is a sumptuous, even lavish adaptation that does offer a very nice counterpoint to other takes on the tale. Propelled by the legacy of Cocteau, it offers an unabashedly romantic take on the tale, boosted by sumptuous set design, great cinematography, magnificent visuals, as well as decent (if sometimes uneven) special effects used in interesting ways. The flip side to such a production is that it can feel insubstantial at times, especially if the romantic aspect doesn’t quite hit like it should. Also troublesome is the 19-year age difference between leads Léa Seydoux and Vincent Cassel, although considering that he starts as a monstrous man-beast isolated for decades in his castle, that’s not really as irritating as you’d think. By adding a lot of extraneous details, such as flashbacks to family affairs, the film does take a while to gel and, even then, may test the patience of some viewers not entirely taken by the poetic romanticism of the tale. Still, this take on La belle et la bête is a beautiful, remarkable film, well worth seeing even if you overdose on the Disney versions.

  • April Fool’s Day (1986)

    April Fool’s Day (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, April 2020) By the mid-1980s, the slasher genre was overexposed after its 1978–1982 boom and fast losing popularity—anyone trying to make one had to find a strong gimmick or else… maybe try a parody? To its credit, April Fool’s Day does try something different—but what may make it interesting to people (like me) who don’t like slashers may drive slasher fans away. Spoilers inbound! The film begins like so many slashers do, with a bunch of friends headed to an isolated resort for fun… except when they all start dying one by one. So far so dull, except that director Fred Walton seems to be surprisingly aware of clichés and working hard to maintain some kind of comedy even as the bodies pile up. It’s not always amusing or compelling (I don’t really consider it a comedy) but the real kicker that differentiates this film from the rest of the 1980s slasher craze is the ending, in which the “April’s Fool!” is revealed and it turns out that no one is dead. Which is the kind of ending to drive slasher fans crazy (except that they already did get what they wanted, kill after kill) while making non-slasher fans smile at the thought of a zero-kill horror film. Your perspective may vary quite a bit on this one, but one thing’s for sure: April Fool’s Day does have a memorable hook.

  • Tengoku to jigoku [High and Low] (1963)

    Tengoku to jigoku [High and Low] (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) While I keep notes on the movies I see, I don’t always finish or edit these capsule reviews until a few months later. That’s how I can tell you with some confidence that High and Low is in the running for my favourite Akira Kurosawa movie. Set in then-contemporary 1960s Japan, which has now acquired some historical patina, it’s a kidnapping thriller with plenty of procedural details, plot twists and turns, and a small but significant part for Toshiro Mifune. The child kidnapping plot is gripping enough, but where the film gets even more interesting is that paying the ransom will ruin the life of the man putting up the money, reinforcing the titular theme of class divide motivating the crime. It’s a compelling watch from beginning to end, even though the running time of 143 minutes seems too long, especially in the third act where things should be happening more quickly. There’s a sagacious use of an instrumental of the Elvis song “It’s now or never” as the soundtrack to the climax. Part of why the film is so interesting is its blend of very accessible thriller mechanics (adapted from the American Ed MacBain novel King’s Ransom) with the social environment of 1960s Japan—not a blend of high and low as much as the familiar and the unusual. High and Low is compelling to watch, and has enough substance to set it apart from mere genre exercises.

  • Akahige [Red Beard] (1965)

    Akahige [Red Beard] (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) I find writer-director Akira Kurosawa’s Red Beard interesting because it blends a streak of concerns and themes found in other films and other styles. It is a period drama but it is not centred on samurais. It is about public service, but not quite as bluntly as Ikiru. It’s almost refreshing in the way it goes for an epic recreation of a historical period… only to keep its gaze firmly focused on the quotidian struggles of semi-ordinary people. It is, on the other hand, very, very long—taking two years to shoot, requiring almost an entire town to be built, spanning a multiplicity of overlapping subplots, mini-movies, double flashbacks and plot turns. Toshirō Mifune is magnificent, possibly regal in the title role—a grizzled veteran doctor explaining how the world works (and more importantly how it should work) to a younger protégé. Red Beard did test my patience after a while, even though I do like a lot of its humanistic approach: in its current state in-between a movie and a TV show, I probably would have liked it better had it been shorter.

  • Monsieur Verdoux (1947)

    Monsieur Verdoux (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Criterion Streaming, April 2020) Charlie Chaplin’s filmography is tempered by drama and pathos throughout, but Monsieur Verdoux is an outlier even by those standards. Completely abandoning the Tramp character and leaving much of the crowd-pleasing comedy out of sight, this late-career film turns out to be a very dark thriller about a man deliberately targeting rich women for murder. There is some comedy left, but it’s dark enough to be imperceptible: Chaplin plays the murderous protagonist as a frustrated politician, explicitly making parallels between his small-scale murders and the butchery of the then-recent WW2. Monsieur Verdoux is an atypical Chaplin, but an interesting one: He’s so associated with the Tramp character than it’s easy to tire of them both, so seeing him try something radically new is a way to reinvigorate anyone’s interest in his late career, and the remarkably dark humour for its era may explain how it has withstood the test of time. Still, don’t expect too much from the result, which suffers from authorial interference: the structure feels off, all the way to a conclusion designed to teach a harsh lesson rather than offer a climax of some sort. While Chaplin has been dark in movies other than Monsieur Verdoux, he has rarely been as bleak.

  • Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

    Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (YouTube Streaming, April 2020) If you’re looking for a 1930s gangster movie, you could do much worse than Angels with Dirty Faces, a street-level crime thriller set in Manhattan that showcases no less than James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart in a plot that blends criminals, priests, kids, lawyers and fifteen years’ worth of resentment. Unusually enough, the film severely undermines the image of its lead gangster is the most effective way possible—by having him beg for mercy at the moment of his execution, showing just how much of a coward he truly is. Cagney has a great iconic role here, and he doesn’t let anyone forget it. Meanwhile, Bogart is in a stranger position: While the role is good and the Bogartian speech patterns are there, he here plays a white-collar scoundrel, underdeveloped when compared to his later roles. Meryn Leroy directs the film with sharpness and precision, whether it’s setting up a complex street scene, or fluently going over years of events through newspaper headlines and documents. The result is quite a good proto-noir film, especially when measured against similar movies of the time.

  • Murder! (1930)

    Murder! (1930)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (YouTube Streaming, April 2020) It’s amazing that Alfred Hitchcock’s career spanned six decades, from silent cinema in the 1920s to the New Hollywood of the 1970s. Of course, the farther back in time you go, the less distinctive his movies become and by the time we get to the period when cinema transitioned to sound, we’re not necessarily left with “Hitchcock Movies” as much as genre exercise in which he shows his increasing mastery of the craft. So it is that Murder! is a lower-tier Hitchcock, but still a serviceable film by the standards of the time. It does play with some favourite Hitchcock themes, including an innocent man investigating a crime, a look in specialized spheres (here, the circus and the theatre, as the protagonist is an actor) and a few playful winks to the audience, such as a final scene revealed to be within a play. It’s a clear step up from Hitchcock’s silent movies of only a few years earlier, although it only hints at what the writer-director would eventually be able to accomplish. Hitchcock fans will get the most out of Murder!, although early-thriller fans will probably enjoy it as well.

  • I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (1988)

    I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, March 2020) I’m not sure that I’m Gonna Git You Sucka is as distinctive today as it was when it came out. Black voices in cinema are significantly more numerous now, and you can now program at least a day’s worth of a blaxploitation spoof film festival. But there’s a semi-pioneering aspect to writer-director-star Keenen Ivory Wayans’s big-screen debut that should be highlighted along the film’s innate qualities. Not that I’m Gonna Git You Sucka is any less silly not knowing the context—although knowing more about Blaxploitation certainly helps, as the film finds roles (big and small) for stars of the earlier era of black-starring thrillers and rarely wastes an occasion to make specific references. It’s generally funny, although there’s some awkwardness to the way the film tries to be absurd and yet sustain a strong narrative—there are plenty of times where twenty-first-century viewers (perhaps trained on more modern takes on similar material) will wonder when the next joke is coming. To be fair, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka does find a surer footing in its later half as the gags become more visual, more self-assured and more focused. It even weaves in some stinging social commentary without overdoing it in the way that more modern takes have often done, so there’s plenty to dig into beyond just jokes. There’s a surprisingly good cast here, including Chris Rock’s debut in a small but showy role. The spoof comedy subgenre has certainly seen far worse—indeed, tracking the Wayan’s downward trajectory in matters of crudeness, it’s regrettable that the family didn’t follow in the tradition of I’m Gonna Git You Sucka rather than end up with White Chicks and digging downward.