Reviews

  • Jingle Bell Rocks! (2013)

    Jingle Bell Rocks! (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2019) If you’re looking for a documentary to play while you’re putting up Christmas decoration, you can do far worse than Jingle Bell Rocks!, which studies not only Christmas music but the obsessive collectors (all of them men) of said holiday albums. This is a film about the thrill of hunting through used record stores, the joy of discovering good material among the dreck, and the fun for these collectors of meeting the recording artists. The collectors interviewed for the documentary claim that they’re not obsessive, not crazy and not weird (well, I think some of them may agree that they’re a bit weird) but we don’t care: their enthusiasm and their passion is endearing. Of course, this wouldn’t be a Christmas-themed documentary without exploring our relationship with that holiday. Then there is the music itself, which is a lot like listening to a good mix tape. (And yes, they do talk about mix tapes.) It comes wrapped in a history of Christmas music through the rock generation and into rap—including an extended discussion of one of my own holiday classics, “Christmas in Hollis”, through “Back-Door Santa”. Despite the seemingly straightforward subject matter, there are a lot of surprises in Jingle Bell Rocks! : At any given moment, you’re liable to hear from director John Waters, to touch upon the racial aspect of Christmas iconography, or feature an appearance by Doctor Demento. The climax of the film happens as it works its way to re-create a pivotal song for the film’s lead collector. As I’ve mentioned, Jingle Bell Rocks! is an ideal film to leave on the TV as you’re putting up decorations: It’s great background music, and you can drop in and listen to the film’s highlights at any time.

  • The Bad Seed (1956)

    The Bad Seed (1956)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) There have been many evil-child movies, but we tend to associate that subgenre more with schlocky post-1970s exploitation horror thrillers than slick 1950s Hollywood major productions, explaining why The Bad Seed still has the power to surprise even today. This classy-yet-trashy killer-kid thriller is a tad overlong and certainly melodramatic, but it remains disturbing by sheer value of having its perfect pigtailed child star perform a series of unbearably evil acts—and dwelling on the anguished reactions of grieving secondary characters to drive the point home. Unusually enough for this kind of film, no less than three of its actresses were nominated for an Oscar: Patty McCormak as the titular killer kid, Nancy Kelly as her mother, and Eileen Heckart best as the grieving mother without whom the film would be far less effective—much of the film’s overwrought plotting can be dismissed as nonsense, but her portrayal of grief remains disturbing. Some of the material is definitely clunky: There’s a lot of psychological nonsense about the nature of evil and its possible genetic origins that would be reworked or even cut from any contemporary version. Otherwise, much of The Bad Seed’s power remains in the clash between our idea of a glossy 1950s studio film and the subject matter that it explores: there’s a restraint in the way the film tackles sobering material that makes it even more fascinating—witness, for instance, the audio-only death by burning: over the top yet still uncomfortable. Parents of young girls will definitely have a stronger reaction to the result—Geez, attempted filicide?! Soundtrack-wise, there’s an interesting use of “Au clair de la lune” as a leitmotif, even remixed in the main orchestra theme. The film concludes with two very interesting bonuses: A plea by the filmmakers to the audiences not to reveal plot points to others, and a comic post-credit scene in which the adult actress laughingly mock spanks the child actress that does much to relieve the tension left by the very dark ending. The Bad Seed remains fascinating today because of its place in history—any contemporary remake (and there have been many similar films ending outright in horror) would be far less interesting because we’ve grown used to them and because they’re not a 1950s major Hollywood studio film. Sometimes, the time and place are the point of a movie.

  • Blood Car (2007)

    Blood Car (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2019) There is such a thing as low-budget charm, and Blood Car doesn’t waste a lot of time in setting up the rules of its game, a mixture of over-the-top absurdity (in the near future where gas is an unaffordable luxury, a man discovers how to make cars run on … blood), unabashed revelry in its ultra-low-budget (including makeshift sets that are not meant to fool anyone) and enough sheer sexploitation and gratuitous nudity to keep things interesting in between the horror concept and the schlock comedy. It starts well enough to hook viewers, and if the premise does run thin on even a 79-minute film, it’s generally palatable throughout. It’s not really interested in developing the obvious thematic parallels between blood and oil, but at least it acknowledges them. Acting-wise, the film does have the basics: a sympathetic lead in Mike Brune and a very cute heroine in Anna Chlumsky. The ending does runs out of gas, but Blood Car has suitably weird and funny moments up until the very end. Keep your expectations firmly in check—this is a really low-budget movie, after all—and you may just be pleasantly surprised.

  • Presumed Innocent (1990)

    Presumed Innocent (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2019) I miss 1990s standalone thrillers, and Presumed Innocent is a fine example of the form—adapted from a novel, it drops viewers right in the middle of a complex story and challenges them to keep up. The accumulation of subplots makes things more interesting than the rather simple core premise would suggest, with enough layering of legal system cynicism to provide the gritty atmosphere. I liked the dense beginning far more than the increasingly linear ending, which ends on a five-minute monologue that ends up sucking a lot of punch away from a striking revelation. This being said, Alan J. Pakula’s understated direction does leave full space for the focus to be on the story—this is not a film that would benefit from an overabundance of style. Harrison Ford is OK in the lead role, his stoic persona playing well with a character not prone to bursts of emotion. Elsewhere in the cast, Bonnie Bedelia is not bad as the protagonist’s wife, while Raul Julia is very cool as a top defence lawyer. Still, Presumed Innocent is a plot-driven film rather than an actor’s showcase, and at a time when so few top Hollywood movies run on pure story, it only makes me realize how much I miss it.

  • Kuffs (1992)

    Kuffs (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2019) I hope that Americans sometime realize the utterly bizarre nature of their law enforcement “system”, with its odd pockets of arcane rules and historical exemptions. So it is that I knew nothing about the San Francisco Patrol Special Police as depicted in Kuffs … and I don’t think that the film makes a very convincing case for its existence. It doesn’t help that this is a film with severe split personality problems, trying both for 1980s violent police action and for fourth-wall-breaking comedy. Christian Slater (near the height of his popularity at the time) often provides comic asides to the camera, sometimes in the middle of otherwise dark and dramatic scenes. Some sequences (talking to the camera while gagged, bleeped swearing, drugged-out sequence, visitors barging in on a shot-out apartment) approach pure slapstick, while much of the rest of the film is dull dark action undistinguishable from countless other movies. The cast can be surprising: Milla Jovovich shows up in a very early film as nothing more than “the girlfriend”, while Bruce Boxleitner is taken out early and Tony Goldwin is playing silly. While Slater does provide the charisma that his role requires, much of the film seems to succeed accidentally rather than by design, so inconsistently does it whiplash from comedy to drama. It really does nothing good to the image to the private law enforcers of San Francisco to be portrayed like Kuffs does.

  • Teen Wolf (1985)

    Teen Wolf (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) I don’t think anyone ever expected much from Teen Wolf, whether during its production, initial release or long afterlife since then. But sometimes you just need a spark to make it work, and Michael J. Fox was clearly the ingredient needed in this sometimes silly but rarely dull teen horror comedy take on werewolf movies. Fortunately, the script is not bad: clearly written with some awareness of the genre, the film zig-zags a few familiar tropes and has at least three mild surprises (the father knows; the secret comes out; the crush doesn’t want him) contradicting where we think the story is going, and earning a few laughs along the way at some blatant revelations. The way it fully engages with its premise is almost refreshing even now, and I suspect that much of the film is simply about seeing a werewolf playing high-school basketball. The “Teen” of the title is equally important as Teen Wolf seems very comfortable in the halls of an American High School. There are quite a few teenage anxieties hidden in its premise (what if your alter ego was more popular than the real you?) even despite a plot that’s more straightforward than it appears. But then again Teen Wolf is far better in the fun and games of its premise than it is at the narrative heavy lifting: even if it gets bogged into the mechanics of its climactic basketball game, it’s lighthearted most of the time, and unafraid to be silly even when it doesn’t have to be.

  • Joan of Arc aka The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)

    Joan of Arc aka The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2019) If you want a stark illustration of what seventy-five years’ worth of innovation and social changes can do to a medium, have a look at 1928’s La passion de Jeanne d’Arc followed by 1999’s Joan of Arc. Both of them are (obviously) retelling of the life of Jeanne d’Arc coming from the French movie industry, both of them looking at the story from various angles … and with vastly different means. The 1927 film is silent, static, black-and-white, heavy on dialogue and focused almost entirely on her trial. The 1999 version, well, comes from Luc Besson with the very energetic directing that we’ve come to expect from him. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that this version is far less religious, with considerable doubt given to the traditional story and quite a bit of ambivalence regarding the role of gods and devils. The surprising cast not only reunites Besson with Milla Jovovich two years after Le cinquième élément, but also brings in actors such as John Malkovich, Dustin Hoffman, Vincent Cassel and Tchéky Karyo. Still, it’s Besson who shines, with spectacular battle sequences and a very modern rhythm to a familiar story. The film, unlike other takes on the story, seldom turns Jeanne d’Arc into a nationalistic symbol—The French royalty and clergy are portrayed unsentimentally, with a cynical approach to the entire affair. Despite some directorial prowess, the structure of the film remains confounding: The multiple false starts at the beginning of the film are near-useless, the middle sequence outshines the rest thanks to its gory war set pieces while the third act undermines Jeanne d’Arc’s legend with a far more contemporary take on the idea of divine possession. The least one can say is that this Joan of Arc is certainly not a boring film … even if I’m not entirely sure it achieves its own objectives.

  • Saratoga Trunk (1945)

    Saratoga Trunk (1945)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) There are, even today, many reasons to see Saratoga Trunk. The best is probably seeing Ingrid Bergman at her most radiant, and playing opposite Gary Cooper. Otherwise, it can be fun to follow the plot of the story (adapted from a then-best-selling novel) as it moves from New Orleans revenge to Saratoga Springs husband hunting to transcontinental railroad brawling and such. There’s a lot of material crammed in the film’s 135 minutes running time. The production values of the film are high, with plenty of overwrought costume drama. (Flora Robson is a highlight.) It’s clearly from another era—never mind the blackface for one of the performers, how about the radically different social expectations for women? This being said, you can like melodramatic 1940s Hollywood productions without necessarily being entirely convinced by them: there’s a sumptuous nature to some of Saratoga Trunk’s sequences that’s pure Golden Age, and there are few better exemplars than Bergman and Cooper at it.

  • A Shot in the Dark (1964)

    A Shot in the Dark (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2019) The original The Pink Panther was not designed to spawn a series of movies featuring Inspecteur Clouseau, who was clearly a supporting player in a much broader farce. But Peter Sellers brought such a manic energy to the role that producers were quick to ditch the panther and keep the inspector. With A Shot in the Dark, you can see the progression of the series’ premise in featuring Clouseau at its centre, not even attempting to recapture the spirit of the original. It’s not yet perfect—the comedy is unusually dark for the series, with a high body count of innocents dying from being at the wrong place while villains were aiming for Clouseau. But there are still a few funny moments in the result—most notably toward the conclusion, as “the usual suspects” are brought together and nothing goes as planned. Sellers himself is quite good in pratfalls, but his bumbling does become tiresome when it’s the focus of the film, and A Shot in the Dark’s annoying repetitions of the same gags does mean that the film gets redundant after a while. Ironically enough, the French dub of the film is less annoying than the original English version … because it removes Clouseau’s ridiculous accent, and makes Sellers about half as annoying as a result.

  • RBG (2018)

    RBG (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2019) These are weird times we’re living in, and such a chaotic period call for unlikely heroes. So it’s been both amusing and comforting to see the last few years bring eighty-something Ruth Bader Ginsburg to pop-culture stardom, with young people and memes transforming “The Notorious R.B.G.” Supreme Court Justice into one of the few beacons of progressivism in a right-leaning political environment. RBG uses that “RGB mania” as its initial springboard into an exploration of the judge’s life and views, from battling early discrimination as a female law student in the 1950s to her involvement in landmark decisions on gender equality. She shows up in some of the film’s footage as a sit-down interview subject, but much of RBG is spent talking to various other people (including Bill Clinton, explaining the process through which he appointed her to the Court). There’s quite a bit of archival footage—including her confirmation hearings—mixed in between more contemporary material. The film does offer a strong and intelligible portrait of her role in rolling back gender discrimination in the United States. RBG also features a good primer on the changing nature of US politics and Supreme Court members, forcing her from the centre to the left. The result can be surprisingly funny, inspiring and touching at times, especially in the segments that focus on the role that her husband played in her life. [November 2019: While a great documentary, RBG is probably best seen alongside On the Basis of Sex, a fictional take on Bader-Gingsburg’s early years that almost perfectly complements the material covered here.]

  • Meatballs (1979)

    Meatballs (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) If I’ve got my dates and players correctly aligned, Meatballs was the first noteworthy example of the underdogs comedy genre that dominated the early 1980s. It introduces not only a specific comic tone, but Ivan Reitman in the director’s chair, and Bill Murray in front of the camera. Setting a tone, Meatballs goes for a very anarchic kind of humour as the slobs take on the snobs and decidedly win. It’s more a series of comic sketches than a sustained attempt at developing a plot, and you can see the influence of this film taking over movie comedy for a few years. Fortunately, Murray is very funny—he carries the film even through the uneven surrounding material, and his riffing is often the highlight of the film. There are many, many obvious signs that Meatballs was shot north of Toronto, whether it’s the Peterborough-branded buses, Ontario license plates, Montréal Canadiens shirts, or the Ontario bus tours advertised on the wall of the local dinner/bus terminal. The film is amusing enough, but it’s now worth watching more as an early precursor to an entire sub-genre, all the way to Wet Hot American Summer and beyond.

  • Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (2018)

    Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2019) While mainstream attention is focused on the live-action DC Universe movies, Batman fans have enjoyed a steady diet of more daring animated movies for the past few years. Gotham by Gaslight clearly shows how malleable the Batman universe can be when it strikes out in unusual directions. Here we have the characters and concepts reimagined for the late 18th century, with Batman fighting against Jack the Ripper while mentioning Houdini and Sherlock Holmes as contemporaries. It’s definitely an elseworld story given how the characterization of some familiar character is deliberately off persona. Fans of the original graphic novel should be advised that this is a very loose adaptation, to the point where readers will have plenty of new surprises in store. This being said, it’s only a surprise when you compare—in absolute terms, this is a familiar narrative that ends where you’d expect from the first few minutes even despite a few effective red herrings in the mix. As is often the case for historic reinterpretations, the draw here is the atmosphere and the incongruity of seeing a steampunk Batman more than a compelling story in itself. Even given the Batman animated movies’ tendency toward R-ratings, Gotham by Gaslight remains far too violent for its own sake—killing Poison Ivy is not how to make fans happy. The animation is also curiously cut-rate: unusually enough, TV motion smoothing may actually help here.

  • Grease 2 (1982)

    Grease 2 (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2019) I know that Grease 2 has a terrible reputation (upon release, it bombed so hard that it killed off its male lead Maxwell Caulfield’s career for years), but watching it now doesn’t seem like a terrible experience. Of course, I ended up watching both movies at more than a decade’s interval (is this unique? Both movies came out four years apart, and nowadays most people wanting to watch the sequel would do it soon after seeing the first one) and that probably helped a lot in erasing the comparison factor between this mediocre entry and its far better-received prequel. At best, it’s a bubblegum high school musical going back to the early sixties (but really the late fifties) for harmless teenage antics. A young Kim Basinger is quite good in the lead role, her slightly grumpy attitude doing much to make it fun. It’s also fascinating, as a cinephile, to see a film act as a bridge between newer stars such as Basinger or Christopher MacDonald, and veteran actors of yore such as Tab Hunter. As with many musicals, the best numbers come early on, with “Back to School Again” effortlessly introducing most of the cast, and “Score Tonight” wringing the most out of its bowling alley setting. The songs may not be the pop-culture hits of the original, but the dance choreography remains pretty good. No, Grease 2 is not the original. But when I look at the early-1980s musicals, this one is better than most.

  • Body of Evidence (1992)

    Body of Evidence (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2019) If you were around at the time, 1992 was peak-Madonna year. Sold to the masses as an aggressive sex goddess, 1992 saw the near-simultaneous release of an album called Erotica, a coffee-table book of nudes called Sex and a ridiculously over-the-top film tilted Body of Evidence perhaps only because the two previous titles were already taken. Aiming for a neo-noir but settling for trashy thriller, this film took place in familiar territory by featuring Willem Dafoe as a lawyer asked to take on the case of a woman (guess who?) accused of murdering her husband. Before the first act is even over, erotic scenes grind the action down to a halt, rudely interrupting a few adults cosplaying noir archetypes and making for a much simpler plot given that the movie would barely make it to feature-film length without the nudity. Despite Madonna being Madonna, I’m not complaining: After all, Julianne Moore and Anne Archer are also involved. (Plus Defoe, playing a suitably slimy lawyer in between numerous trysts.) Body of Evidence is about atmosphere rather than narrative and it features one of the least surprising “not guilty” decisions in a while—after all, we’re in a noir and this is what happens in a noir. The incredibly familiar story is perversely meant to be comforting, as we have a sense that this is just a big game updated to early-1990s aesthetics. I still haven’t decided where I stand about it. Candid depictions of lust have their place in cinema and Hollywood could make a few more movies in that subgenre. On the other hand, Body of Evidence may not be the example to follow. At its best, it’s mildly enjoyable as a trashy thriller blessed with far bigger names than it deserves. At its worst, however, it’s not just boring but actively irritating in how it insists that it’s hot despite often missing the mark. But, hey, surely peak-Madonna was a thing because some people liked it, right?

  • Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)

    Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) It sure looks as if someone in the programming department of Canadian cable TV SuperChannel has a sense of humour for scheduling romantic thriller Sleeping with the Enemy on Saint Valentine’s Day. Back in 1991, Sleeping in the Enemy was “the next movie” for Julia Roberts: The follow-up movie (after Flatliners) to the instant stardom that Pretty Woman unlocked for her. It certainly was an interesting choice of roles: A story of escape from spousal abuse in which she played the battered wife running away from the violent husband, looking for some quiet far away … but never far away enough. If this strikes you as made-for-TV Lifetime movie material, you’re not wrong: Sleeping with the Enemy has an incredibly formulaic plot, and many other films, famous or not, have re-used the same elements—sometimes as a showcase for other stars. (Jennifer Lopez in Enough, Ashley Judd in Double Jeopardy…) Still, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that both the film and Roberts benefited from each other. Robert’s new star power ensured that the film would be profitable (and with a nine-to-one box-office return on investment, this means incredibly profitable), while the film gave her the chance to stretch her screen persona in the thriller genre. She looks stunning in long red hair at the beginning of the film—but then later on, after cutting the hair, she also gets to show some dramatic range as the resourceful fleeing wife faking her death, and then as a combative woman defending herself when the psycho husband inevitably comes knocking. Despite the film’s predictable nature, there are a few fair moments of suspense along the way. Spousal abuse is the topic that powers the film and despite a serious treatment of the issue, the film can’t help but push it a bit too far at times: Oh no, the towels are aligned! Oh no, he’s watching them at the state fair from behind an implacable moustache! OH NO, the cupboard’s been rearranged! This being said, the familiarity of the plotting sometimes works in the film’s favour by making it easier to take: we know where it’s going, we know how it’s going to go, we know she’s going to be the last one standing. In director Joseph Ruben’s hands, Sleeping with the Enemy is not a good movie—the villain is so cartoonishly evil that the film begs the audience for fist-pumping approval upon his inevitable death—but it’s not an unbearable one, and it even has a few effective moments along the way. It probably speaks too much about my sense of humour that I deliberately watched it on Saint Valentine’s day in keeping with SuperChannel’s scheduling.