Reviews

  • Toni Erdmann (2016)

    Toni Erdmann (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In German with French Subtitles, On TV, June 2019) I can think of an almost infinite list of more enjoyable things to do than to watch a nearly three-hour-long German comedy of humiliation. Unfortunately, one of those things is being obsessive about completing best-movies lists, and writer-director Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann did make a splash in the mid-2010s, earning an Academy Awards nomination along the way. Despite the long list of things going against it, I had to see it. As luck has it, the film is slightly better than what I feared: As it digs into its portrayal of a prankster father and his grown-up careerist daughter, it finds a few things to say that are rarely seen in cinema, and manages a few impressive set-pieces along the way. That, however, is pretty much the extent of my positive comments, because at two hours and forty-four minutes, Toni Erdmann sorely tries anyone’s patience. Its mixture of cringe-worthy comedy set in a blank shooting style doesn’t make it any easier to watch (the film begins with a handheld shot of a door for a full minute, so it’s not as if you’re not warned as soon as possible), something magnified by the cultural barrier of the film’s comedy—it does remain a German film set in Romania. The film has a few excruciating sequences that don’t quite seem to fit with the rest of the film (just wait until you delve into the main character’s sexual fetishes), adding both more irrelevance and length to an already trying result. Toni Erdmann ends up belonging to those movies that reward you for watching every fifteen minutes or so, and end up best appreciated as a checkbox next to a title that you will never have to see ever again.

  • Lords of Dogtown (2005)

    Lords of Dogtown (2005)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2019) I like movies that are about a specific time and place, and Lord of Dogtown couldn’t be more specific about taking place in California during the mid-seventies. There was an unprecedented drought at the time, and that led to many pools being drained for the summer, which happened just as skateboarding was revolutionized by the introduction of urethane wheels. The script, written by Stacy Peralta (who was close to the events and people described) focuses on a group of friends during that summer as they go skateboarding from one empty pool to another, breaking up and turning professional in their practice of the sport. Lords of Dogtown is not a good-looking movie: in an attempt to emulate the look of contemporary cameras, director Catherine Hardwicke goes for a harsh bleached and grainy look. But her direction is impressive, going handheld in an attempt to stick as closely as possible to the action. The stunt work in the action sequences is in-your-face, with several actors taking spills along the way. The cast itself is worth a look, including a number of people (Heath Ledger, America Ferrara, Sofia Vergara, Emile Hirsch, Rebecca de Mornay) that went on to star in much bigger movies. Baby-faced Michael Angarano is even more baby-faced here. There are also tons—and I mean dozens—of cameos from the movie and the skateboarding world. The French translation is surprisingly well done—The period soundtrack is excellent, and there’s even a good pun in here that wouldn’t work in the original English. While Lords of Dogtown is more impressive as a time-travelling capsule and an action showcase than a traditional dramatic film, that’s fine—not every movie adapted from real events has to be an Oscar-baiting drama.

  • Killing Hasselhoff (2017)

    Killing Hasselhoff (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) The popularity of novelty songs has waned through the years, but the concept itself is sound—a piece of music meant to amuse more than anything else, and where the musical qualities aren’t meant to be at the forefront. With Killing Hasselhoff, I’m wondering if we need “novelty film” in our vocabulary—a film meant to tickle memes and jokes around a piece of pop culture. Heck, maybe those films would even be better if they were even more self-aware of their intentions. Many of them could take lessons from Killing Hasselhoff, as it fully gives in to the enduring popularity of TV star David Hasselhoff in the twenty-first century. It’s meant to be a silly self-aware low-budget comedy playing around a two-word high concept and it doesn’t do too badly within that framework. There’s an interesting cast onboard: Ken Jeong gets a leading role as a nightclub owner who gets desperate to pay off his debt, Jon Lovitz is not annoying (for once), Colton Dunn is very funny as a gay assassin and then, of course, there’s The Hoff playing a caricature of himself. It’s not meant to be refined: The situations are usually contrived (how many Baywatch and Knight Rider references can you fit in a single film?) and the dialogue is far too blunt at times. But there are a few laughs here and there for those who enjoy low-budget comedies. That’s all a bonus, considering that most people will watch Killing Hasselhoff just because it happens to be available on cable or streaming service, and they won’t be able to resist the premise-in-a-title. Don’t expect much beyond the novelty aspect of the film and you just may be surprised.

  • Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

    Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) I’m about three-quarter satisfied by Bad Times at the El Royale, which means that it’s worth a watch but also worth keeping expectations in check until the end. That’s admittedly difficult to do at the beginning of the movie, as writer-director Drew Goddard carefully sets up an irresistible situation with a motel carefully split down the middle of two states, and assembles a crew of characters with deep secrets. There’s a rising anticipation throughout the film’s first thirty minutes as we don’t quite know what’s going on or where it’s going—only that this is a very stylish crime thriller and that we’re in for quite a ride. The film gets better once the secrets start spilling out, with nearly every character not being what they initially appear to be, and some masterful sequences along the way: Goddard is guiding viewers to and away from genre expectations through his showy screenwriting and direction, and it’s that delicious self-awareness that propels much of the film’s first two acts. A conspicuous but enjoyable soundtrack does tie up everything in a great package. The cast is exceptional, in between known names such as Jon Hamm, Jeff Bridges, Dakota Johnson and Chris Hemsworth—but it’s lesser-known Cynthia Erivo who’s the revelation here. (Bizarrely, French-Canadian Wunderkind Xavier Dolan also appears in a small evil role.) Alas, all of this is a bit too good to stay true: the promise of the film ends up being better than its execution when its second half settles down for a far more familiar kind of thriller, losing speed and breaking the unity of space and time by adding new characters, new situations and new directions in a moment. Suddenly, the breakneck pacing of the film slows down to a crawl, and we’re left with a frustrating number of characters doing far less interesting things. It’s not a good idea to put the climactic scene in the middle of the film rather than at the end. Still, I really liked Bad Times at the El Royale despite its flaws—that first half is an intoxicating bit of filmmaking, and settling for a merely good second half isn’t quite enough to make the film not worth a look. At this point, I’ll watch nearly anything that Goddard does … but I do wish he’d be more consistent.

  • Tarzan the Ape Man (1981)

    Tarzan the Ape Man (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, June 2019) You all know the Tarzan legend, but there isn’t quite another take like the one in Tarzan the Ape-Man. Weirdness starts from the studio logo, with a Tarzan yell coming out of MGM’s lion. Then it’s off to the nude girl figurehead of Svengali productions. Then off to a jokey narration as then-superstar Bo Derek is introduced as Jane well before Tarzan. Oh yes, amazingly enough, this is a soft-core erotic take on Tarzan, still chaste enough to be classified as a mainstream film fit to play on French-Canadian TV, but with enough nudity to place it in the middle of the early-morning schedule. Produced and directed by John Derek (the husband of), it’s a very self-aware film, deliberately putting Jane’s story first ahead of Tarzan—it takes 45 minutes until Tarzan strolls into the frame, and Derek (the wife of) happens to be in a wet white robe at the time. But the craziness doesn’t stop there. Definitely overwrought at times, Tarzan the Ape Man features one of the most melodramatic “Nooo, god why did you do that!” (Backlit with superimposed rainbow, no less) in movie history. But wait: it gets better. If you accept the snake being an all-purpose phallic symbol, then the scenes in which Derek gets attacked by a snake and rescued by Tarzan (in slow motion, for several minutes) gets funnier and funnier. Alas, the unintentional laughs aren’t as constant as you’d think. Tarzan the Ape Man remains a very, very long film especially when the camera lingers on, convinced via John that Bo Derek is God’s gift to primitive mankind. (I could describe the body-painting sequence, but you wouldn’t believe me.)  And there’s a paradox here that makes any attempted reinterpretation of Tarzan the Ape Man as a feminist reimagining a bit moot, considering the copious amount of male gaze (indeed, outright husband gaze) in the film. At least the nice scenery is there, ensuring further similarities with The Blue Lagoon. Predictably enough, the portrayal of native population is straight out of the colonial era. I can’t say I liked Tarzan the Ape Man all that much, but there’s definitely some material here for connoisseurs of unique bad movies.

  • Star 80 (1983)

    Star 80 (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2019) The early 1980s were an interesting time in Hollywood’s history—a period where there was a battle going on for the soul of Hollywood, lines drawn between the New Hollywood of grimy dark stories, and the purveyors of Pop Entertainment that sought to bring cinema back to its crowd-pleasing origins. We all know how things played out, but even as late as 1983 you could still see movies steeped into 1970s aesthetics and themes. A movie like Star 80, for instance, which details the abusive relationship between a Playboy playmate and her homicidal ex-boyfriend. It’s all based on a true and sad story. (Hugh Hefner and Peter Bogdanovich both show up as characters, with portrayals consistent of what we know of them.)  Given that this is a movie about a centrefold model, expect a fair and persistent amount of nudity—but keep in mind that Star 80 delights in contrasting the eroticism of the lead character with her bloody end, so it’s not exactly wall-to-wall fan service. At times, the film does give the impression of indulging in trash exploitation—the regular cuts from the biographical narrative to the maniacal murderer muttering about his revenge do get a bit ridiculous after a while. Mariel Hemingway is nice and doomed in the female lead role, while Eric Roberts is uncommonly slimy as the prototypical abusive, over-controlling boyfriend from hell. The role is written without any subtlety, and he holds nothing back—giving an intensely unlikable performance that actually quite good from an actor’s perspective but unbearable to the audience. Much of the same can be said about Bob Fosse’s direction: an atypical choice for him, with blunt-edged effectiveness. Pseudo-interviews are interspaced here and there to present the illusion of a documentary and further tie the film to 1970s cinema-vérité style: points given for a collage approach that was relatively new at the time, but still not quite satisfying. The overall effect is, frankly, a bit dull—it doesn’t take a long time to figure out where the thing is going, and the film just keeps going there relentlessly, with little character nuance beyond the angelic victim and the irremediable killer boyfriend. When you look at the way the 1980s turned their back on New Hollywood, you can point in Star 80’s direction as an example of why.

  • Hope and Glory (1987)

    Hope and Glory (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) There have been many movies about WW2, many movies about the bombing of England and many movies about civilian populations suffering from war. But don’t think there are that many movies like Hope and Glory. Writer-director John Boorman’s biggest conceptual leap here (in semi-autobiographical mode) is to see the home-front devastation from the eyes of a kid—a nine-year-old boy for whom war is just part of life, with bombed-out buildings offering plenty of opportunities for adventure. What jolly good fun it is to play in the rubble, watch dogfights in the sky, encounter parachuting Nazis and have Hitler bomb your school! Yes, the irony is palpable throughout the film, and its message even more potent because it avoids the expected mawkishness of such films. In fact, Hope and Glory is best experienced thoroughly spoiled: Knowing that nothing really bad happens to the protagonist and his family is a key to appreciating this off-the-wall take on the Blitz. It works as a kid’s comedy, it works as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, it works as an affectionate family portrait. While Sebastian Rice-Edwards gets a lot of screen time as the young boy, Sarah Miles (as the mother) and Ian Bannen (as the grandfather) are quite strong in their roles. There are more essential war movies than Hope and Glory, but there aren’t as many that try to do something true and different with that kind of material. It’s well worth a look.

  • Papillon (2017)

    Papillon (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) I’m not a fan of remakes and I’m not a fan of Charlie Hunnam, so the chances were really good that I would dislike this remake of the classic escape drama Papillon. But to my surprise, it’s not that bad a take. It doesn’t measure up to the original, and Hunnam is certainly no Steve McQueen, but the more assured visual aspect of the film, combined with a mercifully short running time, do lend a few additional qualities not necessarily found in the earlier film. The high concept remains the same, though, as an intellectual Parisian safecracker (Hunnam) is condemned to life in perpetuity in a tropical French Guyana penal colony renowned for its cruelty. On his way over there, he meets a frail counterfeiter (Rami Malek) and create an alliance out of desperation, each of them realizing they need help in order to simply survive. Over the next few years, their enduring friendship and harsh living conditions lead them to plan escapes. A series of escapes, considering how often they’re caught and brought back. As an adventure story, this Papillon holds up rather well on its own—the problems begin once you start comparing it to the first film, which may admittedly not be a problem for the younger audiences targeted by the remake. Perhaps what stick most in my craw about the remake is that by virtue of having been shot in Europe, its landscapes are no match for the lush tropical surroundings of French Guiana and that’s like removing an integral character from the remake. I can accept that Hunnam is boring and that the remake is useless, but not accurately portraying the environment is harder to forgive. At least the rest of the film isn’t all that bad.

  • White Fang (1991)

    White Fang (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2019) A boy and his dog … in gold-rush Alaska. Adapted from the Jack London story but with the brutal violence considerably toned down in order to fit within the confines of a Disney movie, White Fang is a frontier adventure in the classical mould, bringing us back to late-nineteenth-century Alaska alongside so many gold rush hopefuls. Then there is the titular half-dog, half-wolf, the star of the show despite the human characters. A young Ethan Hawke shows his charm as a youngster off to make a fortune, listening to more experienced prospectors and befriending the lead canine character along the way. The images aren’t bad—the recreation of a frontier town is captivating, not to mention the Alaskan scenery—but the focus here is on the animals, and the film’s almost-mystical connection between human and canine. Beyond the dog performances, Bart the Bear turn in a good scene as an enraged animal pursuing our human protagonist. White Fang remains a family film, but it’s not entirely dull for older viewers. Of course, it’ll do better with dog people.

  • The Seventh Sign (1988)

    The Seventh Sign (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2019) Somehow, I expected something both worse and better from the 1980s apocalyptic horror movie The Seventh Sign. The first two sequences set the tone, with a quasi-hilarious storm of clichés meant to foreshadow a biblical apocalypse of global proportions, executed in a gloriously overdone fashion. I was ready and primed to enjoy the campiness … and then the film goes dull. Really dull. Still ponderous, still overdone but not enjoyably so. Round-faced Demi Moore is cute enough as a pregnant woman only gradually noticing the portentous signs surrounding the upcoming birth of her child, but Michael Biehn is dull—only Jurgen Prochnow seems to understand the kind of film he’s in, playing every scene with unabashed menace. To be fair, some of the dumb fun comes back at the end, with a climactic sequence of such melodramatic magnitude that we’re finally back in camp territory. Alas, this lasts all of five minutes, leading to a pat ending that doesn’t quite manage to cap it off successfully. It doesn’t help that the film’s middle section is humdrum 1980s stuff, familiar without being comfortable. The Seventh Sign is by no means a good movie and never could have become one, but it’s not unreasonable to think that with a slightly different touch, it could have become an enjoyable one.

  • Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

    Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2019) There is a surprisingly robust subgenre of romantic time-travel movies out there, and Peggy Sue Got Married qualifies for inclusion even if it arguably hovers on the edge of it-was-all-a-dream justification. Here, no time-travel machine or magic potion: Our protagonist (played adequately by Kathleen Turner) faints at her high school reunion and wakes up in 1960 to relive her senior year. Much of Peggy Sue Got Married is a mixture of now-exasperating (because overdone) boomer nostalgia, with the expected comedy of a woman reliving her life with everything she’s learned over the next twenty-five years. Technology jokes, romantic do-overs and horrifying realizations about 1960 are all included. It feels very familiar (especially so close to the much more dynamic Back to the Future), but director Francis Ford Coppola keeps it together. For modern viewers, one of the best reasons to see Peggy Sue Got Married would be the grab-bag of before-they-were-famous actors, starting with Nicolas Cage but also including Joan Allen, Jim Carrey, Sofia Coppola and Helen Hunt. It works modestly, but it does work.

  • Tooth Fairy (2010)

    Tooth Fairy (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 2019) Nearly every modern action star has one in their filmography—a kid’s movie, meant to humanize their four-quadrant image, give them something to watch with their own kids, and provide them with an alternate side-line if ever they get too old for the action stuff. Their quality is … variable. Tooth Fairy is Dwayne Johnson’s kid’s movie, and it’s not one of the better examples of the form. It’s about nothing less than a disillusioned hockey enforcer (so renowned for dental harm that he’s nicknamed the Tooth Fairy) discovering that there is such a thing as tooth fairies … and that he’s been summoned in their ranks. Never mind the trite believe-in-your-dreams stuff—that’s on par for the form. What’s more annoying is the film’s choppy rhythm, occasionally dubious morality, multiplying subplots, syrupy execution and weird chronology. The hockey details are also often ludicrously wrong, but that’s to be expected from a Hollywood movie. Few things manage to distinguish Tooth Fairy from the morass of similar films, but there are a few: some of the worldbuilding details of the fantasy tooth fairies are fun, and the repartee between Johnson and Stephen Merchant has its moments. One thing that doesn’t count as much is Johnson’s charm, and that’s due to the same reason why I suspect he wouldn’t make the same movie today—his character here is portrayed as far more abrasive than his current screen persona: even as part of the film’s “here’s how he acted before knowing better” act, making the hero an arrogant dream-sapping hockey enforcer celebrated for the physical damage he inflicts on others is a curious choice, not to mention the sequence in the middle of the movie where he cheats his way to personal satisfaction. I don’t quite think that today’s mister-positivity Johnson would go back to that kind of character. And maybe that’s for the best. In the meantime, there’s Tooth Fairy to remind you of early-Rock movies.

  • The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger aka David Copperfield (1935)

    The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger aka David Copperfield (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) As faithful an adaptation of Dicken’s semi-autobiographical novel as could be expected from a mid-thirties Hollywood super production. (Today, David Copperfield would be best handled as a miniseries.)  Great production values, from costumes to sets to then-rare outdoors shots. But the film is perhaps best seen to the semi-amazing cast, including W. C. Fields in a more or less serious role, the incomparable Edna May Oliver in a likable role, and other 1930s notables such as Basil Rathbone and Lionel Barrymore. Directed by George Cukor, showing early prowess handling complex ensemble cast.

  • Buffalo ’66 (1998)

    Buffalo ’66 (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2019) The Classic Hollywood system of making movies had, for the longest while, the fortunate side-effect of segregating responsibility of a film in multiple roles. In old-school Hollywood, the studio hired craftsmen to execute a vision, diffusing responsibility in case of failure. (The same remains true today for large tent-pole projects.) This diffusion of responsibility cracks when you turn to the director-as-an-auteur theory, and dissipates even further when a single person assumes writing, directing, producing, and often acting duties. At that point, the film is so aligned with a single person that it’s not only easy to find blame for what goes wrong, but it’s possible to dislike a person because of their movie. So anyway—here we are talking about Buffalo ’66, a film in which Vincent Gallo is the writer, director, composer and star. (Everything I’m reading about the film’s production history also suggests that Gallo effectively produced and cinematographed the film himself, despite not being credited as such.)  It’s not necessarily good news for Gallo that for most of its duration, the film is a near-constant irritant. Built on a shaky foundation of an unhealthy relationship (as an ex-convict kidnaps a girl to become his girlfriend), the film is voluntarily low-budget with a muddy cinematography and gritty-to-dirty atmosphere. Gallo isn’t that much more likable as a protagonist, apparently testing audiences to what they’ll still find acceptable in an intensely unlikable protagonist. But Buffalo ’66 does have its saving graces. The cinematography is frequently inventive, and Gallo works his film toward a redemption arc both for himself and for the narrative. Improbably enough, considering the film’s refusal to play to conventions, it ends up in something that feels like a happy ending, no matter what we can think of the terrifyingly bad way our lead couple gets together. So … congratulations are in order, I guess—Gallo could have made a thoroughly detestable film and didn’t, which does help us think better of him. (On the other hand, he did reportedly alienate nearly everyone involved in the film’s production from Christina Ricci on down, so there’s that…)

  • While You Were Sleeping (1995)

    While You Were Sleeping (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, May 2019) It’s amazing how many romantic movies are built on a foundation of aberrant behaviour. At least While You Were Sleeping acknowledges that issue in the complications that follow when a lonely woman sets herself up as the fiancé of a man in a coma, and finds herself embraced by the rest of his family. It is, to be fair, a small triumph of execution from director Jon Turteltaub that the film comes across as sweet and romantic rather than problematic and stalkerish—although the filmmaking team wisely nixed the original idea that saw the roles gender-flipped. It certainly helps that the female lead here is Sandra Bullock in one of her breakthrough performances: she sells the “cute lonely girl” element essential for the film’s success, and having Pull Pullman as the true male lead also contributes. It’s all very familiar but well executed (with the tick-tick-ticking time bomb of the upcoming revelation adding dramatic tension), wrapped in Chicago flavour and set in the Christmas/New Year timeframe as a further excuse to be indulgent. While You Were Sleeping is still very much not a kind of behaviour to imitate in real life, but it’ll pass as a 1990s excuse for a romantic comedy.