Reviews

  • Christine (1983)

    Christine (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, Crackle Streaming, May 2017) I’m not sure anyone else will make the analogy, but having re-watched the original The Karate Kid shortly before Christine has put me in a frame of mind to call this John Carpenter horror movie the dark pendant of the kind of high-school comedy exemplified by The Karate Kid. At their heart, they are both teenage power fantasies about fitting in and gaining some kind of power over one’s social environment. The Karate Kid goes light in showing the way discipline, training and kindness can win over the worst bullies. But Christine … oh boy. Here, the path to power is destructive, based on an unholy romance with dark forces as exemplified by an evil car. Bullies are not gently beaten in submission as they are run over, dismembered or set aflame by a malevolent supernatural entity. It’s strong stuff (tying into deep American associations between cars and teenage rites of passage into adulthood), and it’s significant that Christine is focused not on the teenage nerd who falls in love with an automotive demon, but his best friend watching the consequent carnage. I remember liking the original Stephen King novel quite a bit, but director John Carpenter truly nails the filmed execution. From the self-assured prologue showing the origins of evil to the “Bad to the Bone” echoing stinger, Christine is a thrill ride. As befitting such an extreme premise (evil car?!?), it never settles for subtlety when over-the-top will do: Why not hit viewers over the head with a great on-the-nose soundtrack? Why settle for running over a bully when the car can escape from an exploding gas station and set its teenage target ablaze? Why settle for keying a car when the group of antagonists can smash it to pieces with sledgehammers? And why soft-play the disturbingly aggressive final sequence of a masculine bulldozer climbing atop a car strongly gendered as female? Christine doesn’t mess around when it comes to shocking the viewer, and it’s exactly that kind of go-for-broke audacity that sets apart ordinary B-grade horror movies from the great ones. My memories of seeing Christine in the mid-nineties weren’t spectacular, but this second look reveals a much better movie than I remembered. It’s playfully aggressive, well-crafted and has a few hidden depths once you start poking at it. After a steady diet of upbeat depictions of high-school life, Christine is just dark and just good enough to be a welcome antidote.

  • Awakenings (1990)

    Awakenings (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2017) I’m not sure what I was expecting from Awakenings—seeing Robin Williams as a doctor, maybe something along the lines of Patch Adams? What I did get was more than expected. The first half of Awakenings is good without being particularly striking: Here are patients immobilized by a rare disease; here’s an unconventional doctor trying a new radical therapy to improve their condition and break them out of their catatonia. When, against all odds, it works, it’s the film’s big triumphant moment: People are free to live again, experience the world and blossom against all odds. The film’s real kicker, however, happens when the therapy stops being effective, and the newly awakened patients are dragged back in catatonia. It does give to Awakenings an efficient dose of wistfulness, and a stronger “experience life before it’s taken away from you” message. Robin Williams is good and not overbearing in a more serious role than usual, while Robert de Niro turns in a respectable performance as a patient who comes out of catatonia before facing the prospect of sinking back into it. Awakenings may be best approached with low expectations—it’s not a great movie, but it’s noteworthy and far from being as sappy as it could have been. It’s not comfortable and works better because of it.

  • Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016)

    Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2017) I’ve got to stop watching movies based on TV shows I have heard about but never actively watched. Absolutely Fabulous has been on my list of things to watch for a while, but I thought I understood the premise well enough to skip ahead to the movie. Mistake… The issue is not in the basic concept (two lushes, barely reined in by a more responsible daughter) but in the in-jokes, call-backs and minor characters that pop up incomprehensibly to people who aren’t thoroughly familiar with the show. This understanding isn’t strictly required to follow along a plot that has our heroine pushing Kate Moss to worldwide sorrow and condemnation—but it gets grating when, every minute-and-a-half, there’s a palpable sense of missing something in order to get the most out of the film. It also really doesn’t help when the film heaps tons of cameos that are only understandable if you’re British and acutely aware of the London Fashion scene. Wikipedia can help only to a point—dissecting a joke is a good way to kill it. I’m not saying that the experience of watching the film was miserable—there are a few good jokes here and there, Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders are quite good in the lead roles, and Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness makes a striking debut as the reasonable granddaughter who keeps grinning at the madness her elders get into. But even the good laughs (such as an assistant revealing a lavish villa based on embezzling the lead character) would have been bigger had I been more knowledgeable of the show. Sorry, Absolutely Fabulous. It’s not you, it’s me: You’re fabulous, I don’t know you and let’s leave it at that.

  • Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

    Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (TubiTV Streaming, May 2017) The seventies in general were a good time for low-budget breakout features, and so there’s something exceptionally compelling in Assault on Precinct 13 despite its obvious limitations, excesses and diversions. It does capture a period atmosphere in which the inner city had become the new wild frontier, and transposing plenty of western tropes in an urban environment must have been far more shocking then than it is now. Not that the film is entirely normalized now—the “ice cream” scene is still viscerally transgressive today, and does much to establish that anything can happen in the film. The rest pits cops and criminals and gang members against each other, with unusual alliances emerging on their own. It works pretty well, largely due to director John Carpenter’s gift for staging action and creating suspense. The score also helps viewers feel put off by the proceedings, which is the point of the film—Assault on Precinct 13 is about how even the familiar streets can become a war zone. There’s a limit to how much you can like a film like that, but it’s not that hard to be impressed by the effectiveness of its gloomy intentions.

  • Superman (1978)

    Superman (1978)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On DVD, May 2017) Ah, there it is—Superman, the granddaddy of the superhero genre. Has it aged well? Not really, but perhaps better than you’d think. Structurally, Superman doesn’t do anything truly different from countless other superhero origin stories—although it does take its own sweet time to get there, and even includes sequel-setup elements in the prologue (I had to pop open the DVD tray and double-check that I hadn’t accidentally inserted Superman II in the player, because I honestly did not remember Zod being part of the first film). What works is that, at times, the script does try to reach for something beyond the silly humour and into drama—either the missing-parent subplot, or romantic hijinks. That does keep the movie afloat now far better than the slapdash humour of much of the rest of the film. Nowadays, though, the script has serious tonal issues in-between its serious protagonist and silly antagonists: Gene Hackman is rather good as Lex Luthor, and I can’t say enough nice things about Valerie Perrine as Miss Teschmacher, but Ned Beatty is insupportable as a henchman too dumb for words, let alone supporting a so-called genius of crime. But so goes Superman, torn in-between actual artistic ambitions for its characters and a reluctance to see comic-book origins as anything but a big joke. Other issues abound. The ever-popular “Superman is a schmuck” theory is bolstered by more than a few sequences, while the ending sequence (with Superman going back in time) is still worth a disbelieving groan. On the other hand—and this is an important point—Superman manages to float above its worst flaws by virtue of honesty. It believes in its own protagonist and it does try to explore what it means to be Superman. It tries to ground itself in-between its flights of fancy, and the seventies period details now looks deliciously retro rather than dated. It also helps that, beyond Margot Kidder being good as Lois Lane, Christopher Reeves is fantastic both as Clark Kent and Superman—his performance as one is unlike the other: far more than making us “believe that a man can fly”, Superman’s greatest achievement is making us believe in the difference between superhero and alter ego. Director Richard Donner had enough experience to do justice to the script using what was available at the time—while the film’s special effects now look amateurish, they still make their point even today. Superman is still a big grab-bag of various qualities and problems, but it can still be watched with some pleasure today. If nothing else, it’s not gratuitously dour or dark like some of the latter representation of the character, and I believe that it will endure decently because of that uplifting tone. Cue the theme music…

  • Suspiria (1977)

    Suspiria (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (TubiTV Streaming, May 2017) At first glance, there is no way I thought I’d like Suspiria. I abhor most slasher films; my rare contacts with Italian giallo films have been unpleasant; and the thought of another movie with a psycho cutting down young women in garish detail is enough to make me queasy. But after actually watching the film, I’ll concede that Suspiria at least commits to its grand-guignol madness. Long before American Horror started leaning on a self-aware shtick, Dario Argento pushes the limits of his barely coherent premise into showy set-pieces. Colourful to a degree that’s not even close to subtle, Suspiria keeps one-upping its murderous set-pieces to the point of nearly approaching abstract art: The first big horror sequence of the film ends with a body being hung/thrown through a skylight, and another woman being killed by the glass debris. Terrible, but weirdly successful at once. Don’t look for a tightly plotted story—Suspiria is about the atmosphere more than narrative, and that atmosphere starts early on—even a relatively innocuous airport arrival sequence is made instantly dreadful by the use of red lighting and an oppressive synthetic score. Suspiria isn’t the kind of film that you’d show to anyone sane, but it’s weirdly respectable in its own way. It commits to its madness and doesn’t pull punches in the way it follows its set-pieces to the end. The Technicolor visual styling of the film is impressive even forty years later, and the dreadful quality of its nightmarish atmosphere makes it an interesting film even for those who want nothing to do with psycho-slasher horror films.

  • Carne Trémula [Live Flesh] (1997)

    Carne Trémula [Live Flesh] (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In Spanish with French Subtitles, On TV, May 2017) I don’t like Pedro Almodovar’s work quite as much as most movie critics, but I will, at least, grant that his movies are quite unlike anyone else’s. They don’t stick to the formula, they’re willing to portray quirky characters undergoing unimaginable trauma, and they readily reach for uncomfortable situations that would feel extreme in other contexts. Trying to give a plot summary of Carne Trémula to someone used to the standard Hollywood three-act structure would earn wary stares and audible derision. Even while watching the film, it’s sometimes hard to avoid a few well-placed “Oh, come on!” But there are rewards to the whole mess, and it’s a kind of experience that’s strange and universal at once, with actors going far beyond what is expected of them in more ordinary cinema. Javier Bardem is very good here in an early role, which Penelope Cruz gets a small but merciless role. Less familiar actresses such as Francesca Neri and Angela Molina also get good parts to play in a small but intense cast of characters improbably linked together. The film’s Madrid backdrop is unusual but does not obscure common themes. I don’t think anyone will be comforted or conventionally entertained by Carne Trémula … but it’s certainly, like most of Almodovar’s movies, a memorable experience.

  • Arachnophobia (1990)

    Arachnophobia (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 2017) Twenty-seven years later, I still remember the ads for Arachnophobia and especially it’s “thrill-omedy” neologism, coined at a time when hybridizing horror and comedy was still a daring concept. We’re far more familiar with the form nowadays, and that does play a part in appreciating the movie today: While some of the film’s methods seem a bit obvious now, the general concept is more easily accepted and the substance may seem more accessible now than in 1990. Arachnophobia, from its title, makes no pretension about what it means to be: a scare-ride for people who are even slightly disturbed by spiders. As the volunteer (and designated) spider-catcher in my household, I’m not really the prime audience for the movie … but I can recognize that it makes a decent effort to be entertaining. While the first half-hour is too long, the rest of Arachnophobia works well as a B-grade comic thriller. Jeff Daniels is suitably sympathetic as a doctor who gets far more trouble than he expected in moving his family from the city to the countryside, while John Goodman is remarkable as a slightly disturbing and incompetent exterminator. Arachnophobia is not a great movie, but it doesn’t have to be. See it with Eight-Legged Freaks for a good spider-movie double feature.

  • Escape from Alcatraz (1979)

    Escape from Alcatraz (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 2017) Good movies have a way of drawing their viewers in, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Escape from Alcatraz earn my attention despite what was initially an uninterested viewing. I was planning on doing other things while I watched the movie: I wasn’t expecting much from yet another prison film (haven’t we seen enough of them already?). But what happened is that only a few minutes in, I ended up glued to the screen until the end, even as the movie was going through the usual motions of prison movies. A couple of things can explain why: For one, Escape from Alcatraz rests on the shoulders of Clint Eastwood, here seen in his prime as an irresistibly charismatic lead—he can squint, grunt and we’re just willing to see where he’ll go. Then there’s the fact that the film is very, very good at being a prison escape procedural. It cleanly introduces its characters, sketches the social ecosystem of the prison, shows the protagonist figure out Alcatraz’s faults and how to exploit them, raises the stakes with an abusive warden … and constantly shows the danger of the protagonists being caught. Even when it goes through familiar motions, Escape from Alcatraz is well-executed enough to keep our attention. Finally, and this is more of a personal factor than anything in the film—I had forgotten my own preferences for well-executed prison procedurals. In-between The Shawshank Redemption and The Great Escape (alongside which Escape from Alcatraz easily finds its place), there’s a long tradition of prison break movies, and I suspect there’s a strongly gendered appeal for male viewers contemplating how to escape from the ultimate confinement. No matter why, Escape from Alcatrax remains a good, perhaps even great movie even today. It’s unexpectedly captivating, and it shows its age by having become a fine period piece rather than a dated movie.

  • Arsenal (2017)

    Arsenal (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video On-Demand, May 2017) on the one hand, hiring a big-name actor for a direct-to-video movie can ensure funding, attention and even quality for a low-budget project. On the other hand, what happens if the big-name actor shows up with his own incompatible idea of what the role is about? So it is that anyone can watch Arsenal, which is in many ways a prototypical low-budget crime movie, and wonder “What is Nicolas Cage doing in here?” Turning up with a seventies moustache and an eighties interpretation of a small-town mobster, Cage chows scenery and seems to exist in an entirely different film. Every scene with him creates more questions than answers, endangering the suspension of disbelief required for immersion. (There’s also a greasy performance here by John Cusack that adds almost nothing to the film, to the point where we’re left wondering what he’s doing there.) It really doesn’t help that the film’s execution seems at odds with its script: director Steven C. Miller relishes exploding sprays of blood far too much to do justice to the quiet nature of the story, and every shootout seems as if it was optimized for 3D. The result sits squarely in the realm of direct-to-video thrillers: rather dull with flourishes by big-name actors.

  • The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004)

    The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 2017) There really isn’t a whole lot to say about The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, other than it does take up the Disney Princess wish fulfillment of its target audience even beyond the high-water mark of the first film (but seriously: a lavish princess slumber party?). The plot is clearly for the kids (this is a movie in which the villain quickly announces himself sotto voice to the audience) and quickly cycles through an episodic series of misunderstandings and dirty tricks. Anne Hathaway stars, making everyone a bit nostalgic for the phase of her career when she could play the bubbly long-haired ingénue: as of 2017, it’s been awhile since we’ve seen her in anything but a series of increasingly dour roles. Also notable is Chris Pine as a love interest, young but already charismatic back then. Julie Andrews gets a few laughs, while John Rhys-Davies doesn’t get much to do but sneer as the villain. Much of the film is tough to review for a middle-aged man, as it’s clearly meant for pre-teen merriment. There’s some lip service paid to deflating the idea of an arranged royal marriage, but it’s almost immediately undercut by the romance between the lead couple. Ah well; everyone goes into this movie for proxy royal thrills rather than enlightenment about the tension between love and duty. The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement is a perceptible step down from the first film, but it should still please those who liked the first film a lot.

  • Caddyshack (1980)

    Caddyshack (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, May 2017) As a quintessential golf comedy, Caddyshack’s reputation precedes it in many ways. A favourite filler on golf TV channels, it seems to enjoy a consecrated reputation as something of a lowbrow classic. Taking a good look at it, however, may reveal a film weaker than expected. The plot zigs and zags in mystifying fashion, largely uninterested in the action of its putative teenage leads but all too eager to showcase comic routines by Rodney Dangerfield, Chevy Chase and Bill Murray. It makes for a clash of comic sensibilities, considering how their styles don’t necessarily belong in the same narrative. The most egregious instance of this is Dangerfield’s quasi-stand-up routine blasting the age and status of a country club members—the movie pretty much stops dead during that time. Another physical comedy bit involves nautical hijinks, while Chevy Chase has his own comic-seduction routine, and Bill Murray kind of dawdles into the movie with his own absurdist take (He’s got that going for him, which is nice) and a groundhog exists in a separate explosive movie. Very little of this actually fits together, making for a disconnected but occasionally very funny film. Caddyshack’s impact makes more sense once you find out the chaotic nature of its production and the various ways then-novice director Harold Ramis altered the film is post-production. The result is a mess, but an entertaining one—if only for seeing Chase, Dangerfield and Murray each playing up their comic persona, leaving the other aspects of the film far behind.

  • Storks (2016)

    Storks (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2017) There are a lot of animated kid movies in theatres these days, and Storks does seem poured in the same mould as most of them: Imaginative premises, anthropomorphized characters, madcap action sequences, pat emotional core, musical interludes … and so on. While Strokes doesn’t venture too far away from the formula, it does execute it decently and thrown in a few good laughs along the way. The two lead characters have their appeal, and Stork does allow itself a few minutes to explore plot tangents that are nearly superfluous to the plot. (It particularly liked the “stork landing zone” construction project that bonds the family … and proves itself useless.) It doesn’t amount to much more than a serviceable film of its genre … but that’s not bad. For the Warner Animation Group, it’s a way to step out of The Lego Movie shadow and show that they can develop their own properties. They haven’t scored a unanimous success yet, but they’re in the running.

  • Sully (2016)

    Sully (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2017) It may be just another biopic, but Sully does a few things to take it beyond being a simple biopic barely seven years after the events it’s portraying. The first is probably the cinematic nature of the events it re-creates: The dramatic “Miracle on the Hudson” in which an entire flight was saved by the decision to land on the Hudson River … in January. This aspect of the story is portrayed clearly, with alternate scenarios in which other decisions are shown as ending up with a fiery crash in Manhattan. The structure of the film is also notable, as it begins with a fake-out, work its way forward through the investigation of the events and then only portrays the event in detail. Tom Hanks is his usual self as the protagonist—looking different from other roles, but acting with the same core of honour and sympathetic humility that has ensured his success as an actor. Director Clint Eastwood turns in another dependable film, with a higher-than-usual number of special effects but the same kind of middle-America appeal. There’s some bit of repetition in the way Sully digs deeper and deeper into its central events, but the recreation of the disaster is evocative and the whole thing is cleanly presented. The conclusion does appear too pat—from the moment “machines” and “simulations” are mentioned, it’s obvious that the film will fall back on fuzzy notions of humanity … but knowing how the computers will be blamed for everything is another way of ensuring that Sully is comforting to everyone. It amounts to a solid, if only occasionally spectacular film. Come for the true story of flight 1549—stay for the ghoulishly striking sequences of plane crashes in the city.

  • Moonstruck (1987)

    Moonstruck (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2017) I’ll give you two good reasons for watching this film: Nicolas Cage and Cher. Never mind that it’s a romantic comedy set against the Italian-American Brooklyn community. Or that it’s from acclaimed writer John Patrick Shanley and veteran director Norman Jewison. Or the unpredictable, gentle nature of the plot. The focus here is on Nicolas Cage’s energetic performance, and Cher’s terrific portrait of a woman contemplating middle age with doubts. Cher looks spectacular here, but so does Cage, and Olympia Dukakis has a strong supporting role. I’m not sure there’s a lot of substance in Moonstruck, but there’s a lot of sympathy and gentle humour—the way the film climaxes, with an unusually reasonable discussion around a dinner table, is the most unusual flourish on an improbable film. But it works, and it’s charming enough even a generation later.