Reviews

  • Road To Perdition (2002)

    Road To Perdition (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2002) Dour, slick and professional effort that spends a lot of time trying to masquerade a familiar plotline straight out of countless mob dramas. Tom Hanks steps oh-so-far-away from his nice guy persona by playing a hitman… who’s a really nice guy. (All of his murders are, of course, fully justified) This B-movie plot (mob sets up a member… who vows terrible revenge!) is given the full A-list treatment with big stars (Paul Newman!), fantastic cinematography, fatherhood musings, 1930s period details and ponderous direction. It looks great and feels eminently respectable, but its languid pacing can’t hide its pulpish origins. Not bad, but a touch pretentious for what it is.

  • Reign Of Fire (2002)

    Reign Of Fire (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2002) One shouldn’t judge a film by its poster, and that certainly stands double for Reign Of Fire, given that the Apache-helicopter-versus-dragons fight depicted on the one-sheet is an unfilmed part of the back-story. What we’re stuck with is not an exciting techno-thriller against dragons, but yet another post-apocalyptic hunt-the-top-monster film. Once it dawns on the viewer which kind of film this is going to be, Reign Of Fire becomes an unsurprising exercise in filling in the numbers. Numerous plot holes dog the film’s credibility, even accounting for the fact that this is a story about dragons. Interestingly enough, though, the real star of Reign Of Fire isn’t Christian Bale, Izabella Scorupco or any of the dragons, but Matthew McConaughey! His “Zander van Zam” is a cigar-chomping quasi-parody of a gruff military man, and -boy oh boy- does he kick some butt in a role completely different from what he’s done before. Anyone who had dismissed McConaughey based on his innocuous turns in films like Ed TV or The Wedding Planner might be deeply surprised by his screen presence here; he’s one of the few things saving this film from B-movie oblivion. Other standout sequences include a few nice dragon shots and a boffo skydiving sequence. Don’t expect much in terms of cinematography, though: The somber visual tones of the film even manage to turn fire to monochrome (!) and after a while, your eye will thirst for some green. Actually, you mind will thirst for the film you were promised by the poster, but -hey- it did get you in the theater, didn’t it?

  • Men In Black II (2002)

    Men In Black II (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2002) Lazy and lame follow-up to the amusing 1997 film. It’s not bad per se, but it’s awfully self-indulgent, bringing back several fair jokes from the original (blowing up an alien’s head, a talking dog, the insufferable worms, etc.) and stretching them way past the point of self-diminishing return. It doesn’t help that the formidable Men in Black agency of the first film is here reduced to a bunch of incompetent bumblers. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones still manage to look good with what they’re given, which is saying something given the general inability of the script to build something original. Barry Sonnenfeld’s direction is featureless and the editing is sadly tepid, bringing back more memories of Wild Wild West than the original Men In Black. Hey, it does have good moments, but frankly I expected much more. I mean; how incompetent do you have to be in order not to produce comedic gold out of this premise?

    (Second viewing, On DVD, January 2003) It’s lame, boring, repetitive and self-indulgent, but for some strange reason, Men In Black II is not completely worthless. Despite showboating like no one else, Will Smith manages to remain likeable, and Tommy Lee Jones still shines whatever the lines he’s fed. The script might be a trite hack-job recycling all the elements of the first film ad nauseam, but whatever imaginative deficiencies it has, at least some of the production aspects of the film are quite nice. The 2-disc DVD package quickly gets tiresome, though, combining an endless amount of repetitive promotional material that actually thinks this is like, the best movie ever. Director Barry Sonnefeld’s commentary is occasionally annoying, but probably worth one listen. Despite numerous references to “the original ending” (which featured the World Trade Center), a curious void exists when it actually comes to showing us what it was about. Could this be yet more cowardly behaviour from a studio which allowed such an unremarkable film to escape from development? You’re not forced to watch the film to answer.

  • The Hook, Donald E. Westlake

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Mysterious Press, 2000, 280 pages, C$32.95 hc, ISBN 0-89296-588-6

    If there’s one field that writers know pretty well, it’s publishing. No surprise there: It’s their job, really. But knowing it well doesn’t mean liking it… From time to time, it’s not uncommon to see a few authors turn their vengeful pens toward New York and have a little fun. Like screenwriters scorned by Hollywood, bitter authors can be quite mean when they allow themselves to be (pure passive-aggressive build-up, methinks) and the results can be spectacular.

    Okay, okay, so “spectacular” isn’t the first word to come to mind whenever one thinks about Donald E. Westlake’s quiet and nasty tale The Hook. But in its own way, it’s a savage parody-through-extremes of problems facing authors today and how two sufficiently desperate writers might be pushed to wholly unsuitable acts in order to escape them.

    The hook -or initial appeal of this novel- is in telling how a chance encounter between two old friends results in a curious bargain. One is a best-selling writer with an impregnable writer’s block. The other is an inspired writer who doesn’t sell. Their mutual problems naturally suggest an acceptable solution. But there’s only one detail; the soon-to-be-ghostwriter must murder the bestselling author’s soon-to-be-ex-wife.

    I know, I know; I didn’t find it any more credible than you do. But I believe that every writer must be given some indulgence when it comes to an initial setup and so I let it go. This being said, it didn’t help that the wife of the would-be murdered essentially says “oh, that’s nice” and agrees with her husband’s intentions.

    The actual crime, when it happens, is brutal and swift, as unexpected as it is fatal. Maybe the most shocking thing, though, is how well the murderer recovers afterward, easily rationalizing it and pocketing the check.

    Indeed, the whole novel does seem to whistle back from the abyss and settle down in a far more pedestrian narrative about publishing, ghostwriting and life in New York. The most affected character comes to be the best-selling writer, who has more and more difficulty dealing with his false new success even as his writer’s block worsens. The Hook is blackly comic in its insider’s view of late-nineties publishing, where the computers can kill an author’s career through simple pre-order calculations and where pseudonyms are the only way out of a vicious circle.

    You might be forgiven for almost forgetting about the crime; but at least one of our characters doesn’t, and that leads us directly to a conclusion that doesn’t reveal its true viciousness until the very last line.

    At first, I had serious misgivings about that ending: “Aww, that sucks, that’s mean, that’s just not right, why’d you do that”, etc. But the more I thought about it, the more I found myself accepting, and then grinning at the appropriateness of it. The Hook isn’t, as much as we might be lulled into it, a fun little inside joke on writers. At heart (at its dark, beating, diseased heart…), The Hook remains a dark crime story, and you might even argue that the entire second half is meant to lull you into a false sense of security. It actually works better as, um, a hooking conclusion than if the entire novel had been a parade of ever-gruesome serial murders.

    It’s a short book, too short to be worthwhile in hardcover but well worth the (short) reading time on the beach. The Hook‘s take on the realities of modern writing and publishing is depressing, but darkly amusing and pretext to some really good insider’s dirt on the mechanics of the industry. Avid readers (is there a mystery genre fan who isn’t an avid reader?) will gobble it up.

    If all else fails, consider the cover illustration of the book, a stack of books by Donald E. Westlake all titled The Hook. It gets funnier, of course, when you know that Donald E. Westlake is no stranger to multiple pseudonyms himself…

  • Mansfield Park (1999)

    Mansfield Park (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, July 2002) Charming Jane Austen-inspired romantic comedy set in historical Britain. The film revolves around actress Frances O’Connor, who is more beautiful here than she’s been ever since in dud roles in contemporary movies such as Bedazzled and Windtalkers. If you like period romances, it’s hard not to be taken with this slight tale. (Though it’s surprisingly edgy, with a few glimpses of decidedly un-romantic moments) It’s not particularly deep or meaningful, but it’s a good moment. The DVD is pretty much devoid of special features, except for writer/director Patricia Rozema’s enlightening commentary track in which she explains the various changes she made to the original story and the winks to those familiar with Austen. (The lead character becomes a stand-in for Austen herself, and not merely the boring protagonist of the original book.) Good stuff.

  • K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

    K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2002) The fall of the Soviet Union has revealed countless good stories about life on the other side of the Iron Curtain, and a few dramatic ones. This cold-war thriller detailing a particularly dramatic nuclear submarine trip highlights the appalling conditions of the Soviet Navy and the heroism of the men stuck on these boats. It’s compelling, but far more so as a fictionalized documentary rather than a straight-up thriller. Not much is done to differentiate the characters, but director Katheryn Bigelow knows how to crank the tension on scenes that need it, and the big centerpiece of the film works well as a suspense sequence. The rest of the film is quiet, saddled with an unnecessary epilogue and doesn’t deliver nearly as much as it ought to. Nevertheless, there is a lot to like in the authentic re-creation of life aboard these submarines, the set design and the unusual glimpse in a wholly different environment. Worth a look for submarine buffs, certainly, but the general public expecting a war thriller may want to wait a while.

  • Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

    Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2002) It’s been a long dry spell for us giant-spider movies enthusiasts, but at last, the wait is over and Eight Legged Freaks is everything you can wish for in a giant-spiders movie. It features a small town under attack, a few endearing characters from Central Casting (Including the scrumptious Kari Wuhrer as a shotgun-blasting sheriff; woo-hoo!), loads of weapons, clever tactics, a high body count and, oh, hundreds of giant spiders. It’s loads of fun for whoever can appreciate the pure artistic meaning of a giant-spiders movie. It’s not completely successful (the pacing lags at the end, and some characters -like the conspiracist DJ- are just insipid), but frankly I’d be hard-pressed to find a better monster B-movie since the original Tremors. Enjoy yourself squishily!

    (Second viewing, On DVD, January 2003) Silly, funny and not afraid to be a little stupid when it needs to be, this is a triumphant return of the B-grade monster movie. Camera-equipped PDAs and digitally-created spiders notwithstanding, this is a throwback to the golden era of bad fifties sci-fi, and a pretty enjoyable one at that. At least it’s honest it what it attempts to be (as the commentary quickly establishes) and never aspires to any higher purpose. While the film won’t break through to general audiences with no particular hunger for giant spider movies, it holds up rather well to a second viewing for this fan of the sub-genre. The DVD is otherwise serviceable, with an amusing commentary track, a diverting short film and a few deleted scenes (including one which answers one of my biggest “huh?”s) but, curiously enough, a rather remarkable lack of making of material on visual effects. Oh well. It’s bug-squishing fun enough as it is anyway!

  • Double Jeopardy (1999)

    Double Jeopardy (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2002) Contrived, exasperating crime melodrama filled with contrived situations, leaps of logic and a cackling villain. Ashley Judd is cute, but her character must’ve fell on her head a few times during her childhood to act so stupidly all the time. The film is filled with shoddy scare shots and bewildering “action” scenes thrown in for cheap thrills (a nursery with security guard in jeeps? Whaa?). It’s a shame to see respectable actors such as Tommy Lee Jones waste their time with trash like this. And yet, despite my overall loathing of the film, it’s hard to deny a certain guilty pleasure in staring at the screen, wondering what else they’ll come up with, if only to see how stupid this can become. What can I say? Catch in TV if you must.

  • Stranger Than Fiction: A book of literary lists, Aubrey Dillon Malone

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Contemporary Books, 2000, 314 pages, C$23.95 hc, ISBN 0-8092-9904-6

    Writers are a strange breed.

    Even accounting for the usual diversity of characters, temperaments and manias distributed more-or-less evenly across the human bell curve, writers have long been considered among the most eccentric specimen of our species. Part of this reputation is due to the demands of the job: not many entirely sane people can sit down and string words together for months in order to produce a text of respectable length. Most authors are not mad, but most of them are abnormal.

    But then again, like modern-day bloggers, writers have long been in a privileged position to chronicle their own eccentricities and those of their other writer acquaintances. Other professions such as, say, tailors, might have been collectively just as bizarre, but haven’t had the chance to accumulate a written pedigree for hundreds of years.

    In any case, Aubrey Dillon Malone’s Stranger Than Fiction will quickly convince you, if that remained to be done, that writers are indeed a strange caste. This little-known quasi-novelty book is a collection of thematic lists about writers and their habits, from “Five writers involved in tragic accidents” to “Five writers who were vegetarians”. It doesn’t stop there, of course: “Fifteen writers who were spies”, “Thirty authors’ famous last words”, “Ten writers put to death by the state”, “Five writers’ phobias”, “Ten Shakespearian insults”, the all-time classic “Ten writers who went insane” and much, much more…

    Writer/journalist Malone has done an admirable, often hilarious job at compiling some of these lists. Often ribald -if not downright obscene-, Stranger Than Fiction pulls no punches and digs deep in literature’s dirty closets. There is trivia here for everyone, and enough quotable material to make you a certifiable bore at your next office party. It’s not a unique book (as I write this, I’m midway through Robert Hendrickson’s similar collection The Woodsworth Book of Literary Anecdotes, though Stranger Than Fiction was far more entertaining than Hendrickson’s uneven collection.) but it’s a good one, with something like 300 lists in one handy paperback-sized hardcover.

    My main quibble stems from ignorance: I’m a child of the sci-fi ghetto and so my grasp of classical literature isn’t as good as it should be. I was rather embarrassed to learn things I should have known about a few very-well-known writers. Still, it’s a fair criticism to remark that Stranger Than Fiction is concentrated mostly on the “respectable” English canon, with often perfunctory attention to other literatures. As a confirmed SF buff, I can proudly claim that our writers are as interesting as the mainstream ones. Yet Robert A. Heinlein and Philip K. Dick are conspicuously absent, while Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke share a paltry three mentions. (On the other hand, have I mentioned the great index-by-authors? Yep; you can use this book as reference!)

    Stranger Than Fiction is, in many ways, a tribute to the quirkiness of writers, those magnificent madmen (and madwomen too!) without whom our shelves would be so much poorer. It’s a crash-course in English literature, an amusing entertainment, a great source of anecdotes and a pretty nifty discussion piece by itself. It would make a great gift for any avid reader in your neighborhood.

  • Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins (2000)

    Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, July 2002) Perfunctory pilot episode to a kid’s series starring Toy Story‘s Buzz Lightyear character. (Be warned, though, that this feature is hand-animated, and doesn’t feature computer animation except for a very brief introduction.) The film itself is fine; a nice way to keep the kids entertained, if not much else. There are a few clever lines, but you’ve heard them all elsewhere. All in all, this is a strictly average production. Acceptable, not great but good.

  • Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

    Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2002) As a big fan of the original film’s low-budget spy parody, I was let down by the scatological humor of the sequel and this impression only worsens with this third entry. The jokes become increasingly self-referential, up to a point where there isn’t much here that doesn’t refer to the Austin Powers mythology itself. Spy parody? Forget it! It doesn’t help that the “writer” is working with a palette of roughly five jokes, which are repeated time and time again way beyond the point of diminishing results. What’s worth saving are the first five minutes, which feature a series of celebrity cameos and a high-energy opening sequence. The rest goes downhill fast, even though I think this film is better than the second one if only because the gross-out humor is toned down in comparison. The only latter flashes of humor, though, are a G*dz*ll* reference and a gag on reading white subtitles on white background. (Alas, as with all the other jokes, this last joke is stretched for about a minute more than it ought to be.) On the other hand, it’s still good to see the familiar gang of Powers characters come back. Among the new character, though it’s mixed bag: Michael Caine is particularly good as Nigel Powers. Beyonce Knowles is positively adorable in one scene (in Power’s pad) and simply wasted in the rest of the film; she deserves better material. As for the title character, Goldmember is one of the lamest thing about the film, a character who doesn’t elicit one single laugh. The rest of the film plays as a parade of wasted opportunities; why don’t you go see Undercover Brother for a film that not only does disco-blacksploitation right, but is also considerably funnier to boot?

  • Amores Perros [Life’s a Bitch] (2000)

    Amores Perros [Life’s a Bitch] (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2002) One fatal car accident; three stories. The first one is fascinating, a look at life in low-rent Mexico City where crime is an entirely acceptable option to get ahead. It’s brutal and compelling and you almost hope the entire film will be like that. Alas, the second story isn’t as good, dragging us through the domestic disputes of a high-class couple whose stupid dog won’t emerge from under the false floor of their apartment. The third story is good but far too long, a moralistic tale about an assassin on his last mission. Overall, the film is impressively directed and acted, but feels overlong at more than two hours. Your mileage may vary, especially if you can manage to be interested in the last two stories.

  • About A Boy (2002)

    About A Boy (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2002) Another satisfying entry in the “British novel adaptation” category, About A Boy is a bit too meaningful to be strictly funny. Oh, Hugh Grant is at the top of his game as an immature bachelor who discovers a better life: his internal monologue contains enough quotable gems to keep you smiling. But it’s small quibbles such as a deliberately humiliating finale, a ghastly-looking Toni Collette (who might actually look worse and worse in each successive film) and, oh yes, a suicide attempt that sour the comedy of the film. Now, purists may argue that it simply makes the funny stuff funnier and (again) more meaningful, but for anyone looking for the next Bridget Jones’s Diary, well, it’s no breezy summer entertainment. Make no mistake, though; this is a great film, well-written and decently directed. But as far as enjoyment goes, hmm, your mileage may differ.

  • The Angel of Darkness, Caleb Carr

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ballantine, 1997, 752 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-345-42763-7

    For an author, one danger in writing a distinctive best-seller is to try to do the same thing again without innovation. Caleb Carr’s first novel, The Alienist, was a crime thriller set in late nineteenth century New York, featuring a bunch of characters doing their damnedest to catch a serial killer using revolutionary methods who just happen to be similar to the ones used today. In The Angel of Darkness, the surviving characters of the first novel are back once more to track down another killer using quasi-anachronistic methods.

    But don’t be scared away; not only are there significant differences between this novel and the first one, The Angel of Darkness is so much fun that everyone who liked The Alienist will want to take a look at the sequel.

    The biggest change in tone is that the narrator of this follow-up isn’t the cultivated journalist John Moore, but the reformed street urchin Stevie Taggert. It’s an odd choice, but a logical one given Stevie’s role is the follow-up. Stevie might not be as cynical or polished, but he’s in the middle of the story, which isn’t the case with Moore this time.

    Here, the team is hot on the trail of a child kidnapper who is eventually revealed to be a far more sinister figure. The quest takes our heroes upstate, away from Manhattan and deep in rural country where the rules are completely different. Along the way, they will also have to face some courtroom drama, some late large-scale brawling and a few new characters.

    What remains is Carr’s impeccable flair for recreating the atmosphere of the time and presumably exact historical references. The prose style is polished but unusually readable; even though the book clocks in at an impressive 750+ pages, it’s good enough that you won’t mind the occasional lengths and the lopsided drama which peaks well before the conclusion. The constant references (by way of narrator’s hindsight) to terrible events about to happen are simultaneously annoying, ominous and charming.

    The genius of The Alienist was to bring modern procedural police methods to one of the earliest possible times when it was possible to conceive and use such things, making it both a genre novel and a genre commentary. The same also applies to the second novel, as our protagonists use controversial profiling techniques and new detection techniques. Even The Alienist‘s occasional usage of historical cameos is also repeated, most notably with the inspired presence of a famous historical character as a courtroom antagonist. There’s a lot of intellectual material to digest, from sexual roles a century ago to a bit of international politics.

    The villain alone is a piece of work, a complex character whose multiple facets are fiendishly effective against our protagonists. Though one feels as if a touch too much life-history has been packed in only a few years, there’s no denying that the antagonist is more interesting than the garden-variety serial killer who starred in The Alienist.

    There’s too much familiarity with the characters exhibited here to suggest that The Angel of Darkness is a book that stands alone without the benefits of having read the prequel. But as much as The Alienist is a recommended read, The Angel of Darkness also ranks as more than a worthwhile follow-up. It’s difficult to think of a satisfied fan of the first volume who’d dislike this one.

  • Winning the Loser’s Game (Third Edition), Charles D. Ellis

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    McGraw-Hill, 1997, 142 pages, US$24.95 hc, ISBN 0-07-022010-7

    I have long been fascinated by money, and mot merely for the obvious reasons. In a world where money has been standardized as a universal exchange medium, economics are rivaling in importance with political science and sociology as a way to understand why society behaves the way it does. Where does money come from? Where does it go? Where does it accumulate? Can it be seen as a fluid or maybe even a force? How do you even begin to understand the complexities of money flow?

    Then again, as with every good citizen/consumer of our oh-so-wonderful capitalistic societies, understanding how to make money ranks only slightly below how to eat and obey traffic laws. There’s enough ranting about early retirement to make it imperative to learn how to accumulate enough money to -ironically enough- not work for the rest of your life.

    Charles D. Ellis’ Winning the Loser’s Game is a splendid investment manual, a reasoned treatise that may make almost too much sense for everyone. It’s a small book, but every single page is worth its weight in greenbacks. You don’t need to be a genius to understand this book, and the advice it provides seems appropriate for everyone. I can’t know whether it’s the ultimate investment theory, but at the moment it’s just perfect for my own level of financial savvy.

    Ellis starts by explaining the realities of modern investment. It’s not a domain where a genius can simply outperform everyone: it’s a field where thousands of equally-capable professionals are all second-guessing each other. (The metaphor here is amateur’s sport (where one tends to be scored against through luck or incompetence) versus professional sports (where players will score points, often deliberately exploiting opponent’s mistakes). Over the long run, everyone will do equally well, except for obvious mistakes. In this context, time-investing (buying low, selling high such as in commodities trading) won’t work, and neither will any scheme trying to “beat the market”. The only way is to stay in the game long enough and to avoid obvious mistakes such as panic-selling or impulsive trading.

    Winning the Loser’s Game appeals to me because it’s the ultimate antithesis of those doubtful make-money-fast “magic recipes”. It tells you to invest and forget. It explains to you through statistics why stocks aren’t such a bad idea in the long run. It drills in the notion that risk is, well, risk: higher margins to gain, higher chances to lose. It busts a few myths and teaches you the counter-intuitive logic of investing. It’s reasonable, makes as many warnings as recommendations and it written in a limpid style. Let me repeat that: A limpid style. I’ve seldom encountered a most compulsively-readable financial treatise.

    Naturally, one could make a case that in preaching faith in the overarching system and promoting long-term stock investments, Winning the Loser’s Game is a self-fulfilling instrument of capitalist thinking. If everyone followed the advice of the book, everyone would be a winner. Well, yeah. Duh.

    But Winning the Loser’s Game isn’t the soulless capitalistic textbook you might expect. Ellis spends some time discussing the significant disadvantages of leaving too much money to your children, and heavily promotes the virtues of philanthropy. It also helps that Ellis regards unethical business practices as anathema to good investment; even anti-business activists might have a hard time disagreeing with this book, if they would stoop so low as to read it.

    As for me, well, reading Winning the Loser’s Game is like attending a lecture from an advanced economics course. I’m left with nearly as many questions as before, but they’re -I think- entirely more sophisticated questions. I intend to keep the book handy and refer to it once my mortgage is paid and I get into the “Loser’s Game” myself. Hey, I’m still a third of a century away from retirement; I can take the long view he’s espousing.