Reviews

  • Traitor (2008)

    Traitor (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, September 2008) It’s too bad that two films seem to compete for attention in Traitor. First, a contemporary thriller that jumps from continent to continent, looking on as a dastardly terrorist plot is put together and detected by intelligence agencies. Second, a more intimate drama in which a double-agent confronts his conscience and the respect of his peers as he infiltrates a terrorist group on behalf of American interests. The first movie crackles when it gets moving; the second one is annoying even in the best of circumstances. Fortunately, Don Cheadle is always excellent as the man torn between his various loyalties. It’s just too bad that the entire film couldn’t have been as good as its best sections. (Plus, am I the only one who wasn’t entirely satisfied by the way the terrorist plot thread was wrapped?) What could have been a decent companion piece to Syriana only ends up an inconsistently interesting attempt with a side-order of yawns. Its intentions are at the right place, but the final result just isn’t all that compelling.

  • Righteous Kill (2008)

    Righteous Kill (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, September 2008) Fans have been waiting for a true DeNiro/Pacino match-up since their all-too-brief common scene in Heat, but it’s not a B-series vehicle like Righteous Kill that will satisfy them. Not that any film starring those two is any guarantee of quality these days, as the two men seem perfectly happy on playing their own caricature. Pacino’s always good for a hoo-ha moment or two, but DeNiro’s sliding fast toward irrelevance, and this film won’t do much to change prevailing wisdom. But never mind the creepy Gugino/DeNiro on-screen pairing: the worst thing about this film is from the script: It’s the blatant lying that frames the picture that gets old real fast, as the film withhold just enough details to make it obvious that we’re not watching the entire story, leading to a painfully predictable conclusion and a far too long third act that can’t resist exploiting a female character’s vulnerability for no good reason. What’s really annoying is that Righteous Kill does have a few good ideas rattling around: the material about how “everyone respects the badge” offers a grittier view of men in uniform than most police thrillers, but what could have been a really fascinating theme in a stronger picture seems wasted in a routine potboiler. Much like the lead actors, Righteous Kill is a pale shadow of what could have been.

  • Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

    Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2008) It’s impossible to watch this film today without thinking about its reputation as “the worst movie ever made”, or its place in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994). So it may not be so surprising that the film is surprisingly engaging, even with its numerous production errors, stilted dialog, incoherent plot and campy acting: for a number of reasons, it remains compelling. For all of Ed Wood’s ineptness as a writer and director, some aspects of the film are unexpectedly solid: the dramatic construction of the scenes, for instance, has all of the right elements arranged in more or less the right order, albeit torpedoed by the terrible dialog, stiff acting and lousy production values. The earnestness factor also plays a role: despite the film’s laughable execution, there’s always a residual feeling that a lot of it is intended to be taken seriously, and indeed some much-cited passages, such as the “Stupid! Stupid!” speech, betray an inner core of sentiment that wouldn’t be out-of-place in more successful works. It’s a far cry from the “so bad it’s good” hype. All in all, an essential piece of movie history: don’t miss it, but try to see it with a crowd.

  • Igor (2008)

    Igor (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, September 2008) Is it too much to ask that animated comedies for kids be at least pleasant to look at? Igor‘s art design is among the ugliest I’ve seen on-screen, and even a vague intention to replicate the counter-cultural charm of Tim Burton’s most successful films aren’t nearly enough to make this film a more pleasant experience. As a gothic romance between a hunchback and a patched-up Frankenwoman, Igor remains hampered by its kiddy-friendly PG rating, terrible screenwriting and the previously-mentioned ugliness. It may be “for the kids”, but that’s not much of an excuse at times where family films like Wall-E prove that clever writing remain essential. If nothing else, Igor proves that computer-animated features are now cheap and common enough that they can find a place in the B-movie ecosystem. This is one film that will sink away from memory soon after its DVD release.

  • The Execution Channel, Ken MacLeod

    The Execution Channel, Ken MacLeod

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2007, 285 pages, C$31.00 hc, ISBN 978-0-7653-1332-4

    Trying to discuss Ken MacLeod’s The Execution Channel is a lot like chasing a slippery bar of soap over a slick floor: It never stays still, defies any strong grip and presents serious potential for bruised shins in the effort. The novel cloaks itself in misleading genre protocols before revealing itself to be something entirely different, shoving optimism where readers have been conditioned to expect the worst. Alas, a good case can be made that the novel is never as good as when it’s being really, really awful.

    Like all of MacLeod’s novels so far, it’s an intensely political piece of work. But unlike most of McLeod’s books so far, it’s a near-contemporary thriller that benefits from our familiarity with today’s world. Taking place in a near future where terrorism has grown even more vicious, The Execution Channel begins with a nuclear detonation on British soil, then follows a group of characters as governments go through an acute period of rage in trying to identify and catch the terrorists. There’s a conveniently well-connected family at the center of the story, one with a pacifist daughter, a solider son and a traitorous father. But there’s also a coordinated disinformation effort, a few conspiracy theorists, strong international tensions and a mysterious “execution channel”.

    One thing’s for sure: MacLeod can do dark like few other writers. From the opening pages, we’re presented with a world that teeters on the brink of irremediableness, a world where the value of bad information has become higher than the true story. A world where viewers can tune in to a channel that solely presents violent executions. A world where conspiracy theorists are markedly better-informed than their saner relatives. A world where paid government operatives deliberately seed misinformation on blogs. A world racing to nuclear war and ever-more powerful weapons. “The War on terror is over. Terror won” says the front-cover blurb, and the impact is profound: Reading The Execution Channel is like taking an all-expense trip to a vision of how bad things could get within half a decade.

    It’s written like a techno-thriller and reads like a particularly paranoid one: MacLeod has never been so accessible and so depressing. It uses just the slightest amount of future shock to sends current trend to a break point, and seeds just enough new ideas into the mix to please SF fans.

    But if The Execution Channel looks like something at first, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will stay like that until the end. Throughout the course of the book, MacLeod betrays expectations three times. The first betrayal, that of the world in which the story takes place, is more amusing than consequential. The second betrayal, which shifts the novel’s genres in a fairly spectacular fashion, is clearly announced both by the author’s pedigree and by significant in-story clues. It’s the third betrayal that hurts most, ironically by providing an optimistic conclusion after nearly three hundred pages of increasing grimness: By that point, the fact that some characters will survive the story seems like a disappointment after so much grimness.

    The biggest irony is that The Execution Channel serves the exact same science-will-save-us-all conclusion that’s been one of SF’s most reliable motif over its decades of existence. But by juxtaposing it onto a realistic framework of real-world horrors, it makes it feel hollow and undeserved. Whether this is reading a message where none were intended, or if the author is trying to tell us something about SF readers’ unrealistic expectations, is left to the reader to articulate.

  • Gwoemul [The Host] (2006)

    Gwoemul [The Host] (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2008) This Korean monster movie is most notable for two things: First, for daring conventional wisdom by showing its monster early on, in full daylight, in the middle of a screaming crowd. That sequence is terrific, certainly among the best depiction of mass terror put on film, and promises much for the rest of the story. Alas, The Host is also famous for its refusal to play by the rules of Hollywood happy endings. So much so that the film ends with a sweeping wave of resentment and futility, as the object of the character’s sacrifices is dispensed with. It doesn’t help raise the overall appreciation of a film that is alternately depressing, slow, stupid and dull. The characters act in ways that are moronic enough to drive the plot forward, which makes it almost impossible to empathize for them. There are several plot-holes in the story which become impossible to justify over the several days that the story takes place: a tighter time-frame (a few hours, say) would have paved over several problems, but here they’re just excuses for knocking characters in unconsciousness, killing cell phones, gratuitous chases and incompetent military forces. There’s still a lot to admire about the film (I’m particularly impressed by the sequence in which the image of a Molotov-throwing rioter is transformed into an operatic slow-motion portrayal of a selfless hero), but it’s a film that seems almost determined to undermine any attempt at sympathy. After having seen Cloverfield, it’s not because it’s not from Hollywood that it’s necessarily better.

  • Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008)

    Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, September 2008) Hunter S. Thompson fans are in for a treat with this documentary that unearths a number of archival clips to follow “The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson” from beginning to end –with an explosive epilogue. Talking head footage with people ranging from Tom Wolfe to Johnny Depp and Jimmy Carter is inter-cut with archival footage of Hunter’s life and film interviews to present a coherent but too-short overview of a remarkable rabble-rouser. Thompson fans will be surprised to see archival footage of, say, Thompson’s appearance on a televised game show following the release of his books on the Hell’s Angels. Those who know nothing about Thompson will be served with stories of his worst excesses, his prodigious appetite for drugs and guns, his prankster instincts (including the politically-significant Ibogaine incident) and the particular nature of his prose, read off-screen by Johnny Depp. Thompson’s latter-year decline is discussed but not dwelt upon, a compromise probably made necessary by his suicide. The film is bold enough to suggest that the act was one of cowardice, but viewers will be left to make their own conclusions. The nature of the character is such that any simple film is bound to be disappointing: too many stories left unmentioned, and too quick an overview to really satisfy those who want more. But this documentary is still a bright spot in an otherwise meaningless cinema landscape: I’m glad I caught it in theaters.

  • A Clockwork Orange (1971)

    A Clockwork Orange (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2008) Alternately dull and fascinating, this classic has endured a lot better than you’d expect. The lengths of the film are deliberate traits of Kubrick’s style, for one thing, and not remnants of an outdated editing style. A plot summary seems superfluous given the film’s place in contemporary pop culture and the myriad of references made to it. (Even people who think they recognize the references may be surprised: I was shocked to realize that Rob Zombie’s “Never Gonna Stop” makes a bunch of references to the film, up to and most visibly the “Durango 95”) Yet there’s a lot more to this film than Alex, his droogs and the famous brainwashing sequence: the entire third act is something that tends to be given short thrift in references to the film, and so becomes perhaps the most interesting thing about it. I still don’t believe that it entirely clicks together: the opening act suggests a far more barbaric social breakdown than what is suggested by the rest of the film, a hint that this is best considered as a fable than a serious SF film. Our modern jaded sensibilities may not be appropriate to judge the controversy that the film raised upon release: While “the old ultra-violence” seems ordinary and the torture sequence merely icky, it’s the frequent nudity and the stark symbolism that seems most controversial today. See it at least once to firm up your cultural referents.

  • Choke (2008)

    Choke (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, September 2008) Chuck Palahniuk’s novels are so extreme that any adaptation that doesn’t completely screws them up has already earned a small victory, and so Choke‘s most notable achievement is how it does remain relatively faithful to the novel, translating a good chunk of its sociopathic charm onto the big screen, graphic sexual addictions and all. Sam Rockwell is rather good as a lead character whose obsession for casual sex only matches his habit of fake-choking in high-end restaurants in order to earn strangers’ gratitude and financial help. A suitably strange cast of characters surround him, from a paranoid mother to a curiously amorous doctor to a friend who can’t keep his hands off himself. Fortunately, it remains an amusing film throughout, even when the story appears to take a turn toward the fantastic with the suggestion that the protagonist is a clone of Jesus. Fans of the original novel (one of Palahniuk’s tamest) will be surprised to find out that most of the book has been faithfully adapted to the screen, at the exception of the ending which proves to be less satisfying than the one in the book. While this film won’t make as big an impression as Fight Club did, it’s an adaptation with which Palahniuk and fans can be relatively happy… and that’s already quite remarkable.

  • Zoe’s Tale, John Scalzi

    Zoe’s Tale, John Scalzi

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2008, 335 pages, C$27.95 hc, ISBN 978-0-7653-1698-1

    Some of the most difficult moments in a reviewer’s life come when a highly-anticipated work fails to meet certain expectations, or betrays an author’s otherwise sterling reputation. As much as I normally like Scalzi’s fiction, and as much as I was primed to like Zoe’s Tale, it ended up surprising and disappointing me: For the first time while reading a Scalzi novel, I felt impatient.

    Fans of Scalzi’s work so far will immediately recognize the plot of the novel: As its title suggests, Zoe’s Tale describes the events of Scalzi’s previous The Last Colony from the perspective of John Perry’s teenage daughter Zoe. Being a sixteen-year-old girl, Zoe’s perspective on the story is different, but not too different. Exception made of a small section at the end of the book, the story beats are roughly the same –-although the last few pages of Roanoke colony’s story remains in The Last Colony.

    For readers who read primarily for plot, this makes Zoe’s Tale a surprisingly unsettling experience. While it fills in the beats of Zoe’s story and explains a few passing references in its source book, Zoe’s Tale often feels like a rehash of known material; another trip around the same block in a slightly different vehicle. The Old Man’s War universe isn’t significantly deepened by this entry, nor are we getting a perspective that contradicts John Perry’s. At most, an enigmatic reference is cleared up, and events that are more important to Zoe than her father are told in more detail. (Unlike other parallax novels such as Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Shadow, there’s also little playfulness with what readers are supposed to know from having read the previous book.) Readers may want, for extra credit, to compare a few scenes as told in both books to see the different perspectives of the two characters.

    Fortunately, there is something else than a simple plot re-hash going on here: Zoe’s Tale is perhaps best appreciated as an attempt to re-tell The Last Colony in a YA-friendly female teenager’s voice. As a style exercise, if you prefer. As such, it’s somewhat more successful: Scalzi’s attempt to write like a 16-year-old girl cleanly evokes the confusion, thrills, quirks and friendship bonds of that demographic.

    This being said, it isn’t much of a stretch for Scalzi to map his own usual sarcastic smart-ass prose style onto another sarcastic smart-ass character, even if she happens to be a 16-year-old girl on a brand-new colony world. It just so happens that her friends are, by and large, a generally sarcastic smart-ass group, and that the people she most values around her are also sarcastic smart-asses. (If nothing else, Roanoke Colony’s got a bright future in exporting comedians.) Scalzi’s has previously acknowledged his Heinleinian influences, but Zoe also echoes some of Heinlein’s teenage protagonists in that she’s the prototypical Competent Teenager; rarely wrong and of reliable judgment. It’s a typical SF character type, but the pattern can be amusing once it becomes obvious.

    Plot and characterization, however, haven’t been Scalzi’s strengths as much as his easy prose style and his humor, and in that sense Zoe’s Tale is another success for him. It’s a fast and enjoyable read that won’t disappoint his regular readers who don’t mind some déjà vu. For the others, however, Zoe’s Tale is perhaps Scalzi’s most disappointing novel so far, and one that sends the Old Man’s War universe in diminishing-returns territory. More demanding readers may want to wait until the paperback and lower their expectations accordingly.

  • Burn After Reading (2008)

    Burn After Reading (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, September 2008) Dark comedies are a tough, tough assignment, and if the Coen Brothers have been able to do the genre full justice before, they’ve also had a few misfires along the way, and Burn After Reading skirts particularly close to that edge. Among the film’s biggest problem is a sudden turn for deadly violence after a first half that promises nothing more serious than bloodied noses. It’s a jarring misstep in what is otherwise an absurd story of adulterous urban professionals who just happen to work in intelligence operations. The rest of the film is hit-and-miss, more often amusing rather than frankly funny. All of the actors, from Brad Pitt to George Clooney to Tilda Swinton to John Malkovich, seem to have a lot of fun inhabiting seriously flawed characters. (Indeed, one of the film’s highlight is the precise way Malkovich’s characters enunciates his colorful threats and insults.) The film’s two funniest scenes both star J.K. Simmons as an Intelligence Director completely mystified by the accumulation of transgressions and violence that characterize the film. Otherwise, though, the film ends quickly and with a succession of off-screen developments. There’s little satisfaction here for those who like well-wrapped narratives, nor those who prefer more conventional comedies.

  • Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

    Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, September 2008) It takes a lot of misguided skill to make a boring film about Nicolas Cage as a gifted assassin, but that’s exactly what this weakly-brewed action thriller ends up being. Cage looks asleep as a weary assassin coming to Thailand for one last series of jobs. Inexplicably, he lets down his usual safeguards, befriend a small-time hustler, romances a deaf local girl, botches his contracts and ends up hunted down by his own clients. There is one single flash of interest late in the film as he fends off killers while his date isn’t looking, but otherwise the film is one single monolith of exasperation. Hampered by cookie-cutter action scenes, trite dialog, glacial pacing and a complete lack of originality, Bangkok Dangerous fuses the worst of Asian and Western cinema to produce something that the whole world will unite to recognize as a bad film.

  • Babylon A.D. (2008)

    Babylon A.D. (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, September 2008) From a promising start, this action/adventure tale sadly devolves into an incomprehensible mess, not unlike the source novel Babylon Babies by French author Maurice Dantec. Director Mathieu Kassovitz has a certain sense of style, and that eye for strong visuals is what props up the film long after it has descended in self-contradictory nonsense. It’s too bad, really, but Vin Diesel and Michelle Yeoh walk away mostly untouched by the mess: There’s little doubt that the worst thing about the film is the increasingly silly script, which goes from a number of interesting premises to an indescribable mess. The film’s reportedly troubled production history shows up in slap-dash action sequences and an abrupt ending that defies audience satisfaction. This is one of those films whose highlights fit in a single five-minute trailer reel; the rest is entirely useless.

  • Bad Monkeys, Matt Ruff

    Bad Monkeys, Matt Ruff

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Collins, 2007, 230 pages, C$24.95 tpb, ISBN 978-0-06-124041-6

    For readers, paranoia isn’t such a bad trait. Not when dealing with tricky writers such as Matt Ruff, whose unpredictable output continues to surprise even those who think they know what to expect. None of Ruff’s novels so far has been ordinary, and Bad Monkeys is no exception.

    Harper Collins, at least, has done a good job designing a physical object that’s as odd as its content. Presented as a narrow yellow trade paperback with extended rounded covers, the book is meant to evoke a psychiatrist’s case jacket, which isn’t a bad choice given the content.

    For the novel begins in a white room, a holding cell where a psychiatrist comes in to interview a prisoner. Her name is Jane Charlotte, and she’s been arrested for murder. As she tells her story, we go back in time, to a childhood incident during which she realized the existence of a secret organization manipulating events behind the scenes. And that’s the kick-off to a deeply paranoid novel in which the world we know isn’t as chaotic as we think. There’s a war out there between good and evil, and two rival factions are out there recruiting and setting operatives on each other. The “Bad Monkeys” of the title is a shorthand for the “Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons”, which is to say humans declared so irremediably evil that they have to be taken out —preferably by means of a Natural Causes gun with definitive but undetectable effects. The secret departments of the elusive organization all have bizarre names that allude to their nature (“Scary Clowns”, “Good Samaritans”, “Eyes Only”) but whose true nature remains elusive for a while.

    This, of course, may or may not a be a psychotic delusion from a troubled individual. Jane’s life (as she tells it) has been a tough one, and she hasn’t always been the most virtuous of person. Is all of this an elaborate way to account for the murders she’s been arrested for, or is it all true? Or is the truth even stranger than she imagines?

    You’re better off betting on strangeness without limits, because Matt Ruff is having a lot of fun messing with his readers’ heads throughout the novel. By the time the final twists are revealed, shell-shocked readers may be forgiven if they can’t recall what’s true and what’s not. Such mind-bending won’t be to everyone’s liking, but it does make for a lively reading experience. There’s a lot of strong scenes, a few Science Fiction elements, some good character moments, and a terrific pacing. From time to time, Ruff plays with intriguing philosophical ideas and concepts given practical form by his secret organizations, from Natural Cause guns to ant farms to Nod problems.

    It’s not a particularly long book (barely 90,000 words, by my estimates) and the writing style is deliberately kept simple, so don’t be surprised if you rush through the book in a few sittings. It’s probably best read that way too, in order to fully experience the accumulation of details, confusion and contradictions that make up the novel’s conclusion.

    This being said, the rapidly changing nature of the novel is liable to be a point of contention. While a neat writer’s trick, it also prevents readers from forming a deep emotional attachment to the material as presented: nobody likes to be fooled, and so a bit of detachment may be for the best while reading the story. Only the paranoids will get the most out of Bad Monkeys.

  • In War Times, Kathleen Ann Goonan

    In War Times, Kathleen Ann Goonan

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2007, 348 pages, C$31.95 hc, ISBN 978-0-7653-1355-3

    If you’re wondering what use we possibly can have for awards, let me give you a hint: If Kathleen Ann Goonan’s In War Times hadn’t won the John Campbell Award, I wouldn’t have bothered reading it. The author’s previous works haven’t grabbed me, the subject matter of this book seems to be dedicated to another audience, and while the novel got a favorable number of reviews upon publication, it didn’t seem to establish itself as one of 2007’s must-read novels from word-of-mouth buzz.

    But it did walk away with the Campbell Award, and that strengthens its place in the SF canon. It doesn’t finalize it, of course: part of the attraction in reading this year’s Campbell winner was to determine whether the Campbell jury had succeeded in making a choice as awfully outdated as Ben Bova’s Titan, somehow selected as being a best choice of some sort the previous year.

    From the first few pages, it’s obvious that the Campbell judges have made a better choice: Goonan’s prose is well-written, and her understanding of interpersonal relationships is better than many of her colleagues. From the first few pages, in which a young soldier is seduced and then left by a female scientist during World War II, we can relax: if nothing else, this novel will be well written.

    But for a while, that’s all we get: despite a few ominous lines early on, this is the story of the young soldier, Sam Dance, as he’s shipped off around Europe (and then Japan) in order to take advantage of his top-notch technical skills. He builds a device according to plans left by his ex-lover, but it’s never too clear what the device is supposed to accomplish. Meanwhile, around him, both jazz and modern science are being invented, refined, applied and developed. Goonan’s musical knowledge has been obvious from Queen City Jazz onward, but here the characters have the chance to hob-nob with the early Greats of American Jazz, and readers who know anything about the form will be delighted to read about a few walk-in characters.

    On the flip side is the portrait of the war as seen from Dancer’s eyes, sometimes via diary entries. We eventually learn in the afterword that those entries are excerpted from Goonan’s father’s own real-life WW2 diaries. Again, In War Times is best appreciated by those with some knowledge of the time and place. Four-seventh of the book are spent in WW2, and despite a few intriguing moments here and there, there are few reasons for this book to be classified as Science Fiction rather than historical drama.

    The SF elements become more obvious after the war, although not by much until the last fifty pages. As universes diverge and the mysterious device changes by itself, Sam realizes that there’s at least another alternate universe out there, one that seems far preferable to ours. But then 1963 arrives, and Sam’s family has a chance to change things…

    Other writers would have spent their time playing around alternate universes, cleanly explaining the time-and-dimension-hopping device and the paradoxes surrounding it. Goonan is interested in other things, most notably paying tribute to her own father’s experience. It works if you’re favorably inclined toward that type of thing: It’s really difficult to say bad things about this book other than its best target audience is carefully delimited. (That, and that the final segment of the novel is pure baby-boomer wish-fulfillment, with a dash of conspiracy theory.)

    As a read, it’s worthwhile in that it takes us somewhere else, and does so in style. Does that make it one of 2007’s best novel? That depends, but for all of the Campbell jury’s enthusiasm for the book, it’s easy to see why it didn’t make much of a splash in the wider SF community: Competently written, well imagined, sure, but without the extra spark to make it something more striking. Parallels with Ian McDonald’s Brasyl, which also dealt in parallel universes, are instructive: McDonald’s novel may not have been as carefully controlled, but it had a ton of energy that made it a wild ride. That energy would have been misplaced for In War Times‘s WW2 setting, but any energy supplement would have been helpful in making the novel a more engrossing experience.