Reviews

  • Split (2016)

    Split (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video On-Demand, July 2017) Can filmmakers have a second wind? It’s too early to tell for M. Night Shyamalan, but after the triple-barreled nadir of The Happening, The Last Airbender and After Earth (each of which should have been career-destroying for anyone else), he appears to be on the rebound. I don’t think much of The Visit, but it was a step up, and with Split he’s back to making good movies again. Running wild with the controversial concept of multiple personality disorder (even acknowledging the controversy), Split posits an antagonist with 23 personalities, kidnapping three girls even as a terrifying 24th personality threatens to emerge. James McAvoy has the good fortune of playing the lead character, slipping in and out of various roles and even faking some self-impersonations as the personalities try to pass off for each other. It’s a great performance from an actor who seems to get better and better every year. Anya Taylor-Joy is also very good as the smartest of the three kidnapped girls. Shyamalan himself seems back in form both as a writer and as a director—while neither are as good as in the films that made him famous, Split is an engaging thriller that edges closer and closer to supernatural horror as it goes on. The transition isn’t frustrating, and the ending clearly indicates that we’ve been set up for a follow-up or two. Split isn’t quite a perfect film (it spins its wheels quite a bit at first, goes a bit too dark at times and runs a bit too long) but it’s quite an improvement for Shyamalan, who may be taken off my blacklist after all.

  • The Boss Baby (2017)

    The Boss Baby (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, Video On-Demand, July 2017) Another month, another animated film … and lest anything think I’m complaining about quality, I’m not—most animated movies these days are consistently enjoyable. I’m actually complaining about the sameness of most animated movies. Once you’ve thrown in the anthropomorphized characters, chase sequences, montages and pop song, many animated movies all follow more or less a consistent tone. The Boss Baby is no exception, although its own internal mythology is wilder (and less credible) than most. It does play effectively with some of the current baby and parenting clichés (although, having watched it in French, I had to back-translate some material to make sense of the jokes) and makes up for innocuous family viewing. As a pre-school buddy comedy, it’s not too bad … but it does feel generic most of the time. You can file this one solidly in the average middle for Dreamworks Animation’s releases.

  • Blair Witch (2016)

    Blair Witch (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2017) So there it is. Another Blair Witch movie. Eh. As someone who saw the original movie at a preview screening in theatres (but never bought into the “is it real?” hype) back in July 1999 and was an early annoyed at the whole shaky cam/found footage craze, I went into this sequel/remake who fairly low expectations. They were met, more by default than anything else: Working with threadbare material, director Adam Wingard can put together competent horror set-pieces (there’s an effective piece of claustrophobia near the end), but can’t seem to bring the idea to anything but a repetition of the previous film. The good news, of a sort, are that this Blair Witch is pretty much exactly what The Blair Witch Project would look like had it been conceived today, complete with multiple cameras, a drone and YouTube. The bad news is that repetition is no innovation, and there have been such an endless stream of copycat movies to The Blair Witch Project that even an official sequel feels like a useless movie. Heck, without going all hipster reviewer on you, I remember Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows as more interesting than this sequel (plus, it had nudity). Whatever new ideas are brought up by the film (such as the time loop) aren’t effectively exploited and the whole thing does indeed seem to run in circles. Callie Hernandez and Corbin Reid are sympathetic, but ultimately unable to improve the film much. In the end, we’re left with a shrug. For writer/director pair Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard, this seems like a slicker step backward from You’re Next and The Guest. Hopefully they’ve learned a few things and recharged their creative batteries from the experience.

  • Sophie’s Choice (1982)

    Sophie’s Choice (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, July 2017) It turns out that there’s more to Sophie’s Choice than the titular choice made famous by thirty-five years of pop culture: In addition to the Nazi concentration camp drama, there’s a 1947 Brooklyn twisted love triangle featuring a nice-guy writer, damaged Sophie and a volatile schizophrenic. Alas, for audiences without patience, there isn’t much more to Sophie’s Choice than that—at nearly two hours and a half, the movie tests viewers used to a faster pace. It does help that Meryl Streep’s performance is a tour de force, and that she’s able to hit the various emotions asked of the role. (Having watched the film in French, I didn’t get the vocal part of her performance, but the almost ridiculously accented translation suggests that there was a lot of it.) Meanwhile, Kevin Kline (in a debut performance that has little to do with his latter screen persona) is surprisingly disturbing as a character capable of the worst. To contemporary audiences, Sophie’s Choice suffers in two ways: The pacing is far too slow for such a familiar story, and it all leads to a choice that has been spoiled in various ways since 1982. The second isn’t that big of a problem—good movies don’t hinge on twist endings or big revelations—but the first one definitely is: at times, I was struck by the thought that much of the film’s plot would be a sub-plot in a more ambitious film or TV series. See Sophie’s Choice for Streep’s Academy Award-winning performance, but otherwise steel yourself for a dull watch.

  • Operation Avalanche (2016)

    Operation Avalanche (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2017) Here’s a sad truth, offered in good faith from a humble reviewer to filmmakers out there: Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how good a movie is, if it happens to offend the person reviewing it. Now, I’m not easily offended (have you seen what I review?), but I have a special dark place in my heart for anti-science conspiracy theories, and one of the worst ones out there is the idea that the moon landings were faked. It spits in the face of fact, belittles one of humanity’s proudest human achievement and serves no useful purpose other than affirm the believer’s skewed sense of reality. (The only thing that calms me down, somewhat, is the belief that most of the time, the Moon-landing hoax is used in a satirical fashion as a parody of conspiracy theories—it’s a self-referring conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories rather than something that actual people believe.) So, so see a movie like Operation Avalanche play with the basic elements of this conspiracy theory, justifying and explaining how such a conspiracy could be achieved, just simply rubs me the wrong way. Which is too bad, because in a more objective frame of mind, I could recognize the film’s achievements—the way it works with a small budget to present a vast conspiracy, the way it cleverly re-creates its late-sixties atmosphere, the way it cranks up the tension steady. As a low-budget found footage film, it offers something interesting. On the other hand, writer/director/star Matt Johnson’s movie is undeniably flawed: the mockumentary/found footage aspect is frustrating (some of the sequences can’t be justified), the out-of-focus camera Can’t! Stop! Shaking!, the lurch from comedy to deadly thriller is disappointing as evidence that the film is taking itself seriously, and the actors can be annoying. It doesn’t help that the film ends like most found-footage films end, with bad things happening to nearly everyone. None of those annoyances make me feel any better toward a film I was predisposed to dislike despite the curiosity factor of seeing micro-budget filmmakers tackle such a big topic. But who said reviewing was supposed to be objective?

  • Truth (2015)

    Truth (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2017) In many ways, Truth is a tough movie to watch. Whereas other movies will eulogize journalists as fearless truth seekers whose work helps change the world, this 2015 film uses the 2004 Killian documents controversy to deliver a story uniquely suited to 2017’s sadly post-truth era. It’s about journalists doing their best to report explosive documents on a presidential candidate … and then being unable to defend themselves against accusations of biased reporting. Based on journalist Mary Mapes’s memoir of the events, Truth is a stomach-churning docudrama about the nitty-gritty of reporting in a politically charged environment and how truth itself can be elusive despite everyone’s best efforts. Led by the always-excellent Cate Blanchett as Mapes and Robert Redford as a convincing Dan Rather, Truth takes us behind the scenes of TV investigative journalism in all of its quirks in marrying reporting with TV presentations. Alongside them, Topher Grace delivers one of his most animated performances, while Bruce Greenwood, Elizabeth Moss and Dennis Quaid have valuable input in smaller roles. It’s often absorbing viewing, but don’t expect an All the President’s Men triumphant finale here as much of the film’s second half is spent dealing with allegations of partisanship, and the ending offers little certitude in who was right. As 2017 unfolds alongside a misleading chorus of “fake news” allegations, Truth takes on a particularly bittersweet quality for anyone who’d like sanity and reason to come back to the mainstream discourse—it feels like an exposé of the primitive tactics that have since then been weaponized to a virulent degree. But then again, movies don’t owe anyone any comfort.

  • Tour de Pharmacy (2017)

    Tour de Pharmacy (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2017) After the relatively successful 7 Days in Hell, HBO is back with Tour de Pharmacy, another 45-minute comedy special tackling a pseudo-historical sports event—in this case, the 1982 Tour de France, in which so many athletes were disqualified for doping that only five participants remained … and special participants they were. A mixture of talking heads reflecting upon the event and low-budget mockumentary footage, Tour de Pharmacy is in line with the inspired lunacy of 7 Days in Hell: the humour is often absurd, taking off in tangents whenever it feels like it. A bunch of good comedians help sell the results, from Jeff Goldblum to John Cena to Andy Samberg (who also produced and whose signature on the result is obvious) to Will Forte to Orlando Bloom to Maya Rudolph and many, many others. As you’d expect from a modern R-rated comedy, there is a lot of full-frontal male nudity. More daringly, the film does have a string of gags revolving around Lance Armstrong as an “anonymous” source who ends up blatantly revealed early on. It all works relatively well, but largely because the film doesn’t overstay its welcome—at barely 41 minutes, it delivers the jokes and concludes without too much slack. For HBO subscribers, it’s a small tasty summer treat.

  • Bad Santa 2 (2016)

    Bad Santa 2 (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2017) The original Bad Santa became a classic of the counter-sentimental Christmas subgenre, so any sequel would have big shoes to fill. It may not be such a disappointment, therefore, if Bad Santa 2 is more ordinary than amazing. Sadly picking up a decade and a half later with the characters in just-as-bad shape, this sequel moves to Montréal Chicago for wintry theft. The highlight of the movie is probably the mother/son relationship between Billy Bob Thornton and the irreplaceable Kathy Bates, both of them delightfully scummy as lifelong bad influences. Tony Cox shows up again as a violent wildcard, while both Christina Hendricks and Jenny Zigrino show up as voluptuous eye candy. Alas, Brett Kelly also shows up as a grown-up creepy kid (still creepy), and his inclusion in the plot is more sad than hilarious or heartwarming. Bad Santa 2 works best as a foul-mouthed criminal caper procedural than a falsely cynical Christmas movie—it’s not quite able to re-create the original’s blend of world-weary sentimentality. But it does try, and it won’t be out of place when, in two or three years from now, it will tag along the original in a combined Blu-ray edition. Like most R-rated comedies, Bad Santa 2 pushes its jokes as far as it can go, and some of them definitely end up over the line of good taste—even for seasoned R-rated viewers. That’s another reason why even if the movie does scratch more or less the same itch as the original, it won’t qualify for essential viewing even for fans of the subgenre. Underneath the unrelenting stream of foul language, sexual references and overall bad behavior, it’s an average effort made with perfunctory skill. It works, and it will work if viewers are hungry for something like the original, but it’s not much more than that.

  • Todo Sobre Mi Madre [All About my Mother] (1999)

    Todo Sobre Mi Madre [All About my Mother] (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, July 2017) I’m not overly fond of Pedro Amodovar’s movies, but I have to recognize that he’s very good at what he does. He’s able to use melodramatic elements without necessarily feeling exploitative, and as Todo Sobre Mi Madre shows, he’s unusually skilled at presenting female characters. There’s also a welcome unpredictability to his work, especially compared to mainstream American releases—it’s never too clear where things are going, and characters are often killed mercilessly. It’s a different viewing experience and should be approached as such. Alas, a number of things limit my enthusiasm for the result. The pacing is often weird (at times too slow, at times too abrupt when something significant occurs), the meaningful references to other works are numerous and there’s no telling whether the film’s Spanish origins is, in itself, a distancing factor. As I’ve said, my appreciation for the kind of film that is Todo Sobre Mi Madre is limited, but even I have to admit that the result is well-crafted.

  • Keeping up with the Joneses (2016)

    Keeping up with the Joneses (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2017) I can be a surprisingly good audience for middle-of-the-road comedies, which may explain why I had a generally good time watching Keeping up with the Joneses even though it doesn’t really revolution anything. Much of it has to do with the movie giving good roles to three actors I like, and minimizing the irritation from an actor that I generally find annoying. Beginning not too far away from The ’burbs, this film begins as a comfortably married couple having shipped their kids to summer camp reacts to the arrival of a sexy new couple in their cul-de-sac: As hints of improper behavior pile up, the wife becomes convinced that the new neighbours are spies, while the husband excuses away the incidents and tries to make friends with the new guy. Complications piles up, leading to a second half that’s far more action-heavy than the comedic first half. Much of it feels familiar, to the point of missing comic opportunities by lack of daring. But who cares about originality when you’ve got Jon Hamm, Gal Gadot and Isla Fisher co-starring? All three of them get a chance to show their comic skills, with Gadot and Hamm in particular getting a further opportunity to play action heroes along the way. Gadot in particular gets a role that balances toughness, seduction and comedy—it’s not a great movie, but it’s the kind of film that encapsulates her range at this point. Meanwhile, Zach Galifianakis, often unbearably annoying in his usual screen persona, is here reined in and almost tolerable as a mild-mannered HR officer targeted for counterintelligence operations. (He’s far more sympathetic than in his almost-contemporary Masterminds, for instance.) It makes up for a likable quartet of comedians, and Keeping Up with the Joneses coasts a long time on their inherent likability … and having Gadot and Fisher both show up in decent lingerie. Otherwise, the action scenes are generic, elements of the conclusion are arbitrary and the epilogue is a disappointment. Still, it’s a relatively entertaining film, somewhat unobjectionable and yet likable in its own way. I’ve seen far worse this week alone, starting with the aforementioned Masterminds.

  • Water for Elephants (2011)

    Water for Elephants (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2017) As someone who doesn’t mind romantic movies but is easily bored with them, I’m reminded by Water for Elephants that the key to an interesting romance is largely made out of its setting. In this case, setting a relatively standard love triangle in the middle of a 1930s travelling circus feels like an instant shot of interest—watching the minutiae of a circus is fascinating to the point when it’s easy to tolerate the familiar romantic plot. None of the three main actors impress by going out of persona—Reese Witherspoon is her usual forgettable self, while Christoph Waltz genially chews scenery and Robert Pattinson continues to prove that he’s better than his Twilight character but not that far removed from it. Still, the star here is the travelling circus and its sub-culture, the details of setting up the big top every day and the challenges of trying to run a circus in depression-era America. It’s a great setting and you can lose yourself in the way the movie shows those details … before being brought to earth with the familiar love triangle featuring a good guy, a damsel in distress and an abusive husband. It wraps up satisfyingly, though, and that more than makes up for the familiar path trodden along the way. Production values are surprisingly good, and there’s a wealth of supporting characters who get a shining moment or two. I was surprised by Water for Elephants—I expected something duller and middle-of-the-road, but that was based on reading a plot summary—the actual film is far more generous than expected in its period details and richness of setting. I’ll take it.

  • Being There (1979)

    Being There (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2017) One of my least favourite archetypes is the Holy Fool, the innocent that seems protected from reality by authorial fiat. So it is that Being There is built around the notion that we can project higher qualities onto people who don’t really have them. It does so by presenting a child-minded man who, for decades, has never had to face reality. Well dressed, mild-mannered and competent in gardening, he is thrown in the real world following the death of his benefactor, and manages, through a series of convenient misadventures and falsely profound gardening homilies, to become a respected pundit and political confidante, all the way to being considered as a presidential candidate. (Considering the ongoing fallout of the 2016 presidential election, this is far less funny than it must have been at the time.) Considering my distaste for that kind of story, the first act of Being There is actively irritating. Things do improve afterward, as we start seeing other people’s reaction to the protagonist—that’s when the real world comes back to the movie, and the real comedy begins. But there are limits to the material, especially when it’s a one-note premise stretched so thin over more than two hours. Begin There overstays its welcome as it keeps making the same points. Still, as much as I don’t particularly like the film, there is much to admire in Peter Seller’s performance as the oracular idiot: It takes a lot of skill to act simple-minded while maintaining a credible veneer of respectability, and Sellers is usually able to hit that particular target. (I’m not too fond of Shirley MacClaine’s seduction scene, but the seventies were a special time.) (I’m also not that fond of the ending outtake.) (Although that last shot is growing on me.) I shudder to think of what a modern version of the movie would look like, especially with someone like Will Ferrell in the lead. While there are a few things of interest in Being There, the overall effect is more tedious than satisfying—but then again, I didn’t expect to like the film anyway.

  • Paris, Texas (1984)

    Paris, Texas (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2017) While, in a perfect world, I’d like to see every movie free of preconceptions and expectations, it doesn’t work like that. There are so many movies and so little time that some guidance is necessary, and that can set expectations. Try to pick your movie according to a top-movies list, for instance, and the challenge becomes whether you agree with the placement of that movie on the list. Paris, Texas is on many such lists, and it would take a wilful ignorance of film history to avoid measuring the on-screen result with the accumulated acclaim. I was surprised to find out that my interest in the movie peaked midway through. The first section seems overly stylized, as a long-lost homeless man is found by his brother and brought from aimless rural wanderings to the big city. Strange accents, visual fake outs, an alien vision of America and a plodding pacing don’t exactly inspire confidence that the rest of the film is going to be much better. (Although there is a five-minute segment that seems to prefigure Rain Man’s road trip rationale three years later.) The middle section is perhaps the best, as our recovering amnesiac reintegrates society and in particular reconnects with his son. But then, just as our hopes for the film peak, it’s time for a third act that just keeps dragging on and on and on long after the point at which it should accelerate and wrap up. The final half-hour is exasperating, as it laboriously seems to begin another movie and becomes less and less grounded in reality. While Paris, Texas does have its moments of emotional power thanks to director Win Wenders, it also seems undisciplined and lax. Far too long for its own good, it becomes less interesting as it goes on and wastes a far more engaging middle section. But then again every generation has its classics—perhaps Paris, Texas’s star has started to wane.

  • Sexy Beast (2000)

    Sexy Beast (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix streaming, July 2017) It seems counter-intuitive that a dull movie would feature a great performance, but here you go: Sexy Beast is an overly stylish, largely forgettable crime film that can nonetheless boast of a terrific performance by Ben Kingsley. Kingsley enjoys a reputation as a very respected actor (he won an Oscar for playing Gandhi, no less), but many of his roles have been on the less respectable side of the spectrum, and in Sexy Beast he hits a nadir of sorts as a psychopathic criminal with a non-existent fuse. Copious swearing and psychological manipulation is the least of what he can do, and violence is never far from his actions. It’s a terrific performance, and unfortunately it lands in a film that doesn’t deserve it. Sexy Beast is a caper film that masquerades as a psychological crime drama, but it’s almost empty of anything looking like suspense. While I usually like stylishly directed film, Jonathan Glazer’s work here seems more pretentious and aimless than anything else—None of the pieces really add up to anything interesting, and while I liked the dynamics of a crucial scene in which victims take revenge, Sexy Beast takes a long time to get there, and falsely thinks it’s not the end of the story. Everything else is anticlimactic and increasingly irritating. The result couldn’t be more uneven: a great performance by a great actor, limited in a film that doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

  • Carnage (2011)

    Carnage (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2017) Roman Polanski’s Carnage, adapted from a theatre piece, isn’t much more than a one-set conversation between two couples that quickly turns bad. It almost acts as a prototype for Polanski’s later Venus in Fur, down to the bookends being the only escape from the limited set. In some ways, it’s depressing to see grown adult viciously turn on each other. In others, and especially toward the end, it becomes blackly amusing to see the four characters variously argue against each other, forming shifting alliances, as well as exposing secrets and resentment in an explosion of anger. It helps that in-between Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz, Polanski doesn’t need more help in the acting department: All four are terrific, although Waltz gets perhaps the most overly slimy role, while Reilly gets to break out of his usual nice-guy persona. This being said, none of the other characters are perfect, and Carnage is about peeling the layers that usually limit polite conversation. Once you’re caught on that this is going to be a verbal demolition derby, you can wait until the next inevitable reconfiguration of factions—including couples vs the other, men vs women, three-vs-one and so on. Also: If you’ve been waiting for seeing Kate Winslet vomiting profusely, then this is the film for you. (As for the rest of us: Ew.) Unfortunately, Carnage ends limply, almost as if it had run out of things to say—there isn’t much of a conclusion to the conversation, and whatever closure is offered by the film comes from the final bookend. Still, as a film that places so much emphasis on dialogue between limited characters, Carnage is a nice change of pace, and even a mildly entertaining piece of verbal fireworks.