Reviews

  • Wai dor lei ah yat ho [Dream Home] (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, March 2021) There’s a very specific failure mode of horror movies in which nominally thematic or comic intentions are drowned in so much gore and blood that the entire thing starts feeling like the work of a psychopath with no recognizable humanity. So it is that Dream Home may have worked as a cautionary tale against the murderous impact of real estate inflation, but in execution often ends up feeling like the blood-soaked manifesto of a serial killer. There are, to be fair, a few interesting things here: the protagonist (played by Josie Ho) is a murderous young woman dead-set on buying her may in a prestige high-rise, and it’s an unusually accessible Hong Kong production that applies typically Western horror methods to its local setting. Alas, it’s also a horror film clearly made for horror fans: far more care is spent detailing the gory deaths than the overall plot, and the gruesome humour far more often feels disgusting than entertaining. As our protagonist goes on a rampage inside the high-rise, she tests everyone’s sympathies by taking out stoners, policemen, a rutting couple and, unforgivably, a pregnant woman. The result is a film that falls significantly short of its potential — a far more interesting film could have been made without the extreme gore, reinforcing the satire without obsessing over the scenes made for the gorehounds. Horror is often misused this way — while the best movies of the genre use horror as a way to talk about other issues, the lesser films think that horror itself is the main driver. Dream Home is unusually frustrating in that it had what it takes to use horror as a way to discuss contemporary issues, but chose to focus on blood and guts instead. The result cuts itself off from a much wider audience that could have enjoyed the macabre take on socioeconomic issues, but not necessarily the exposed viscera and dubious humour that the horror sequences build up.

  • It’s a Great Feeling (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) As much as I’ll take any occasion to recommend classic Hollywood movies to everyone, there are a few movies that are best seen once you’re a few hundred titles deep in the Golden-Age Hollywood back-catalogue. Many of them are films that are best classified as parodies, satires or ensemble comedies poking fun at the other movies churned out by Hollywood at that time. It’s a Great Feeling is a crystal-clear example of that form, as it tells viewers a tall tale about a young actress being discovered by a studio that becomes eager to feature her on the big screen. The point of the film, however, isn’t as much the plot as selling, in colour!, the fantasy of the studio system at the end of the 1940s, and more specifically Warner Brothers’ stable of contract actors. Doris Day, in one of her earlier, more free-wheeling roles, plays a cafeteria girl with big dreams who tries to make nice with the director and lead actor of an upcoming prestige production… but things soon turn awry when they have to get studio head approval. Nearly everyone here plays themselves, at the exception of Day, the studio executive and a few character roles. From the first moments of It’s a Great Feeling (featuring directors Vidor, Curtiz and Walsh turning down a project), there are many, many cameos and finding them funny is a litmus test on your knowledge of circa-1949 Hollywood. The best of those cameos has to be Joan Crawford, throwing a hissy fit as the protagonists because that’s what she does in every film. Also funny is Edward G. Robinson convincing a security guard to play up his image as a tough guy. More conventional comedy segments (such as a still-funny series of technical mishaps sabotaging a screen test) are interspaced between a few musical numbers to showcase Day’s singing talents. The clever script, written by frequent Billy Wilder collaborator I. A. L. Diamond, spoofs Hollywood without quite criticizing it (polishing its mythology in doing so) but keeps its most iconoclastic joke for the end, as Hollywood life isn’t for our protagonist… and then immediately flips that joke on its head with a quick final cameo that may or may not work as a comedy capstone depending on whether you recognize Clark Gable. In some ways, it does feel like a backlot-budget version of other better musicals of that time, but the style of comedy here is very specific and quite specifically dated to 1949. These days, It’s a Great Feeling works best as an inside joke for classic Hollywood fans — spot the celebrities, bask in the idyllic portrait of studio contracts and smile at the not-too-satirical take on something that was intensely familiar to everyone involved in the film’s production.

  • De Lift [The Lift] (1983)

    De Lift [The Lift] (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, March 2021) I wasn’t expecting much from De Lift, and while it’s an exaggeration to say that I was pleasantly surprised, the result is more interesting than I expected from a “killer elevator” horror film. Hailing from the Netherlands, this film takes on the cold tones of an Amsterdam mixed-used building having elevator troubles — fatal elevator troubles, as many sequences painstakingly show: As people are suffocated, fall to their death, get stuck in doors then decapitated, or simply burn for no explainable reason, it becomes clear to our repairman protagonist that something’s not right with the building’s elevators. Working with a journalist, he eventually discovers the reason behind the evil elevators, and surprisingly, it’s one that sends the film in unusually contemporary science-fiction territory: The elevator’s electronics rely on brand-new organic components that (to get back to more familiar and dumber territory) went crazy and turned evil. Still, the time spent in the techno-thriller genre is a bit unusual for a horror film that could have gone for demonic possession (such as 2010’s Devil), a building built upon a graveyard or other explanations from the usual playbook. I’m not going to pretend that the entire film is credible — In fact, it gets progressively crazier (such as with an ill-fitting domestic arc that has the wife screaming divorce at the most innocuous event) and crazier (ending with a CEO personally shooting a gun at the bio-computer, and the elevator taking revenge by somehow spitting out a cable to hang its killer) as it goes on. The early-1980s period feel is now an advantage, and so is the matter-of-fact European setting. Writer-director Dick Maas isn’t strong either in writing or visual presentation (well, save for featuring bright red elevator doors in the middle of a blue-tinged film.), but De Lift isn’t as silly as one could imagine from the obvious “killer elevator” pitch.

  • D.O.A. (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) The premise of D.O.A. remains a classic — a man walks into a police station (a long shot unexplainably framed by rows of doors as he makes his way to the end of a corridor) in order to report a murder: his own. That the rest of the film cannot measure up to that premise is almost a given, but the ride to the foregone conclusion is not bad. As a small-town accountant vacationing in San Francisco must unravel the clues that led to his fatal (and ongoing) poisoning, we’re thrown into a sordid classic film noir universe of gangsters, affairs, merciless death and urban underworld. It’s all quite comfy yet unusually involving—the elements are familiar, but the added element of the protagonist’s incoming death adds a nice sheen of existential suspense to the entire film—the irony being that our hero spends his last week living life more fully than ever before. Otherwise, it’s the logical conclusion of a classic film noir trope — the innocent man doomed for no other reason than having been involved in the wrong thing at the wrong time. That D.O.A. is a minor film noir classic is all the more remarkable in that, save for lead Edmond O’Brien (who turns in quite a good performance), the film sports few recognizable names among cast or crew — it’s a genre success without the trappings of Hollywood filmography completionism. Still, there’s plenty to like here: Pamela Britton provides a sounding board to the protagonist, while Laurette Luez is captivating as a supporting character. The glimpses at San Francisco (or rather — Los Angeles playing SF) are an intriguing throwback to the time’s urban atmosphere, and the ticking-clock component of the narrative has seldom been so strongly felt. Accidentally placed in the public domain, D.O.A. can be viewed even from its Wikipedia page. Now I’m curious to see if I can get my hands on the 1988 remake… because nothing spells high-concept like Hollywood being willing to re-do it again forty years later.

  • Killer’s Kiss (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) If my notes are right, Killer’s Kiss is the second-to-last Stanley Kubrick film I’ve seen, the sole remainder being his first feature-length feature Fear and Desire, which Kubrick practically disavowed. Killer’s Kiss sticks close to popular entertainment in taking up film noir elements. It’s still very much the film of an apprentice working on a low budget — there are a number of disconnected sequences (one of them a ballet sequence featuring his wife), casual use of clichés, scattered plotting and dubious coincidences. But Kubrick was a stylist even at that stage of his career, and Killer’s Kiss fares much better when considered as a visual exercise. The threadbare plot is about an over-the-hill boxer who comes to court a dancer with a violent boyfriend — it all escalates into a familiar mixture of violence, chases and confrontations. It’s not that good a movie, but it’s certainly remarkable for its occasional cinematographic polish and vivid images. As a certified TCM fan, I was really amused to see that the film accounts for a bunch of segments in its “Open all Night” nighttime bumper — including the undressing woman who turns out to be Irene Kane (also known as Chris Chase) in one of her few screen roles. While there are better film noirs out there, Killer’s Kiss nonetheless remains easy viewing: it’s short, well-directed despite production limitations and it’s a Kubrick film no matter how rough it can be compared to his later movies.

  • Beyond the Rocks (1922)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) As much as I try to be sympathetic toward silent drama movies, it doesn’t always work out — watching them is a reminder that the art of film advanced considerably with the advent of sound, and perhaps nowhere as much in the ability to present melodrama as something more subtle. Perhaps the best reason to watch Beyond the Rocks is because you’re curious about the legendary romantic icon Rudolph Valentino, or silent film star Gloria Swason — the film is a melodramatic romance featuring both of them, and it’s an illustration of what filmmakers considered irresistible at the time. Modern viewers will have trouble seeing past Valentino’s slicked-back hair or Swason’s bob — but that’s part of the point. What’s less easy to forgive is a script that delights in having the male lead rescue the female lead from a series of dumb dangerous outdoor sports accidents, and a final act that draws out something very obvious. On the flip side, the film clocks in at a refreshing 80 minutes, whereas silent movies often ran much higher in-between interminable title cards and slack editing. I still don’t quite like the result, but I feel better knowing that the film is no longer considered a lost film, as it was between the 1940s and its rediscovery in 2003. As such, the occasional moments when the image is completely garbled are a reminder of how that one singly copy is how close we were of losing Beyond the Rocks entirely.

  • Dream Wife (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) One distinction about Dream Wife is that this was my first Cary Grant film after reading Scott Eyman’s great Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise, meaning that I now knew plenty about Grant’s life, insecurities, weaknesses and low points. Dream Wife doesn’t rank as one of his finest films, and I was curious to see if knowing too much about Grant beyond his screen persona would negatively impact my experience of the film. The answer, unsurprisingly, is… no. Grant’s megawatt charm is such that he’s mesmerizing on-screen, and the nature of his off-screen weaknesses isn’t the kind of material to make anyone look askew at what happens on-screen. This being said, well, Dream Wife isn’t one of his finest hours — coming at the end of a momentary career letdown (whose last phase would pick up anew in 1955 with his next film To Catch a Thief), it’s a slight romantic comedy that almost entirely depends on Grant anchoring the proceedings. The narrative has something to do with Grant as a businessman romancing a Middle Eastern princess (Betta St. John) despite still carrying a torch for the State Department employee (Deborah Kerr) chaperoning them in the hope of securing a lucrative oil agreement for the United States. But then again, it’s an excuse for Grant to unleash his usual mixture of charm, poise and utter ridiculousness as the situation spins out of control. He is admittedly very good at it — it’s in serviceable productions such as this one that you can recognize the worth of a great actor, and Grant often singlehandedly elevates scenes with impeccably timed mumbling and great staging. Otherwise, the film feels conventional, riffling through Grant’s assets without necessarily getting more than a moderately entertaining result out of them. Some of the most interesting things about Dream Wife aren’t even on-screen—From Grant’s biography, I already had the shock of realizing that writer-director Sydney Sheldon is the same Sydney Sheldon who later became a best-selling melodrama author. Still, I don’t want to be too harsh about it — Dream Wife is entertaining in exactly the way we expect from a Cary Grant vehicle.

  • One Way Passage (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) I’m a twenty-first century modernist, so it’s strange to realize that in watching older movies, I sometimes feel a nostalgic pang for things that don’t really exist any more: twice-daily newspapers, overnight train travel, automats, Hollywood studios or cruise liners. It’s aboard such a transpacific cruise that most of Pre-Code romantic tragedy One Way Passage takes place, as a criminal on the run and a terminally ill woman meet, seduce each other but never ride off into the sunset as a couple. Deepest the “comedy” moniker and comic incidents throughout, it’s glum, wistful and somewhat grown-up compared to other Hollywood films made during the later Code period. It’s a good showcase for a young and more dramatic William Powell, as well as his frequent screen partner Kay Francis — this was their sixth and final pairing in three years! The subplots and episodic incidents don’t hold a candle to the doomed love story at the heart of the film, nor to the usual charm of Powell and Francis. This is certainly not the funniest Powell film ever made—him as a murderer on the run is not exactly what his persona became—but then again, if comedy is what draws people into One Way Passage, tragedy is what people remember about it.

  • The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)

    The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) An interesting blend of noir aesthetics, mystery and international geopolitics circa late-1930s, The Mask of Dimitrios features Peter Lorre as a novelist tracking down the life of a mysterious man of intrigue (the titular Dimitrios), through a cross-European journey that eventually gets him close to another mystery man (played by Sydney Greenstreet) with a grudge against the deceased. If the deceased is indeed deceased, which becomes increasingly unlikely as the narrative advances. Much of the action takes place in southeastern Europe, where the geopolitics of time are subordinated to the requirements of an exciting plot. At times, it does feel like a Casablanca spinoff — the Lorre/Greenstreet pairing is evocative enough, the Warner Brothers sensibilities are similar and using Europe as a playground for thrills is in the same neighbourhood, although it does lack a strong heroic protagonist and/or a romance to be anywhere near its more illustrious equivalent. Accordingly, expectations should be modulated in approaching The Mask of Dimitrios: it’s closer to an average film with its own distinctive atmosphere. There’s a curious non-emphasis on the rising Nazi threat, but the film is more concerned about its own thriller elements than making a stab as real-world relevance — and there’s probably an argument to be made that by 1944, no one needed another reminder about the Nazis. Reasonably entertaining and featuring a sufficiently different protagonist as played by Lorre, The Mask of Dimitrios makes for a decent watch as long as you don’t expect too much.

  • Yi yi (2000)

    Yi yi (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) I am really not the best audience in the world for a middle-class domestic foreign melodrama that runs nearly three hours, But Yi Yi has convinced enough movie critics of its greatness that it features on the best-of lists that I’m using to guide my movie education, and that’s how I ended up sitting through it all (albeit in several sittings over several days). It does end up being quietly interesting in how it takes us into the life of a Taiwanese family experiencing several crises — the elderly grandma is paralyzed, the mother can’t deal with the stress and leaves for a Buddhist retreat; the father flirts with renewing a past relationship; the daughter has relationship issues; and the youngest son is experimenting with photography. If that feels like a lot, you have no idea of the wilder subplots at the edges of the narrative, perhaps best exemplified by a murder and the arrest of a supporting character; and the humiliation and suicide attempt of another. This being said, don’t expect much drama in this drama — not when it’s diluted in several hours’ worth of static footage, artistic intentions and unspectacular slice-of-life cinematography. Writer-director Edward Yang was going for something very specific in Yi Yi and probably achieved it, but it’s not a given that audiences will have the fortitude to sit through it all with undivided attention. I didn’t, and ended up doing so reluctantly. I probably would have enjoyed a radically cut-down version of the film, even acknowledging that this would probably destroy what makes this film so great to others. Despite the torpid pacing, there are things I did like — from a cinematographic perspective, there are some really interesting moments, including a dramatic scene that plays out as an audio drama over a static shot. Still, I’m not volunteering to watch Yi Yi ever again — I got the point a few minutes in, and the next three hours only repeated it.

  • There Is No I in Threesome (2021)

    There Is No I in Threesome (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) The number of films that dramatically improve “if you keep watching” is far smaller than you’d think — it’s rare for a twist ending to elevate a film, it’s even rarer for films to shift tones successfully, and it’s even rarer for a documentary to feature a significant third-act swerve. But There Is No I in Threesome is an exception, even if it will test anyone’s patience along the way. At first, what we think we’re seeing is a salacious premise for a selfie-shot film: a young couple planning to wed but separated by distance, agreeing to an open relationship before the wedding clearly identified as the happy ending in their own documentary. Try not to gag at the opening minutes filled with happy-talk about open relationship that desperately sounds like people trying to convince themselves of something. He’s a filmmaker working in Wellington, NZ — she’s an actress working throughout Australasia. They’re both free spirits, and he (clearly the writer-director) can’t stop singing her praises. There are, they assure us, rules to their premarital experiment — except that they’re broken almost immediately. There are reasons for them sleeping with other people. There are procedures to ensure that this is all above-board and risk-free. Predictably, this all blows up. (It’s not that open relationships and/or polyamory can’t work for some people—I’m sure it does—but our two leads here are obviously ill-equipped to handle it.)  But just at the point where most viewers will be thinking variations on “well, what did you expect?” writer/director Jan Oliver Lucks pulls an F for Fake-sized rug from underneath the narrative. What we have been watching is based on true events—his own failed relationship—and the real intention was to shoot footage documenting the premarital openness, but a good chunk of the footage has been re-created with an actress rather than the ex-girlfriend. And, in a further twist, what we have been seeing (even as a dramatic reconstruction) is acknowledged as a very selective and subjective retelling of events from his perspective. It’s not quite a reversal good enough to make us like the result—it’s still annoying, still largely shot using a selfie stick, still overly provocative for its own sake—but it does become a bit more interesting than what it would have been at face value. There Is No I in Threesome is probably the single worst possible film to sing the virtues of non-traditional relationships — but it does become far more interesting as a re-creation that plays with our idea of what’s true, what’s not, and what’s in the middle as performative… especially when people are filming themselves in a bid for other peoples’ attention.

  • First Cow (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) I thought that there may have been something interesting in First Cow, but I was wrong. While the film achieves its own objectives, those are so utterly alien to me that I was bored from beginning to end. Taking place in the American Northwest at a time when the arrival of a cow was a significant event, the story follows two men trying to eke out an existence — a Chinese immigrant and a white cook, both of them more or less on the run from bad people. Their big scheme, upon spotting the cow, is to secretly milk her and use the milk as basis for cookies — which works until the cow’s owner realizes what they’re doing. If you think that’s a comedy, think again — in practice, writer/director Kelly Reichardt is going for gritty tragedy (unexplainably shot in 3:4 aspect ratio, no less), and the low-budget filmmaking only leads to a downer ending. The path from beginning to end, however, feels far longer than its plodding 121 minutes — thanks to slow-paced directing and static cinematography, the film can’t even deliver its skimpy story in an effective manner. This, looking at Reichardt’s filmography, seems to be somewhat consistent for her — atmosphere over narrative and contemplation over storytelling. I suppose there’s an audience for that kind of film (most of the film’s positive reviews inevitably come with an appreciation of Reichardt’s filmography) but I’m not part of it. While I did like bits and pieces of the result (including a cameo from Alia Shawkat, a supporting turn from Toby Jones and a few moments between lead actors John Magaro and Orion Lee), the film as a whole left me cold and bored. Unlike First Cow itself, let’s not drag on this review any longer than necessary.

  • Same Kind of Different as Me (2017)

    Same Kind of Different as Me (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) When it comes to films such as Same Kind of Different as Me, I’m not sure where the line is between a familiar collection of clichés and a heartfelt inspirational drama. I’m not inclined to be kind, though. Seemingly aimed at the white suburban set, it features an upper-middle-class couple (he’s an art dealer; she’s apparently a philanthropic gadfly) going through some marital troubles and trying to change things up by volunteering at a local homeless shelter. That’s when they meet a surly, violent black man who, in the end, will teach them valuable lessons about life, love and everything else. It’s far too easy to be cynical about movies in which a poor black person serves as a vehicle for the enlightenment of its white protagonists, but apparently that’s still acceptable — better yet, it’s apparently unassailable considering that it’s based on true events. Still, Hollywood takes control of the story here, and every moment seems maximized for maximum sentimentalism. The result is too manipulative to be any interesting, making the rather good cast (Greg Kinnear and a strange-faced Renée Zellweger as the white couple; a far better Djimon Hounsou as the homeless man) stick out. It’s an utterly familiar kind of Hollywood film — a film that you can leave playing while you leave the room for a few minutes, and come back knowing exactly what happened while you were away. The third act gets increasingly weepy for anyone except jaded movie reviewers. It’s all quite cloying and repetitive, especially in comparison to other similar movies. It’s cleanly directed by Michael Carney, at least, but you’d have to look for a while before finding any compelling reason to watch this particular take on a mildly obnoxious kind of story.

  • Millionaires in Prison (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) The only thing more remarkable than Millionaires in Prison’s blend of several elements (medical thriller, buddy con comedy, social critique, men in prison drama) is that it tries to do it all in barely more than an hour. As a result, expect quite a few herky-jerky swerves from beginning to end, as director Ray McCarey does his perfunctory best with a weird script and (produced in the factory setting of B-grade Hollywood) wasn’t particularly interested in being any good for posterity. It starts as five millionaires are convicted and end up in the same cell block, but the following minutes can go from comedy to romance, only to end up in inspiring medical drama by the end of the film. If the film contains social commentary, it’s implied at best — this isn’t meant to be profound stuff. A letdown considering the title, Millionaires in Prison does get a few laughs thanks to its actors more than its script—Lee Tracy in particular. Not recommended except maybe as a curiosity or an example of lower-grade filmmaking circa 1940s.

  • Ladies They Talk About (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) The history of women-in-prison films is much older than I thought, as demonstrated by Ladies They Talk About, an early-1930s film describing life in jail for a female bank robber. This being said, even this Pre-Code film is nowhere near the same leagues as the exploitation subgenre that began in the 1970s with The Big Doll House — it may be titillating at times (notably with girl-on-girl fighting and ladies wearing not much by Code standards) but nowhere near as exploitative as later takes on similar material. While audiences at the time may have been intrigued, modern viewers may find more to like in an early Barbara Stanwyck performance as the protagonist — she’s nowhere near as polished or unforgiving as in later performances, but she’s already showing the mixture of beauty, steel and versatility that would mark her as a leading actress across decades. This being said, the script itself can be really odd at times — strange twists and turns, including an impromptu musical number (starring a picture of Joe E. Brown!), an unusual lack of spatial unity for a prison film, and an ending in which the heroine shoots a guy but immediately regrets what she’s done (it qualifies as a flesh wound and a happy ending). Watch it for Stanwyck more than anything else — although it’s interesting to see the film’s messiness at times.