Reviews

  • The Star (2017)

    The Star (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) The increasingly affordable nature of computer animation means that you now often get small studios taking chances on projects that would have been too odd or niche to accomplish at a higher budget. Hence The Star. A nativity story featuring talking-animal comedy is not exactly the kind of thing that seems obvious—the mixture of the sacred and the, ahem, profane is odd enough, but with a budget set at $20M it became a conceptually profitable endeavour even for a major studio such as Sony (working with Cinesite’s Montréal Studio), distributing a film far more faith-based than most Hollywood releases. The budget most clearly shows in the rather amazing voice cast assembled here, from Oprah to Tyler Perry to Ving Rhames to Zachary Levy to Kristin Chenoweth to Christopher Plummer—with Mariah Carey singing along the way. Still, the strange blend of religious earnestness and talking-animal comedy does works better than expected, and The Star should become a minor holiday reference for a few years to come.

  • Odd Thomas (2013)

    Odd Thomas (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) I ignored Odd Thomas for years, working from the conviction that it couldn’t be more than an average film if it had been adapted from a Dean Koontz novel. (I once read twenty-some Koontz novels in the span of a single year, and liked only one of them.) But as it turns out, this movie adaptation is something different from the usual Koontz. Introducing us to a small-town California psychic, this is a film that makes use of chatty protagonist narration, a fast-paced plot and some off-beat details to tell a story with a well-rounded execution from familiar elements. I suspect that much of the fluidity of the result comes from director Stephen Sommers, a capable sfx storyteller who had a few high-profile movies between 1998 and 2009 but seems to have been sidelined of the industry since then. The plot has something to do with preventing a mass shooting, but the way we get there is far more interesting than expected with plenty of humour, suspense, ingenious use of fantastic tropes and good actors in key roles. The late Anton Yelchin stars as Thomas, with an early role for Gugu Mbatha-Raw and a supporting turn from Willem Dafoe. The hook is interesting, and while there is something slightly off about the overly cute banter as well as some of the individual moments along the way (including a far too dark romantic conclusion), the execution is generally above average and the film is a bit of an unassuming surprise. Even though it’s more of an underrated B-movie than anything else, I probably shouldn’t have waited so long to see it.

  • Game Night (2018)

    Game Night (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) With the simultaneous resurgence in R-rated comedies and immersive gaming for adults, it’s not such a surprise that something like Game Night would emerge—a comedy aimed at adults, taking on the mind games of a what’s-real-and-what’s-not kind of entertainment. The plot has to do with a regularly scheduled “game night” between friends spinning out of control as mystery men burst in the house and take away a player. As the group enjoys figuring out the clues to find the kidnappers, there are plenty of warnings that the line between entertainment and real danger is thinner than they expect. What could easily have been a thriller is here presented as a dark comedy, with characters blithely walking in danger when they are expecting the safety net of an arranged scenario. The distinction is further blurred by showy cinematography far closer to off-beat thriller than flat comedy—it supports the gaming thematic by playing head games with the audience, bathing everything in shadows and even tilt-focusing the images so that we’re reminded of game board pieces. Jason Bateman typically anchors the cast by providing level-headed snark even as the other actors are left to go wild. Rachel McAdams is a good foil as his wife, while Jesse Plemons is perhaps a bit too good as a lonely neighbour trying to join the gaming group—his performance is a bit too unnerving for comfort. The result is surprisingly good, especially when compared to other R-rated films: while I would have toned down the violence, the result does manage to find the tricky balance inherent in any black comedy, and the result is highly entertaining to watch. It even finds that meta-balance between the safety net of a comedy/game and the tension of a thriller/crime. Making good use of trendy elements, Game Night is a bit of a surprise and a welcome one at that.

  • Pontypool (2008)

    Pontypool (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) It took me far too long to see the unusual Canadian horror film Pontypool, considering that it starts with a great setup for a zombie movie and then leaps into something much stranger. It doesn’t quite manage to deliver a satisfying ending, but at least it tries something unusual and does feature some great atmosphere along the way. It all starts with a radio shock jock (played with sufficient panache by Stephen McHattie) on the first day of his new job in a small Ontario town—driven out of the big markets thanks to some unspecified offence, he brings big-city attitude to a folksy community. The community has other plans than to listen patiently—before long, his intention to sleepwalk through yet another morning show is dashed by reports of violence within broadcasting range. Stuck in the confines of his studio with his manager and assistant, he tries to piece together a local story with global implications, and soon finds himself besieged by attackers behaving strangely like zombies. But not exactly zombies, as something far more bizarre is happening, something having to do with a word-based virus. By the end of the film, Pontypool plays with language and semiotics and the nature of reality itself. (Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash even gets a visual shout-out.) If its sound ambitious and heady, it’s perhaps no surprise that the film disintegrates slightly toward the end, as it doesn’t quite manage to leap to that next level gracefully—and the post-credit sequence sort-of makes sense if you read about it, but feels cool-yet-awkward without considerable hand-holding. Director Bruce McDonald (working from a script by Tony Burgess adapting his own book) does manage quite a few nice things along the way, though—even by taking place essentially on one set, Pontypool creates an interesting fusion of Wolfman-Jack-meets-rural-Ontario, effectively cranks up the tension throughout the film and eventually delivers a conclusion of sorts, even though I wish the third act could have been rewritten, clarified and executed more persuasively. There are a lot of cool ideas here (the idea of English being “infected” while French isn’t could lead to the Great Politically Charged Canadian SF Novel considering the bilingual nature of the country, but that’s merely brushed upon here). Pontypool still comes up frequently in discussions of cinematic “gems you haven’t yet seen” and it’s easy to see why—even at a time when zombie-type movies are overexposed, this one still has a few things to say.

  • Flirting with Disaster (1996)

    Flirting with Disaster (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) Twenty-few years later, you could think that Flirting with Disaster would be worth a look solely for being an early vehicle for writer/director David O. Russell and a cast with more known names than is worth enumerating. But Russell’s script deliberately leans in the oddball direction (like most of his other movies, in fact) and so this quirky independent comedy soon takes us through the United States with a bunch of eccentric characters as the protagonist tries to find the identity of his biological parents. The plot is contrived, but that’s the nature of the thing. There are twists and turns, humiliating moments, some flirting for both married characters and a few false leads in the biological parent search. Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette and Téa Leoni make up for a decent trio of leads, with decent supporting players in smaller roles. Mostly but not solely worth watching by Russell fans, Flirting with Disaster amounts to a quirky, amiable, decently entertaining film but not a particularly memorable one even despite its conscious decision to be off the wall.

  • Super Troopers 2 (2018)

    Super Troopers 2 (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) The Troopers are back for more silliness in Super Troopers 2, with the Broken Lizard comedy troupe offering more of their specific sense of humour. This time, nothing less than national sovereignty is at stake, as an old surveying error leads to the American border being repositioned to take up a slice of Canadian land. In the meantime, the disgraced Troopers are asked to set up a Highway Patrol outpost in the contested zone. While the plotting has a few moments (“passive smuggling” is a clever concept), the point of Super Troopers 2 is, once again, the low-brow humour milking the Trooper’s stupidity, propensity to pranks and overall sociopathy. Those who loved the first film will like the second, even though it feels more calculated and less funny than it could have been. As a Canadian viewer, I had a lot of fun with the various unflattering stereotypes and dumb jokes playing off the difference between the US and Canada—even if some of the details ring patently false. As a low-budget film, it’s best not to expect too much from the result, although director Jay Chandrasekhar does manage a few convincing set-pieces along the way. I suppose I could make a half-hearted cultural representation argument that few of the French-Canadian actors are played by French-Canadians, but I don’t even believe that to be a problem, especially not when steps in Rob Lowe and Emmanuelle Chriqui (who, upon verification, was actually born in Montréal). Super Troopers 2 is not meant to be watched for a nuanced take on cross-cultural issues when there are dumb jokes to be made, and the best we can say is that it’s definitely in the same vein as its predecessor, often funnier than the similar French-Canadian Bon Cop Bad Cop 2, and entertaining enough if you’re in the right mindset.

  • Arthur Christmas (2011)

    Arthur Christmas (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) Watching Christmas movies after December 26 is a risky thing—at a minimum the air’s gone out of the Christmas spirit, and at worst, well, anyone can be excused for thinking that they don’t even want to hear about Christmas for another eleven months. In other words: that’s the time of the year during which to distinguish the good Christmas movies from those who only run on holiday magic. Fortunately, Arthur Christmas is one of the decent ones, and this surprisingly enjoyable animated fantasy film gets going early on with a detailed depiction of Santa Claus’s Christmas delivery logistics, from Santa using an army of elves as a staging crew, a gigantic ship, an enormous mission control and the refinements we can expect from an ultra-high-tech operation. This, in turn, leads to one of the central conflicts in the film—the contrast between the technology required to achieve a mass toy-delivery operation, and the Christmas spirit that motivates it. Our hero is a clumsy but well-meaning young man, Santa’s least favourite son—not seen as the favourite to take over operations once the old man retires. In the tradition of modern CGI features, Arthur Christmas is a zippy story that uses the possibilities of the medium to show us how a Santa operation could run, then strands the protagonist in multiple adventures to have them prove their worth. The depth of imagination, both visual and conceptual, can be explained by this being from the Aardman animation studio. But no matter the pedigree, Arthur Christmas is an engaging film, and one that most won’t mind revisiting throughout the year.

  • Young Guns (1988)

    Young Guns (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) Not being much of a western fan, it was probably inevitable that I wouldn’t care much about Young Guns. Clearly made with the intention of bringing sexy back to the western genre, it does have the good sense of casting the Brat Pack of photogenic young actors for a nice little shoot’em up. Even today, who wouldn’t be tempted to have a look at young Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen and Dermot Mulroney in the same horses-and-guns movie? Alas, the movie around those actors isn’t quite up to the promise—for all of the then-trendy soundtrack, this retelling of the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid’s life does feel perfunctory. I suppose that here’s a cultural element at play here—Being Canadian, I have little use for outlaw legends along the lines of Billy the Kid, and so that aspect has nearly no grip on my particular imagination. While stylish, Young Guns definitely shows its age and late-1980s pedigree—thirty years later, it looks flashy, dated and a bit ridiculous with its overcoats and lengthy slow-motion moments. I don’t quite dislike the result, but neither do I care for it much—although I suspect that the deliberately accumulated sex appeal of half a dozen guys is wasted on me.

  • Elvis Gratton II : Miracle à Memphis (1999)

    Elvis Gratton II : Miracle à Memphis (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, January 2019) Whew, what a movie. The most useful piece of background information in discussing Elvis Gratton II: Miracle à Memphis is that it was a consciously commercial endeavour, trying to capitalize on the success of quasi-legendary Québécois character Elvis Gratton in order to finance writer/director Pierre Falardeau’s next and riskier project, the pro-independence historical drama 15 février 1839. To this end, this sequel maximizes everything that Gratton stood for—more slapstick, more bigotry, more anti-federalist sentiment, more satirical content. The script wastes no time in establishing a broad canvas for the film’s gags—as a resurrected Gratton becomes a media sensation, an American talent manager takes over his career to enable him to become a rock star, restaurant owner, bestselling writer, real-estate mogul, without compromising the essentially small-time vulgarity of the character. It’s really not subtle nor successful: Gags are quoted verbatim from the previous film with slightly more polish, laugh-free sequences are dragged on far longer than necessary, and the political content is blatantly shoved in viewers’ faces. The episodic nature of the plot enables the film to play without much of a dramatic arc, so much so that the film eventually ends with a discussion between director and star/screenwriter Julien Poulin as they ponder how they’re going to end the movie. Their consensus is to blatantly laugh at viewers, which they’ve been doing anyway. While such a scene does get a few chuckles (along with the film’s funniest character; a smart car openly contemptuous of its owner), Elvis Gratton II: Miracle à Memphis is a wild, uncontrolled film that wallows in the same ignorance that it attempts to criticize. Once again, the character of Gratton becomes not an object of derision, but a folk hero of sorts that tranquillizes the masses rather than unnerve them. Faladreau passed away in 2009, and his beloved separatist movement went into a coma shortly afterward, making the political aims of his films look dated and risible at once. But even if you go soft on the film’s political aims (and I am!), the rest of it is usually nothing more than a dumb comedy with lengthy laughs-free passages. Too bad; I do think that Falardeau had what it took to make a truly incendiary satire. In this case, he chose not to…. Maybe he had his reasons.

  • Elvis Gratton: Le king des kings (1985)

    Elvis Gratton: Le king des kings (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, January 2019) I remember seeing at least a part of Elvis Gratton: Le king des kings as a younger teenager—it was, after all, a shared cultural reference in French-Canada, with a few catchphrases going around middle school. No kid back then cared about the political references that writer/director Pierre Falardeau gracelessly slipped in, making sure to associate its boorish idiotic character with federalism: Everyone remembered Gratton acting like a moron and the slapstick gags and the slangy catchphrases. Watching the film now is a bit different—the political text is intrusive and self-contradictory, while the slapstick is cheap and about as stupid as the character himself. It doesn’t help that the film is a fix-up of three smaller films: the first introducing the character in his full reprehensible sexism, racism, small-minded bigotry; the second one exporting Gratton’s humour to a tropical vacation, while he completely misses the point of a dictatorial regime; and the third one bringing together various gags about winter and Christmas. It ends with Gratton’s death and resurrection, explicitly like Jesus. The episodic nature of the three smaller films is made even worse by the disconnected string of slapstick gags. To be fair, lead actor/writer Julien Poulin created a heck of a character with Elvis Gratton, even though the satirical point of the character was often missed by everyone … as is often the case with outrageous satire. The film does have a few laughs, but I can’t honestly say which ones are nostalgic middle school flashbacks and which ones are genuine—the film does have its share of exasperating moments as well, so any assessment of the film has to be properly mixed.

  • It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)

    It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, January 2019) The 1960s were a strange time for movies, with studios chasing epic films in a decades-long fight to convince TV viewers to make the trip to theatres. It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World is special in that it (along with The Great Race) was a rare attempt to make an epic comedy rather than rely on oh-so-very-serious biblical or historical source material. The result is, indeed a spectacle: As a few strangers hear a dying thief give them the location of a hidden treasure, the rest of the film is a madcap, multi-character chase through the southwestern United States in an attempt to get to the treasure before everyone else. The ensemble cast is a collection of early 1960s comedy stars, even though most of them are now unfamiliar to contemporary audiences. Still, what has not gone out of style is the succession of action set-pieces, impressive stunt work, breakneck editing and far-fetched comic situations in which the characters find themselves. Where else can you witness a plane flying (for real!) through a billboard; a man destroying a service station; or characters stuck on an out-of-control fireman ladder? It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World is admittedly very long—at nearly three hours (with half an hour cut from the first showings!), it would be a test of anyone’s patience, except that the laughs and the fast pacing do keep things hopping quickly: director Stanley Kramer may not have the deftest touch with comedy and specifically verbal comedy, but the result speaks for itself. While the film is easy to like, there are a few things that hold it back from unconditional love—namely, that the point of the film is a greedy chase, and so nearly every character (even the one played by the normally likable Spencer Tracy) eventually succumbs to pure old-fashioned backstabbing greed. The ending does the most of what it can with the cards it’s given, but there’s still an absence of a pure happy ending for anyone that stings a bit. Still, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World is a classic for a reason, and its sheer lengths and density of comic set-pieces make it a decent prospect for a rewatch.

  • That’s Entertainment! (1974)

    That’s Entertainment! (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2018) In the running for the title of the greatest clip show ever made, That’s Entertainment! does have the advantage of great source material to draw from: nothing less than the heydays of MGM musicals, featuring greats such as Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and so many others that it would be exhausting to list them all. Various stars such as James Stewart, Bing Crosby and Elizabeth Taylor introduce some of the archival segments. Helmed by writer/director Jack Haley Jr. from MGM’s library extensive library, the film is a pure celebration of musicals as an art form, and of MGM as a powerhouse studio. Ironically, the film also acts as a tombstone for the classical MGM—filmed on the studio’s backlot, That’s Entertainment! presents the MGM studios right after they were sold off to finance the studio’s debts. As a result, the backdrop behind the presenters is decrepit, rusted, faded, overgrown with weeds, showing Hollywood’s past grandeur in a documentary fashion. The contrast between that and the clip shows is astounding, as we get a quick greatest hits of MGM’s most memorable numbers and fascinating segments about Astaire, Kelly, Esther Williams and Judy Garland. That’s Entertainment! is an absolutely fascinating film, and it deserves its enduring popularity—TCM even used it, along with its sequels, as a perfect lead in to the New Year’s Eve celebrations. Now, I want a good affordable copy of it on Blu-Ray.

  • Cadillac Records (2008)

    Cadillac Records (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2018) It’s not easy to make a successful ensemble musical biography, but Cadillac Records does manage to put together a fun and intriguing look at the life of Lionel Chess and the heydays of Chess Records, a pivotal Chicago-based record company that played a crucial role in rhythm-and-blues, as well as the formation of early rock-and-roll. The ensemble cast clearly has fun playing musical legends, what with Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, Beyoncé as Etta James, Eamonn Walker as Howlin’ Wolf and Mos Def as Chuck Berry, with Adrian Brody as producer Leonard Chess. Writer-director Darnell Martin’s script doesn’t stray far from either the truth or the music movies clichés, but it does have a good narrative rhythm to it. It’s perhaps most remarkable for focusing on a label rather than just a single artist, giving us a glimpse of the relationships between a group of people moving forward in time. The characters are memorable, their stories remain interesting and the music is about as good as it could be. Don’t be surprised to want to revisit Cadillac Records only for the music, leaving it as background ambiance while doing other things.

  • Reds (1981)

    Reds (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, December 2018) I’m starting to be old enough to realize how complex history can be, and how many little-known side stories, tangents and footnotes it contains. Now, thanks to Warren Beatty’s Reds, I know a little bit more about the American involvement in the Bolchevik Revolution of November 1917 and its aftermath. Beatty here produces, writes, directs and plays in a movie about American journalist John Reed, who witnessed those events first-hand, sent news reports and ended up writing a book about it. In addition to Reed’s reporting, the film does spend quite a bit of time chronicling his complex relationship with socialite Louise Bryant (played by Diane Keaton). If it feels like a history lesson, then this is an impression that the film actively courts—by including documentary footage of “witnesses” talking about Reed, Reds blurs the lines between fact and fiction, and further bolsters the epic scale of the result. The other thing that hits hard is the film’s mind-numbing 194 minutes, far too long even for the kind of massive world-changing epic that Reds has in mind. Still, if you can schedule your life around the movie, it’s quite an interesting history lesson that it has in mind—a corner of American history during which the country may have been tempted to back off from savage capitalism, and a milestone of Russian history seldom depicted sympathetically in American movies. It’s easy to imagine parallel realities emerging from America embracing at least some degree of socialism, as this film dramatizes the elements in play in the late 1910s. Now that Beatty has essentially retired (or at least retreated back in a safe corner), it’s easier to evaluate how daring much of his pre-1990s filmography could be, and with Reds he controlled the project from beginning to end. The result is a fiercely intelligent, provocative, unusual piece of work that may overstay its welcome, but nonetheless illuminates a pocket of history that deserves to be told.

  • Yeopgijeogin geunyeo [My Sassy Girl] (2001)

    Yeopgijeogin geunyeo [My Sassy Girl] (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Hoopla Streaming, December 2018) Those who maintain that romance is the universal language will be comforted by the existence of Kwak Jae-yong’s My Sassy Girl, a South Korean romantic drama that hammers the tropes of the genre as blatantly as any Hollywood movie. The story is a bit messy, but it has to do with an unstable (quirky, sassy, fun, abusive—take your pick) young woman barging into a quiet young man’s life and upending it completely. The romance is further heightened by a lengthy separation between the two and a dramatically ironic finale. It starts out funny, becomes poignant later on, and finishes with big romantic guns firing by the very end. Of course the fun is in the details, in the quirkiness of her behaviour, the three movies imagined by the hero, or the atmosphere of a somewhat familiar romantic comedy set in contemporary South Korea. While this is all very cute and quite accessible (the film was one of the highest-grossing movies in South Korean history at the time of its release), I can’t help but wonder how much less fun the film would be if the gender roles had been inverted. But that’s asking too much of a film not meant to sustain such scrutiny. In the meantime, it’s best to just appreciate My Sassy Girl and have fun along the way.