Reviews

  • Alive (1993)

    Alive (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2019) Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: Alive is a movie about survival up in the mountains after a plane crash, and it’s adapted from famous real events in which the survivors ate the body of the deceased for sustenance. The nervous jokes about cannibalism were all over the release of the film back in 1993, and they’re still the first thing that most people talk about when they talk about that film. For good reason too—survival movies come and go, but they usually fade away quickly—does anyone even remember 2018’s The Mountain Between Us? Alive has a tricky element to deal with, and director Frank Marshall does have the decency of being skillful at the way it goes about it. Otherwise, it does remain a decent survival story: capable actors, harrowing plot, some dodgy pre-CGI special effects, and a bit of an uplifting conclusion. But if Alive sticks in mind, it won’t be for much of the film—it will be for those five minutes where it steps away from the norm, and can do so without accusation of gratuitous exploitation because it’s adapted from real events.

  • The Women (1939)

    The Women (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) It’s not clear to me when George Cukor got a reputation for being a “woman’s director”, but there’s got to be a link between that and The Women, a film renowned for having an all-female cast … down to the extras and gender of the animals shown on-screen. That’s not the only reason why it has endured, however: the script is a master class in delightful bitchiness between its major characters, all the way to a memorable catfight at the beginning of its third act. The acerbic script has several witty things to say about marriage from the point of view of an ensemble of women having similar but complementary problems with their husband and lovers. Set in the Manhattan upper-class, The Women is Hollywood glitz escapist wish fulfillment, but also a bit of a pure exploration of gender tension freed from the shackles of money. There is a distinctive “fashion show” sequence that was shot in colour, adding a dash of style to the movie. The cast is solid, with a number of the era’s most famous actresses taking part—and, of course, the antagonist is played by Joan Crawford. The beginning of the film can be a sink-or-swim experience, as the script moves fast and it can be difficult to distinguish between half a dozen very similar brunettes … but it gets much better as the subplots unfold, and as the solid dialogue keeps drawing us in. The Women may have a bland title, but it’s a hard film to forget.

  • All About Steve (2009)

    All About Steve (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2019) Some movies are more infamous than famous, and to the extent that anyone even thinks about All About Steve, it’s usually to remind everyone else that it was a terrible film. (I don’t like the Razzies, but All About Steve is notable in that it led to Sandra Bullock winning a Razzie for the worst actress of the year, and picking it up herself … the day before winning a Best Actress Academy Oscar for The Blind Side, which is not necessarily a better movie.) With a reputation like that, it’s normal to approach the film with an “it can’t be that bad” presumption. All About Steve, however, is honestly that bad, although it can often camouflage its awfulness by humour. Even the premise is strange, what with a socially awkward girl obsessively pursuing a dreamboat of a romantic prospect, turning psychotic behaviour into rom-com antics. The problems, I suspect, go straight to Bullock as the producer of the film. There are plenty of hints that the script, as originally written, was far wackier than what eventually landed on the screen. There are enough zany hijinks and eccentric characters left over on the sides of the plot to make a reasonable hypothesis that when Bullock became the film’s producer and cast herself in the lead role, the main character re rewritten to fit their lead actors, and that neither Bullock nor Bradley Cooper wanted to strike out too far in absurdity. The result is a film that doesn’t know how to approach its own material. Bullock in the lead role is too conventionally sympathetic and cannot allow herself to completely become the nerdy obsessive protagonist in her full glory—she has to be fit to be played by Sandra Bullock’s persona, and that works to the film’s detriment as it holds back what could have been a far funnier film. Another actress may have been able to play a brainy outcast, but Bullock has to get her star moments. Much of the same also goes for Bradley Cooper, asked to play a relatively straight and featureless male romantic lead in a film geared for something else. This would explain such baffling tonal issues with the rest of the film, including a scene (glorifying Bullock’s character, naturally) mean to be inspiring and heroic, but just coming across as tone-deaf. I suspect that movie-star interference in films is widespread and corrosive, but All About Steve looks like an ideal example of the problem. The problems of All About Steve are all about casting—specifically when the casting of a persona end up weakening the character as originally written … which happens when the star and producer end up being the same person.

  • Tag (2018)

    Tag (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) As far as contemporary comedies go, Tag holds its own as an enjoyable entry in the genre. Starting with an off-beat premise inspired by real events (a group of guys playing a lifelong game of tag), it stocks its ensemble cast with known comic personas, features a script that exploits the nooks and crannies of the premise and wraps it all up in sequences that have more cinematic depth than most other comedies. As a comedy/action hybrid (naturally, with the “tag” hook), it features enough CGI and gags stolen from other action movies (including the Sherlockian slow-motion voice-over options analysis) to act as a semi-satire. The film does a credible job at rationalizing its unlikely premise, from how the game was created to the various rules that make it a bit more complex. To support that intent, it also features a coterie of observers (including a journalist played by Annabelle Wallis in a thankless role that is reduced to being the audience’s surrogate) to highlight how crazy the main characters can become in playing the game. The cast was clearly chosen for their established personas, whether we’re talking about Jon Hamm’s propensity for comedy, Isla Fisher’s energetic enthusiasm, Ed Helms as the goofy straight man, and Jeremy Renner to make use of his action-movie credentials in a more serious character than the other. The result is funny enough, although the third-act turn into drama is suspect in the way movies written according to screenwriting rules feel obliged to hit specific emotional turns. Tag is an enjoyable comedy, with set-pieces more ambitious than is the norm for many flatter comedies. The dialogue shows signs of having been written rather than improvised, which usually improves the results.

  • Tiny House of Terror (2017)

    Tiny House of Terror (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) By now, I know enough about Swedish cinema to brace myself whenever my list of must-see movies brings me to another one of them. Oscar-nominated The Emigrants is not an Ingmar Bergman, even though his style and favourite actors (Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann) are clearly not too far away. (Actually, I’m being meaner to Bergman than I should—his movies usually have wit and a really good idea or two somewhere in them, and that is sorely missed here.) Telling us about the story of Swedish peasants emigrating to the United States in the 1850s, this movie is about as unromanticized a retelling of the American immigrant tale as possible: death, tragedy and misery await at every turn, and not even making it to destination can spare some family members. I suppose that the realistic portrayal has its place (and acts as a commemoration of sort for Swedish-Americans), but it quickly becomes an ordeal for viewers wondering when or even if this will ever end—at times, it feels as if the multi-month journey is taking place in real time. It’s long. Sooo looong. Frankly, I would have stopped watching The Emigrants had it not been Oscar-nominated.

  • Dick Tracy (1990)

    Dick Tracy (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, In French, On Cable TV, January 2019) Back in 1990, Hollywood really wanted audiences to go see Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy. After the success of Batman in 1989, it had been designated as the most likely contender for the Summer Box-Office crown. I remember the overwhelming marketing push. It didn’t quite work out that way: While Dick Tracy did decent business, movies such as Ghost and Die Hard 2 did much better. Still, the film had its qualities (it did get nominated for seven Academy Awards) and even today it does remain a bit of a curio. Much of its interest comes from a conscious intention to replicate the primary colours of the film’s 1930s comic-book pulp origins: the atmosphere of the film is gorgeous and equally steeped in Depression-era gangster movies and comic-book excess. A tremendous amount of often-grotesque prosthetics were used to transform a surprising ensemble cast of known names (Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, James Caan … geez) into the caricatures of Tracy’s world. Beatty himself shows up as Tracy, square-jawed and willing to give his best to a film he also directed and produced. Madonna also shows up, but she ends up being more adequate than anything else. Dick Tracy’s big twist is very easy to guess, but this isn’t a film that you watch for the overarching plot: it’s far more interesting when it lingers in the nooks and corner of its heightened vision of 1930s cops-vs-gangsters cartoons. Visually, the film holds its own by virtue of being one of the last big-budget productions without CGI: the matte paintings are spectacular, and you can feel the effort that went into physically creating the film’s off-kilter reality. The question here remains whether the film would have been better had it focused either on a more realistic gangster film, or an even more cartoonish film. Considering the original inspiration, there was probably no other option than an uncomfortable middle ground. In some ways, I’m more impressed by Dick Tracy now than I was when I saw it in 1990 (at the drive-in!)—I wasn’t expecting as much, and I’m now more thankful than ever that it lives on as how big budget 1990 Hollywood rendered the gangster 1930s.

  • Utvandrarna [The Emigrants] (1971)

    Utvandrarna [The Emigrants] (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) I can’t adequately explain how much I love “Tiny House of Terror” as a movie title. It’s over-the-top, instantly intriguing and packs the cuteness of “Tiny House” with the threatened menace that is “OF TERROR!” in four short words. Impossible to resist, and probably impossible to live up to as well. This is a made-for-Lifetime TV movie and it shows—watching it on commercial-free Cable TV channels, you can see the fade-out-fade-ins, which is especially amusing in the case when it fades back to the very same shot. While the screenwriter has to be congratulated for the chutzpah of creating a thriller based on the high-concept housing fad of the moment, Tiny House of Terror doesn’t, in the end, have much to do with Tiny Houses—it goes beyond the setting to quickly becomes a sombre revenge thriller where the tiny house becomes an afterthought. The broken chronology of the result is interesting and while some twists can be guessed in advance, the film is filled with so many red herrings that it’s actually a letdown when everything is explained as the resolution does not match our wildest explanations. This Canadian production gets a few extra points for cute lead actresses (Francia Raisa and Nazneen Contractor)—and some applause for casting non-Caucasian actresses for no particular plot reason. In the end, despite a title that overpromises much, Tiny House of Terror is not that good but not that bad either—too bad about the disappointing ending, though.

  • Way Down East (1920)

    Way Down East (1920)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) I seldom reach back to the early 1920s for straight-up dramatic films, and Way Down East is a thorough reminder of why. Coming from legendary filmmaker D.W. Griffith and starring none other than silent film superstar Lillian Gish, it’s a century-old film that goes back even further in time for inspiration, to an 1889 melodramatic play. To say that social mores have changed is putting it mildly, especially how the entire film revolves around an unmarried pregnant woman and the debilitating social shame that this implied. (There’s also a lesson here between contemporary period pieces and authentic period pieces—anyone trying to remake Way Down East a hundred years later would face significant challenges in trying to re-create the same emotions evoked in 1920.) The film does not pull any punches in reaching for tears and thrills—there’s infant death, small-village ostracization and peril on ice floes. It also packs a bit of a class warfare message as its sympathies are solidly with the working-class heroine humiliated and abandoned by a rich suitor. Now, all of the above may sound like good dramatic material, but the early days of cinema weren’t as polished as what we expect: D.W. Griffith was still helping to invent the cinematic art form! As a result, Way Down East can be a trying viewing experience. Incredibly long, pretentious, outdated, shot with static cameras with terrible image quality (and that’s from the impeccable broadcast source TCM!), it can be an ordeal for most of its duration. Fortunately, it does improve sharply by the end, as the film points out the double standard it depicts, and then rushes to an action-packed finale on a partially frozen river that features an authentically dangerous ice-floe scene that will have even contemporary viewers gritting their teeth in suspense and sympathetic frostbite. Gish is very good and lovely here, but she suffered for it—legend has it that she suffered permanent nerve damage in her hand from shooting the climactic scene. I wouldn’t go as far as to suggest that you fast-forward directly to Way Down East’s last fifteen minutes … but it would save you a lot of time.

  • Polytechnique (2009)

    Polytechnique (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) I suspect that Polytechnique received a lot more interest in recent years now that its director Denis Villeneuve has become a major Hollywood director. But it’s a great, hard-hitting in its own right as it takes on the tragic events of the Montréal Polytechnique shooting of December 6, 1989, as a springboard for a drama that’s not quite a re-creation. Much of the basic facts, as horrible as they were, are faithfully reused here—the shooter specifically targeting women, and the helplessness of the male students as they were unable to help their classmates. But Polytechnique adds a layer of fiction that help navigate a fine line between attempting to re-create the event, and adding another layer of tragedy for the survivors of the events. The broken chronology gives false hope and brings us back very reluctantly to the heart of the massacre. Unable and unwilling to shoot the movie at the school itself, Villeneuve nonetheless gives an unsettling layer of authenticity to the result. Polytechnique is deliberately shot in black-and-white for ever starker realism, adopting cinema-vérité aesthetics in a way to reduce the distance between the events and the viewer, an effective choice to present events very familiar to many of its French-Canadian viewers. It’s visually raw, but carefully controlled in its technique. Polytechnique is not easy to watch and it’s liable to linger for a few days/weeks/months, but it’s a mesmerizing film … and probably one that most will never re-watch again.

  • Sergeant York (1941)

    Sergeant York (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) Not having seen all of Howard Hawks’ filmography, I’m not entirely qualified to say that he’s never made a bad movie, but Sergeant York is a powerful argument that he’s made at least one average one. This is from a contemporary perspective, of course: Back in 1941, Sergeant York was the perfect combination of a veteran director, a superstar actor and the story of a famous WW1 hero. The titular Alvin York was (and remains) a legend in American military history—a rural God-fearing boy who became a soldier reluctantly, but ended the war with an impressive marksmanship record and the Medal of Honor. The film does dive into the duality of York’s character as being both very religious and a terrifying marksman, but does end up chalking it up to divine intervention. That played by gangbusters back in 1941, but from a contemporary perspective this is squarely a propaganda film: the values espoused here happen to be the perfect values to convince a generation of boys to enlist in the looming WW2—humility, obedience, marksmanship and as few moral qualms about killing as many enemies as possible even if you have to go through impressive rationalizations to keep both your bible and your rifle. Gary Cooper is up to his usual all-American bland self: solid without taking up much of the spotlight, an ideal model for the impressionable audience. There are many, many intriguing points of comparison between Sergeant York and the 2014 American Sniper if anyone cares to look. It doesn’t help the film’s blunt-edged persuasive intent that it feels very long, especially—surprisingly!—toward the end when everything should be wrapping up. It’s easy to see why the film was a smash hit upon release, but it has aged far less gracefully than many of its contemporaries, especially for non-American audiences. If Sergeant York still works today, it’s largely because of Hawks’ skills and Cooper’s charisma.

  • Insidious: The Last Key (2018)

    Insidious: The Last Key (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) There’s something almost endearing in the way that the Insidious horror franchise has doubled upon itself to focus on a character played by an elderly woman. Once again in Insidious: The Last Key, Lin Shaye truly stars in as a psychic medium in this prequel instalment showing us a previous big case, one with very personal implications in the grand tradition of horror series making sure that every single detail of its mythology has been cross-referenced against their character’s biography. By the end, it all leads straight back to the first film of the series like clockwork, because these are movies rather than TV show episodes, right? If you sense dripping sarcasm, it’s largely because this Insidious feels like the series has grown content to simply going over the same familiar landmarks once more. We’re filling smaller and smaller holes in a backstory that didn’t need any backfilling, and it’s become more claustrophobic than entertaining. Under director Adam Robitel, the scares are strictly routine, and the story’s few highlights aren’t enough to push back the impression of encroaching deja vu. Shaye remains a highlight, and there are some good moments in the interactions that she has with her two sidekicks … but the point of the movie is having another hit of what worked so well in the first film of the series no matter if it becomes steadily less impressive. Let the series go, producers. It’s run its course.

  • King of New York (1990)

    King of New York (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) Anyone wondering if there’s a movie with 1990-vintage Christopher Walken as a kingpin in nighttime New York City can rest easy, because King of New York exists. It may even be a good movie: under the stylish glare of director Abel Ferrara, this is a film chiefly concerned about style over substance, going through familiar plot points with some messy energy. Walken is reliably terrific here, playing a crime lord fresh out of prison with ambitions that may not survive long in the city he’s coming back to. Almost immediately, rival criminals and the police have him in their sight, and it can be difficult to distinguish the illegal tactics between both sides of the law. The protagonist here is painted in a tragic light, a victim of circumstances who “never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it”, seeking redemption yet too noble (or something) to survive in the harsher Manhattan that evolved while he was behind bars. The mythologization of the character living large and indulging in hedonistic excesses may account for much of King of New York’s enduring popularity as a crime classic of its era, but a bit of perspective shows the limits of Ferrara’s approach. The film isn’t as profound as it seems to be, for instance, and the ending drags on far too long after an intermittently interesting plot progression. There’s a lot of posing here and while that may help build the film’s pretension, it falls apart more readily the moment you don’t believe in the style without the substance. Walken has the benefit of being supported by a cast that includes early appearances by many name actors not yet having fully defined personas, including Laurence Fishburne, David Caruso, Steve Buscemi and Wesley Snipes. King of New York is not unpleasant to watch on a pure style and attitude level, but it’s certainly uneven, and can become annoying if you don’t buy into the whole gangsters-as-heroes nonsense.

  • Plein Soleil [Purple Noon] (1960)

    Plein Soleil [Purple Noon] (1960)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, January 2019) I don’t have a lot to say about Plein Soleil, largely because what it does was re-done much better in the 1999 film The Talented M. Ripley. Indeed, this is the first, lesser-known adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith character, featuring none other than Alain Delon as a serial impersonator/murderer motivated by nothing much more than personal gain and a complete absence of moral principles. There aren’t that many surprises here for fans of the 1999 film … in fact, it may even be a bit boring, in addition to being much technically rougher around the edges. In keeping with its Mediterranean setting, though, it’s clearly not meant to be a fast-paced thriller nor comfort to those who expect the villain to be punished. This being said, Plein Soleil does have the advantages of its production date—the 1960s atmosphere has become a great period piece today, especially given how much of the film takes place outdoors with scenery far more difficult to re-create today. It may not be a surprise, but anyone going back to this first incarnation may find that the result has some charm of its own.

  • Working Girl (1988)

    Working Girl (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) Now there’s a strong contender for the title of the most 1980s movie ever. Working Girl came at a time when Hollywood seemingly couldn’t get enough of Manhattan’s Wall Street ambience, in between Wall Street and The Secret of my Success and Baby Boom and many others released in barely a three-year span. Unlike many of those, however, Work Girl clearly has (from its title onward) a clear idea that it wants to talk about class issues in the United States, especially when the Manhattan office environment can be used to put the very poor right alongside the very rich. Director Mike Nichols approaches the topic with two ideal actresses at each pole of the story: Melanie Griffith as the heroic low-class girl whose smarts exceed those around her, and Sigourney Weaver as her high-class, low-morals opposite. The opponents having been defined, the rest is up for grabs: the job, the prestige, even the boy-toy (Harrison Ford, good but not ideal—the role is funnier than he is) will be given to the winner. Good performances abound, with some surprising names (Joan Cusack! Alec Baldwin? Oliver Platt!! Kevin Spacey as a lecherous pervert?!) along the way. Still, this is Griffith and Weaver’s show. Only one of them shows up in lingerie, though. Now, Working Girl is not a perfect film—it does use a few shortcuts on the way to a sappy romantic conclusion, and it bothered me more than it should that the characters would assign so much importance to the idea as having value—in the real world, execution is far more important, but it doesn’t dramatize so well. Still, that doesn’t take much away from Working Girl as class conflict playing out in late-1980s Manhattan. It’s not a complicated film, but it is very well crafted. (One more thing: Weaver’s character’s name had me thinking of evil Katharine Hepburn, which led me to think about how the two women looked like each other, which had me thinking about how they could have switched many roles, which had me thinking about Katharine Hepburn as Ripley in Aliens. Hollywood, if you’re listening, I know you have the CGI and lack of morals to make this happen.)

  • Much Ado about Nothing (1993)

    Much Ado about Nothing (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, January 2019) As I’ve mentioned before, I do have one significant failing as a reviewer for some movies: As a Francophone, Shakespearian English (especially when heard rather than read) breaks my brain. Short bursts of it are fine, but I usually can’t maintain my focus very long on classical English, and it eventually exhausts me. This is why you’re unlikely to find very detailed or meaningful reviews of Shakespearian adaptations unless they update the language or offer a strong visual element to go with the dialogue. Or so I thought before doing something very unusual and watching a French-dubbed version of Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing. (When it comes to dubs, I’m an original-version purist.) Suddenly, the language is simply delicious to listen to; the lines are funnier, and I can enjoy it to the end. Of course, it helps that the play, and its filmed adaptation, ranks among the frothiest and funniest of the Bard’s plays. It takes place in a gorgeous Italian estate, where Emma Thompson is cute, a young Kate Beckinsale is cute—in fact, everyone is cute. It’s amusing to see actors such as Michael Keaton, Denzel Washington and Keanu Reeves go for classical comedy, and that makes it even funnier in turn. The cinematography is good, the directing is clearly focused on the actors, and the soliloquies—even in dubbed French—are very well done. I’m not enough of a scholar to determine if the French dialogues are original to this adaptation or rely on an older canonical translation (and this is not the kind of information easily obtained), but I suspect that they are original to this dub and they sound good. If I sound unusually enthusiastic about Much Ado about Nothing, it’s largely because it challenges my presumption that Shakespeare is hermetic. I had a good time watching it, and that exceeded all of my expectations.