Reviews

  • M (1931)

    M (1931)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) It’s easy to dismiss early cinema as somehow less than what is now possible. I suspect that much of this easy dismissal comes from the examples set during the Hays Code, which stunted the emotional development of American cinema for decades. But there are plenty of examples of movies (either pre-Code or non-American production) that show that even early cinema could be as hard-hitting, mature and disturbing as anything else since then. A good case in point would be Fritz Lang’s M, an upsetting crime drama set in Berlin during which a serial killer of children is hunted by both the police and organized crime. Peter Lorre plays the killer, in a performance that is instantly repellent, then pitiful as he finds himself targeted for summary execution by crime syndicates none too happy about his actions and the ensuing police crackdown. A true noir film in which the black-and-white images belie the gray morality of its characters, M remains a captivating piece of work even today. Deftly using primal fears to move its audience (up to a fourth-wall-breaking final shot), M is a well-controlled achievement that certainly gets reactions. The use of sound, not even five years after the introduction of the technology, is quite effective — “In the Halls of the Mountain Kings” is used as a meaningful leitmotif, and even in German, the film does quite a lot with the voices of its actors. It is a bit long, perhaps slightly inefficient in the ways it moves its characters in the middle third, but the overall dreadful atmosphere of the film is striking, and the nightmarish quality of the last sequence makes up for most shortcomings. There is an added dimension to the film for modern audiences knowing that the society depicted here was already in fully Nazification. All of that, and more, combine to make M essential viewing today, not just as a piece of movie history.

  • Marty (1955)

    Marty (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) The long list of Best Film Oscar-winning movies is definitely skewed toward big pictures: Big themes, big budgets, big actors. But there are exceptions, and Marty feels like one of the outliers. Not much more than a small-scale romantic drama in which a not-so-young man dares to come of age, this is a low-key film that works best in details. Good dialogue (by the legendary Paddy Chayefsky) brings the characters to life, blessed by good grounded performances by actors such as Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair. Borgnine, in particular, is a revelation in a performance that breaks from his later tough-guy persona. Much of the film takes place in small apartments or in the streets of The Bronx, without too many dramatic flourishes. The result is striking in its own way, and having won the Oscar ensures that low-key low-budget Marty will remain seen for decades to come.

  • Oliver! (1968)

    Oliver! (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) Well, that settles it—I like my musicals funny and romantic, not dramatic and dour. Fast sinking down my list of least favourite Oscar-winning pictures, Oliver! may be a respectable musical adaptation of Dickens’s Oliver Twist, that doesn’t necessarily make it fun or enjoyable. I had a really hard time staying interested in the film, as the musical element seemed to distract from the dramatic bones of the story rather than enhance it. By the time characters die, I had my fill of the film. To be fair, I’m not criticizing the production itself—the costumes are great, the historical re-creation is credible and the actors are fine in their singing roles. The simplest explanation is that Oliver! simply failed to reach me where it counts. I remain open to the possibility that another viewing in twenty years or so may produce different results.

  • Harvey (1950)

    Harvey (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) It took a surprisingly long time for me to warm up to Harvey, especially considering that it stars James Stewart and remains a minor classic of film fantasy. I think that much of this initial reluctance has to do with not quite knowing which way the movie was leaning at first—is Stewart’s protagonist delusional or simple-minded? What are we watching here—gentle fantasy or sad realism? Mental illness is no joking matter, and yet Harvey does spend quite a bit of time in a Todorovian twilight zone where this may be the solution. Fortunately, Harvey never quits and soon become passable, then acceptable, then quite charming right in time for the end. The first big breakthrough happens when Stewart blandly states, “Well, I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it.”  Then there’s the romance between Charles Drake and the superb Peggy Dow, or again a bland statement “Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.”  Finally, there’s the confirmation that the film is whimsical fantasy. Harvey hinges on a few very delicate strings, and it’s almost an achievement to find them so finely balanced. Stewart being Stewart, it’s difficult not to like the film, but it does earn its likability along the way.

  • Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

    Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, January 2018) Due to cultural osmosis, you already know how Miracle on 34th Street ends, with mailbags proving the existence of Santa Claus. But what may not be so iconic is the rest of the film, with its sugar-coated view of Macy’s department store, and especially with its Santa Claus character barging in on human affairs for a while. There’s a tension in seeing as pure a character as Claus trying to fit within the harsh reality of ordinary humans and Miracle on 34th Street does manage to get quite a lot of mileage out of this premise, and resolve it in a way that works for everyone. In-between, we get a rather lovely look at mid-century Manhattan in its airbrushed glory. Maureen O’Hara is fine as the sensible lead character, but Edmund Gwenn owns the movie as Kris Kringle in his genial charm. One of the quintessential Christmas movies, Miracle on 34th Street remains surprisingly interesting even absent the holiday element.

  • Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

    Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) Whew. Some movies are entertainment, some are a spectacle, but Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? feels like a roller derby of emotional destruction. Set among the world of northeastern academics, what first feels like a quasi-parody of mainstream drama quickly turns ugly as a middle-aged history teacher and his wife start arguing, then bring in another younger couple in the clash for “fun and games.”  Nobody escapes unscathed, especially the audience. A solid drama (with streaks of dark but undeniable comedy) becomes something special by virtue of its actors—Not only do Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton play the lead couple viciously squabbling, but they were married to each other at the time. Neither Taylor nor Burton have done anything better in their career—Burton, in particular, progressively shrugs off a meek drink-holding character to best his co-star in merciless put-downs. As for Taylor, it’s still impressive to see how she’d transform herself from a sex symbol to a frumpy shrewish housewife for the purposes of the film. (Not that it’s completely successful—even overweight and made-up with aging lines, Taylor-being-Taylor still looks better than anyone else.)  The film was shocking then for its frank language, but it’s still somewhat disturbing today due to its pure harshness: the film’s four characters constantly tear themselves down in the worst possible ways, and score hits on bystanders even when attacking each other. It’s as good as dialogue-driven drama gets, and it’s still remarkably effective today (albeit maybe a touch too long). As a capstone to the Taylor-Burton relationship, though, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? carries a weight that goes simply beyond a great movie.

  • Gifted (2017)

    Gifted (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) Frankly, I expected the worst schmaltz from this family melodrama featuring a genius-level kid. Hollywood seldom deals well with genius, and the temptation to turn this into a syrupy rote “brain doesn’t matter at much as heart” Hollywood pap seemed irresistible from the plot synopsis. But Gifted actually works better than expected thanks to a few winning performances and generally well-executed conventions. Chris Evans is rather good as a smart-but-troubled ordinary guy trying to raise his genius niece despite significant challenges. McKenna Grace is fine as the genius kid, while Jenny Slate is immensely likable as a teacher trying to help. Octavia Spencer does her best with a limited role, while Lindsay Duncan is suitably hissable as the antagonist. Director Marc Webb returns to simpler drama after disappointingly overblown superhero films, and the genre suits him much better. Otherwise, Gifted is a straightforward family drama, not too syrupy and decently heart-warming when it needs to be. Some of the plot turns aren’t necessarily happy (and the conclusion is bittersweet enough). The details are interesting: there’s a cute Lego reference, and the look at mathematical academia is intriguing despite a bit of showboating with a celebrated “unsolvable” problem. Gifted doesn’t avoid the usual “heart> brain” stuff, but it does seem to come to its conclusion honestly. It could have been much worse, and the result is palatable enough.

  • Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

    Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) There’s no denying that Bonnie and Clyde still carries a strong mystique even today. It’s a reference that pops up every single time there’s a man-and-woman criminal team. It’s also a film that showed very clearly the state of Hollywood by the end of the sixties, sufficiently emboldened by the end of the Hays Code to start showing blood and gore in big-budget entertainment. I can’t quite picture how revolutionary or upsetting the film must have been at the time, with elaborately constructed scene in which people are shot in the head by criminals portrayed as heroes. Such things are, for better or for worse, far more common these days and so Bonnie and Clyde is approached differently today without the element of shock. Personal preferences certainly come into play—I had a surprisingly negative reaction to the film myself: being generally unreceptive to the stereotype of the heroic outlaw, I was unable to empathize much with the murdering anti-heroes. (I’m also Canadian, if that helps: “Peace, order and good government”)  The film does have its qualities—Warren Beatty is at the top of his young roguish persona here, and let’s not forget Faye Dunaway’s presence either. Screen legends such as Gene Hackman and Gene Wilder also pop up in small roles, although modern viewers may be disappointed at their ineffectual characters or small roles. The infamous ending remains upsetting. Bonnie and Clyde, taken on its own fifty years later, is a great deal less special than it must have been. Despite remaining a pivotal film in Hollywood history, I’m not sure that it has aged all that well.

  • Mrs. Miniver (1942)

    Mrs. Miniver (1942)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, January 2018) One of the reasons why I suspect it’s better to start watching older movies after a certain age is that you get to appreciate not only the movie but its place at the time in which it was made. It’s impossible to watch Mrs. Miniver today without thinking about 1942 America, watching aghast at the disastrous first few years of World War II in Europe but not yet committed to the war effort. Mrs. Miniver is a propaganda piece designed to sway public opinion toward supporting America’s entry into World War II, and it does so by presenting the life of an ordinary (well; ordinary upper-middle-class) English family before and immediately during World War II. That’s how we spend a rather dull first act with a family doing ordinary things, but as events evolve we see them react to news of the war, then be directly involved as their daily lives are disrupted, as their son enlists in the air force, as bombing raids destroy their house, as dad goes down the river to help the Dunkirk invasion, and as death strikes. After a slow start, the film gets progressively more involving up until a gut punch of a conclusion that still works surprisingly well despite the decades since the film’s release. A sequence between Mrs. Miniver and a German soldier is designed to infuriate the audience and reading contemporary accounts of reactions to the film, it’s clear that the film was deemed incredibly influential in rallying American audiences in the war effort. The film won the Best Picture Oscar that year (presenting an interesting counterpoint to the following year’s winning Casablanca). Even acknowledging its quality as propaganda doesn’t take away its emotional or narrative impact. Greer Garson is quite good in the title role, gradually showing inner reserves of strength as the war marches on and hits closer. Walter Pidgeon is also noteworthy at the husband, as are Teresa Wright and Dame May Whitty in very different roles. I defy anyone to listen to Mrs. Miniver’s closing speech and not feel even a little bit stirred toward Nazi-punching action even in a war won decades ago. It’s still that good.

  • Highlander (1986)

    Highlander (1986)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second or third viewing, On TV, January 2018) Whew. I remember watching Highlander in what must have been high school and thinking that it was an awesome movie. I’m not a teenager anymore, but I have to say that Highlander still carries a punch. No, it’s not the best movie ever. Yes, it has visibly aged and remains a film deeply steeped in the mid-eighties. But the rock video aesthetics of the film do lend it an enviable flair even today. The film may have wanted to portray the degeneracy of the time with its emphasis on heavy metal and entertainment wrestling as opposed to the nobility of an immortal Scottish highlander, but it works. Christophe Lambert has seldom had a more iconic role, and Sean Connery is perfectly used as a cranky mentor. (Clancy Brown is good enough as the antagonist, and so is Roxanne Hart as the love interest/audience stand-in.)  The clever script is just good enough to earn our interest quickly, and develop the premise with effectiveness. Swordfights in modern rainy New York City? Bring it. Still, it’s director Russell Mulcahy who gives the biggest boost to the film by adapting then-unusual music video elements in service of a longer film—the impressive visuals are still striking (ah, that shattering-windows climax!) and the music is a strong component of the film. In retrospect, after numerous inferior sequels and a long-running TV show, there’s something about the admirably incomplete lore of the film’s premise. An immortal, a prize, a few big sequences signifying the progress of the quickening … it doesn’t take much more, and over-explaining it all rather ruins the experience. While Highlander does lose some of its appeal once viewers grow out of their teenage years, it’s still a good fantasy/action film, and a rather effective time capsule of the time. Just ignore the sequels.

  • Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

    Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) As much as I like exploring classic Hollywood and rarely even notice the difference between colour and black-and-white movies, I still have a bit of an uphill climb where silent films are concerned. The lack of sound and use of title cards still draws me out of the story—they compound the fact that it took a while for basic cinematographic grammar to settle down. While sound movies of the 1930s still play decently well today (some films of the late thirties are almost indistinguishable from modern ones in terms of pacing and execution), silent films from the 1920s are another matter entirely. But there are significant exceptions, and as I started watching Sunrise (whom I’ll keep arguing was a Best-Picture Oscar-winner just as surely as Wings), I was struck at the sheer artistic ambition of the film. Scenes aren’t just shot awkwardly and shown simply like many films of the period struggling with the basic grammar of cinema—there are authentic attempts at art, at style, at soliciting emotional responses to the images. Director F. W. Murnau clearly worked at a level above many of his contemporaries and as a result Sunrise works on a basic emotional level that transcends the obstacles in watching a silent film. (Murnau’s decision to often forego title cards as much as he can certainly works in the film’s favour, as it lowers the barriers to watching the action as a continuous unit of storytelling.)  There’s no denying that the film will occasionally feel unpolished by contemporary standard—setting up the antagonist as a scheming “city woman” coming to corrupt the humble city folks is blunt to modern audiences. On the other hand, the film does get better as it goes along, and the unfolding story of an estranged couple getting back in love with each other is effective. By the ending, I was expecting the worst and ended pleased beyond rational expectations at the shape that the ending took. I am grading Sunrise on a curve here, and partially on the novelty of being surprised at a silent film’s effectiveness. This being said, I now understand and approve of seeing the film pop up on AFI’s Top-100 list, or mentioned as one of the great silent films. It still has things to tell us today, and it’s effective at a basic narrative level rather than just an imposed exercise in film history.

  • Bringing up Baby (1938)

    Bringing up Baby (1938)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) All right. This is it. I am a contended cinephile. When I embarked on a conscious program to watch older movies, I did so supposing that sooner or later, I’d watch a movie that I’d fall in love with. While I’ve been really happy to revisit some old favourites and see them hold up (2001: A Space Odyssey, for instance), or to confirm that some beloved classics are beloved for a reason (Singin’ in the Rain, anyone?), I started watching Bringing up Baby without any expectations other than crossing off a popular title from 1938. Within minutes (specifically the torn dress sequence), however, I was squarely identifying with Cary Grant’s proto-nerd protagonist, falling in love with Katharine Hepburn’s drop-dead gorgeous romantic interest and gasping at the speed and precision of director Howard Hawks’ movie. To put it simply: Bringing Up Baby is as funny, witty and fast as any contemporary romantic comedy, and the 1938 year of release is irrelevant. The plot is a big ball of nonsense that has something to do with a paleontologist, an heiress and a tame leopard. But never mind the plot, as the real strength of the film is in its witty fast-paced dialogue. Hepburn is an instant favourite as a character too crazy to be true … but the entire film is like that, and it plays beautifully even eighty years (!) later. Those who complain that “old” movies are dull and slow clearly haven’t seen Bringing up Baby. It’s raucously funny even today—while contemporary comedic theory holds that chicken and monkeys are the funniest animals, the film makes a strong case that leopards may be a comic engine of their own, as several of the film’s funniest sequences hinge on the eponymous “Baby.”  (To be fair, one scene also involves chicken. Being eaten by the leopard.)  Considering that the film is often upheld as a representative example of screwball comedies, I have a feeling that I’ve just discovered an untapped vein of pure cinematic bliss. At the pace at which I see movies, I often see them and move on, never to re-watch again. In Bringing up Baby’s case, however, I ended up ordering it on DVD (along with three other similar Hepburn comedies) within days of seeing it. I have a feeling I’ll be extolling its virtues and often lending the DVD in the next few years.

  • Gigi (1958)

    Gigi (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, January 2018) I’m annoyed that I don’t like Gigi more than I do. After all, at first glance, it should work much better than it does—it’s a big-budget musical that manages to affect a cynical view of romances before going back to classical values right in time for the ending. Set in early-20th century Paris, Gigi takes on the courtesan culture and makes it shine as an entirely acceptable alternative for young women who can’t be bothered by traditional life paths. In other hands, it could have been a playful, insightful way to poke fun at the conventions of musicals. Alas, this Oscar-award-winning movie makes a few missteps along the way and really doesn’t leave a good impression. Things get off on a now-terrifying wrong foot as the movie begins with an older man signing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” essentially making a case that young girls are awesome because they’ll grow up to be sexy women worth sleeping with. Eeeeeeeeek. (Contemporary restaging of Gigi wisely give the song to the elderly courtesan character, which is only marginally less icky but still an improvement.)  Too bad for Maurice Chevalier, who’s otherwise quite charming and likable as an older playboy who’s come to his senses—thematically, his “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore” is the kind of topic I wish was covered more often in pop culture. Other bad touches abound, such as a jocular way of looking at the male protagonist earning his “first suicide attempt” from a jilted ex-lover. Given this far more adult take on romantic musicals, what’s perhaps most damning about Gigi is the way it may present itself at an edgy film but ultimately (and predictably) fall back on rote values in time for its ending. It simply doesn’t have the guts to follow its early contrarian impulses. As a result, it ends up as a muddled piece of work—too cynical to be mindlessly enjoyable, but ultimately unsatisfying for not forging its own path. Taken as individual musical numbers, it’s still often visually spectacular and impressive in the way only classic MGM musicals could be. (My favourite anecdote about the film is that the day following Gigi’s Best Picture Oscar win, MGM receptionists answered the phone with “M-Gigi-M”) But—wow—has the film aged badly in some crucial ways. 

  • Cleopatra (1963)

    Cleopatra (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2018) Some films are epic enough that they transcend time, and so Cleopatra remains even today a reference for excess in filmmaking. Long a yardstick for the most expensive movie ever produced, Cleopatra is still notable today for the lavishness of its super-production, whether it’s re-creating Cairo or Rome at the height of their power, putting hundreds of extras on-screen or giving more than sixty different costumes to its title character. And then there’s Elizabeth Taylor herself—while people of my generation mostly remember Taylor as an older woman of multiple marriages and excessive makeup, movies like Cleopatra firmly justify why she was a sex symbol for most of her career. Compelling even when the melodrama around her gets too thick to be taken seriously, Taylor is the film’s centrepiece and offers an unqualified reason to watch the film despite the nearly oppressive running time. Not that she’s the only reason: Seeing her play off future-husband Richard Burton is a great way to get into one of cinema history’s most remarkable romance and an insight in the frenzy that their affair created in mid-sixties pop culture and tabloid reporting. Spread the viewing over two evenings if you can—there’s an intermission and a somewhat different tone to the film’s two halves: the first half (Cleopatra and Julius Caesar) is better, but the second half (Cleopatra and Burton’s Mark Anthony) is more interesting. Cleopatra should have been much shorter, but there’s a lot of stuff shown on-screen, and more peak-era Taylor is never a bad thing.

  • An American in Paris (1951)

    An American in Paris (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, January 2018) I’ll be the first to admit that classic musicals aren’t for everyone, but there’s a fun quality to An American in Paris that makes it irresistible. From the pleasantly idealized portrait of post-war Paris to witty musical numbers that acknowledge their own nature as musical numbers, this is a fun, not particularly deep but rather enjoyable musical. It won an Oscar, but it feels considerably less substantial than you’d expect—just a few Americans having fun in a glossy version of Paris, wooing girls and getting into all sorts of dance numbers. Gene Kelly is fantastic in the lead role (he also brought his distinctive touch to the film’s choreography, including the spectacular but rather long standout ballet sequence at the end of the film), with Leslie Caron simply being adorable as the romantic ideal, and Oscar Levant as comic relief. While An American in Paris is notable for its extended ballet sequence that makes much of the film’s last half-hour, I found it long and disconnected from the rest of the film—of course, that’s the point. And it’s impressive to see Kelly make ballet not only accessible to movie audiences, but actually fun. Still, I like other moments of the film better—The “black-and-white” party sequence is visually memorable, and the sequence in which Henri first describes the heroine of the film is a delight. I can never say enough good things about Kelly, the colours are bright, the atmosphere is delightful and as an example of the height of MGM’s musical comedy era it’s about as good a representation of the form as possible—I like Singin’ in the Rain a lot more, but there’s a difference between a solid example of the form and something that completely transcends it. The exemplar should not feel slighted for not being exceptional.