Reviews

  • Keeping The Faith (2000)

    Keeping The Faith (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, November 2001) Every single Ed Norton fan in the audience, please wave your fist in the air and cheer for the guy, who not only turns in yet another great performance, but also convincingly directs his first film with Keeping The Faith. The story sounds a lot like a bad joke (“So this priest walks in a bar, tells how he and a rabbi both fell in love with the same girl…”), but the development of the tale is anything but silly. The three protagonist couldn’t be played better than by Norton, Ben Stiller and Jenna Elfman. Fortunately, they can depend on a rather good script, which not only mixes the inevitable romantic entanglement, but also includes a pretty good comparative look at both Catholics and Jews. This chameleon-like film will play well not only with religious audience of both denomination, but also with less-devout audiences. There’s something to like for everyone, from a karaoke salesman to great shots of New York. (Plus a wonderfully cool bit with our two men of faith walking in slow-motion to Santana’s “Smooth”) Funny, smart and even poignant, you’ll be hard-pressed not to enjoy Keeping The Faith.

  • K-Pax (2001)

    K-Pax (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2001) I like Kevin Spacey, but ever since he’s had his Oscar, he’s been making strange choices. I mean… Pay It Forward? Now comes K-Pax, another one of those sugary dramatic treats that Hollywood does so well. Think One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Think about that alien-comments-on-humans Starman shtick we’ve seen so many time before. Think mental-patients-are-really-sane- in-an-insane-world cliché claptrap. Better yet; don’t think, because the film bends over backward trying to make damn sure that there’s no logical solution to the problem it poses. It first tries to set up the alien hypothesis, then -through an atrociously convoluted “hypnosis” sequence- tries to build the “crazy guy” hypothesis. Naturally, by the end, we have convincing proof of both, and at the same time of neither. The film is really a showcase for Spacey (who, it is true, is rather enjoyable in the first half of the film) but beyond that, there isn’t much to like. Sure, the directing is efficient and Jeff Bridges is all right, but for those things, why don’t you rent The Big Lebowski again?

  • Heist (2001)

    Heist (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2001) David Mamet can be frustrating or entertaining, but with Heist, the emphasis is on the entertainment. 2001 has seen at least three movies about professional robbers, and Heist ends up being the film that The Score and Ocean’s Eleven so desperately tried to be. Crackling dialogue, well-defined characters and constant plot twists will bring a smile to your lips even as you recognize the usual “caper-film” structure. It all adds up to an entertaining package. It’s as gratuitously convoluted as Mamet’s previous The Spanish Prisoner, but not as annoying: you’ll hardly mind as the onscreen action unfolds in a way that would be impossible out of movies. The beauty and satisfaction of Heist over comparable movies comes mostly from the various array of clever tricks used by the thieves to con everyone including themselves. Twists, twists, twists, up to and including the final seconds. Don’t make any mistake; this isn’t a particularly noteworthy or particularly heart-felt film: you’ll recognize the mechanics and the calculations. But never mind; Heist is so entertaining that it would be a crime to dislike it.

  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone aka Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone (2001)

    Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone aka Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2001) Is it possible for a movie to be too faithful to the original novel? It’s tempting to say so while watching this first film in the Harry Potter series as the second half of the film sinks in indulgent pacing and gratuitous scenes. Indeed, the film seldom exhibits signs of snappiness or extreme originality; it’s leisurely, even conventional in pure fantasy terms. Avid fantasy readers will have “seen” all of this before. But don’t let the above deter you from considering Harry Potter 1 to be one of the best films of 2001: The technical professionalism, good dialogue and acting talent of the film more than make up for any deficiencies, and the result is a long, conventional but very good film. It’s mind candy almost all the way through! Particular recognition goes to acting wizard Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid, and newcomer Emma Watson as the irresistible Hermione. In a year where most blockbusters have fallen flat on their faces (Pearl Harbor, Tomb Raider, Planet Of The Apes, etc.), this is one hyper-hyped movie event that really does deliver.

  • The Deep End (2001)

    The Deep End (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2001) Is it an accident if motherhood and water are the two recurring themes of the film? Far from starring the usual stalwart single action hero, this thriller revolves around a harried single mother whose husband is away on naval duty. She is gradually drawn, in inimitably thrillerish fashion, in a series of increasingly criminal acts to protect her family… but then the menace starts to be seductive and everything goes wrong. Tilda Swinton cuts a sympathetic figure as the heroine, but even despite everything, the film feels a bit too forced, too calculated and definitely too slow even at 100 minutes. It’s definitely a minimalist thriller, the type that allows a few viewers to imagine themselves is similar claustrophobic circumstances. If you’ve got a long attention span, fine; otherwise, be prepared for slow stretches.

  • Citizen Kane (1941)

    Citizen Kane (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Third viewing, On DVD, November 2001) Justifiably dubbed “the best movie of all time”, Orson Welles’ masterpiece gets a lavish DVD treatment, complete with a beautifully restored print, two commentary tracks and a full-length documentary feature. Particular attention should be given to Roger Ebert’s commentary track, which will make you fall in love with the movie all over again. Even if you think you’ve seen everything about Citizen Kane, give this one a spin.

  • Chuet Sik San Tau [Martial Angels] (2001)

    Chuet Sik San Tau [Martial Angels] (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2001) Oh, the wonders of Asian cinema. Here we have an action movie starring half-a-dozen young female protagonist in what does actually sound like a Charlie’s Angels derivative. Too bad it just falls flat. To begin with, the protagonists all look like each other. Then the ho-hum plot does nothing to attract or retain interest. While there are a few good directorial flourishes and the plot finally starts to move late in the film, the overall effect is less, much less than we could have hoped for. The action scenes are merely serviceable, and so are the few laughs. Too bad, really; in an environment where men dominate the action cinescape, it’s interesting to see a film where men are either evil or fools and where the ladies are so obviously carry everything. Oh well. The opening credit sequence is cool.

  • Big Daddy (1999)

    Big Daddy (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2001) I despise Adam Sandler, I despise stupid comedies, I despise gratuitously sentimental films and at this stage of my life, you could even say that I despise kids. No surprise, then, if I found Big Daddy to be one of the most useless films I’ve seen in a while. Oh, it sort of acquires narrative inertia near the end, but for most of its duration, it’s the sort of film you don’t feel guilty ignoring. There are a few good lines, most of them not actually said by Sandler. (I liked “Oh, in retrospect it seems as if I’ve made some very bad choices after high school.”) Some will be pleased to note a complimentary reference to Canadian beer. Not an essential film by any means, nor even a worthwhile one.

  • The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000)

    The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, November 2001) A terribly frustrating movie. Not having any strong identification to the original series, I was left to ponder the film on its own merit, and… egad… It’s not that the film itself is bad, it’s that parts of it are just atrocious. The humor ranges all the way from witty to childish, with several detours though simply-not-funny. And yet, and yet, the silliness of it all somehow won me over, as it’s hard to be angry at a stupid cartoon moose.

  • Dispatches from the Tenth Circle, The Onion

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Three Rivers Press, 2001, 174 pages, C$24.00 tpb, ISBN 0-609-80834-6

    I have long been a steadfast admirer of The Onion, a devastatingly funny web humor magazine with the guts to say out loud what most of us can’t even conceive. That admiration became nothing short of worship on September 26, 2001, when The Onion was the first publication to face the 9-11-2001 tragedy with smart satire. (The “Holy F*cking Sh*t! Attack on America!” edition included such disturbing gems as “God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule”, “American Life Turns Into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie” and “Hijackers surprised To Find Selves in Hell”)

    While Dispatches from the Tenth Circle doesn’t contain post-2000 material, it represents your most accessible option to reward the good staff of The Onion: rush out to your local bookstore and pick it up, along with their previous Our Dumb Century.

    Inside, you’ll find 174 densely-packed pages of the best of The Onion over a period of a few years (roughly 1998-2000), a steady assortment of howlers and an unflinching look at today’s North-American society. There aren’t very many book out there that fully deserve their price tag, but if anything, Dispatches is a bargain even at cover cost.

    I’d classify the Onion’s shtick to be divided in four rough categories. My general favorite is the “full-blown satire” mode, with such articles as “Doritos Celebrates One Millionth Ingredient”, “South Postpones Rising Again For Yet Another Year”, “Coca-Cola Introduces New 30-Liter Size” or “Video-Game Characters Denounce Randomly Placed Swinging Blades”

    Then there are the “Ironic twist on common headlines”, such as “Supreme Court Overturns Car”, “Loved Ones Recall Local Man’s Cowardly Battle With Cancer”, “Fun Toy Banned Because Of Three Stupid Dead Kids” or “ACLU Defend Nazis’ Right To Burn Down ACLU Headquarters”

    Some of the best laughs, of course, come from the “Slice of Daily Life” features, where stupid everyday stuff somehow headline material. Who can resist “Woman Who ‘Loves Brazil’ Has Only Seen Four Square Miles Of It”, “Twelve Customers Gunned Down in Convenience-Store Clerk’s Imagination” or “Graphic Designer’s Judgment Clouded By Desire To Use New Photoshop Plug-in”?

    I’m not generally a fan of the “Other Features” of The Onion, but the “What Do You Think?” often features small gems. A few Point/Counterpoint features (“You The Man / No, You The Man!”, “My Computer Totally Hates Me! / God, Do I Hate That Bitch”) can be priceless.

    Don’t skimp out on the details, either: Some of the best lines in Dispatch are hidden on the margins. Granted, the “STATshot” features are usually lame, but you can’t beat such one-liners as “Standard Deviation Not Enough For Perverted Statistician”, “Georgia Adds Swastika, Middle Finger To State Flag” and “Artist Starving For A Reason”.

    Funny? Damn straight. Expect to laugh aloud, groan, roll your eyes and quote the book for weeks afterward.

    It’s not stupid humor, mind you. If ever you happen to be familiar with one of the subjects lampooned in The Onion, you’ll find that these guys know their stuff; it’s very, very rare to catch them using an improper reference or to make an unintentional factual mistake.

    Of course, the most seductive aspect of Dispatches is how clever it is underneath that veneer of hilarity. Pay attention, and you’ll acknowledge hidden truths about today’s world. The Onion‘s staff is not merely skilled at humor, but at social commentary. (A “vox populi” about middle-east violence includes “Maybe we should stop thinking of it as middle-eastern conflict and start thinking of it as middle-eastern culture.” Ouch.)

    Needless to say, Dispatches from the Tenth Circle is highly recommended. It makes a great gift, and should provide you with enough quotable/photocopiable material for a while. Don’t you dare miss it, nor any of The Onion’s other collections. Needless to say, you can always go to http://www.theonion.com/ for your weekly fix.

  • Lunar Descent, Allen Steele

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace, 1991, 325 pages, C$5.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-441-50485-X

    All too often, catching up on an author’s entire oeuvre is an exercise akin to completing a puzzle. You’ll read the most available/important/distinctive works first, then work your way to, eventually, the rest of the picture. Whenever you do complete your work, though, you might find out that the smaller pieces illuminate something unexpected in the panorama.

    So it was that I began to read Allen Steele with his ninth book, and gradually worked my way to the rest of them in time. With Lunar Descent, Steele’s third novel, I finally put in the missing puzzle piece, and it all forms an interesting portrait.

    Orbital Decay was about a semi-rebellion among workers building a space station. Clarke County, Space was about a semi-rebellion among residents of a space station. Lunar Descent… is about a semi-rebellion among workers on the moon. Okay, so the details differ (Clarke County, Space isn’t about the rebellion, though it happens shortly after in the same timeline and Lunar Descent is about a strike action), but at this stage we’re merely playing with words. Suffice to say that some recurring themes do figure pro-eminently in Steele’s fiction.

    The style, too, has similarities. Most of his novel are built around straight-ahead prose supplemented by other forms of writing; interviews, oral testimonies, media articles, etc…

    Both of the above similarities, make sense when you know about Steele’s background as an investigative journalist before he started writing SF full-time. It’s no accident if he’s one of the most liberal SF writers in the business. His blue-collar characters like to have chemically-influenced fun, disrespect authority and do the job their pointy-haired managers have assigned them.

    The protagonists of Lunar Descent are no exception. Our “moondogs” are the few, the brave, the proud men and women mining ore on the moon for the Solar Power Satellite projects back on Earth Orbit. Think about those hard-workin’ oil rig personnel and you’ll have a fair idea of their mindset. Sure, they get high and mean from time to time, but -wink, wink- work hard, play hard, right?

    Apparently, the evil corporate villains of Steele’s fiction don’t think so, and before long they tighten the screws on operations, replacing half the personnel, finding a wholly unsuitable station manager, clamping down on “non-essential” imports and generally doing everything in their power to be completely unlikable. Boo! Hiss! Fight da power!

    So our guys strike, and unfortunately, their evil managers declare their SPS work crucial to national economic indicators, and send in the space marines to quell the rebellion. So it’s exoskeleton-boosted marines against weaponless marines. Who will win? Well, yeah, but not in the way you’d expect, fortunately.

    All and all, even though we’d seen this before, Lunar Descent is a success because of its likable characters, the vivid description of life in a workplace 300,000 kilometers away, the snappy writing and the good humor with which Steele nails down the essential details. Some stuff doesn’t ring true (why is it, for instance, that characters born in the 80s or 90s will always be fascinated by the same classic-rock enjoyed by the author? Hmm.) and Steele’s usual biases make the action predictable at times, but no matter; here’s another solid hard-SF book well worth your time and money. Lunar Descent is what the SF mid-list is all about.

  • First Contract, Greg Costikyan

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2000, 287 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-54549-4

    You would think that more than a hundred years after H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, Science-Fiction would have managed to come up with every single imaginable twist on the “First Alien Contact” scenario. And yet here’s First Contract, a refreshing take on the subject that will make you smile in amusement even as it describes the complete economic collapse of Earth.

    The hook is simple: Aliens descend on Earth, say “hi!” and propose a small trade; a copy of the galactic encyclopedia in return for the low-low price of, say, Jupiter. Before anyone can scream out “REMEMBER MANHATTAN!”, the deal is done and humans are stuck with a set of UN-controlled data files that no one can figure out. Meanwhile, aliens set up shop on the planet and destroy most of our industries by offering better products. The resulting economic catastrophe makes the depression of the Thirties look like a trifle.

    I won’t pretend that this type of scenario has never been explored before in SF (who knows what might have been published in “Analog”, not to mention Costikyan’s own seed novella, “Sales Reps From the Stars”), but it’s certainly not a common spin, and the style with which it’s explored deserves mention.

    In many ways, this is a novel that should have been published by Baen Books. The glorification of market forces, the deep and thorough knowledge of economic drivers, the quasi-encyclopedic knowledge of past historical precedent all bring to mind the usual Baen potboiler. But no, surprise, this is a Tor book… Jim Baen must be kicking himself.

    The story takes the form of a narrative by Johnson Mukerjii, initially a hard-working high-tech CEO whose business, marriage and life are irremediably destroyed by the aliens. Before long, he’s huddled underneath a bridge, plotting his revenge. Mukerjii makes a perfect narrator, his lively wit illuminating the dry exposition passages he must dish out throughout the story. Hey, it works; expect to know a lot more about stock markets, financial statements and trade shows by the end of First Contract. Heck, the novel will even make you understand how third-world countries have to behave in light of rich-nations imperialism.

    It’s worth repeating that even though the novel deals with heavy-duty economic SF theory, it’s never dull or difficult; Costikyan vulgarizes quite well, and if the novel isn’t all hilariously funny, it’ll leave a quasi-permanent grin on your face while you’re reading it. Which isn’t as straining as you might think; you’ll probably end up reading this book in a single sitting.

    Dig a bit deeper and, of course, you’ll find here a deep and knowing satire on corporatism and the new feudalism. Or is it? Costikyan understands his subject so well that it can play both ways. Certainly the last few pages of the book take the Wal-Mart philosophy of retail (and supply) to its logical galactic extreme… and if that’s not satire, well, I’m ready to send back my SF-Critic’s license.

    It helps, of course, that the book is a throwback to the plucky-humans-über-alles philosophy of so much golden-age SF. Despite being technologically pounded, economically colonized and spiritually destroyed, humanity -through our stalwart hero- finds a way to make a good deal. We haven’t conquered back the universe by the last page, but it’s obvious that we’re on our way and it’s only a matter of time. Say what you want about self-image and wish-fulfillment, but that type of attitude usually earns a bonus point or two in my ratings.

    I wasn’t so taken by the last two pages, which seem a lot like a gratuitous extra spin than a knock-out ending. (Cut it, and the true ending sentence is much funnier. You better believe they’d ship on time.)

    But taken as a whole, First Contract ranks as one of the best SF novels of 2000, a unique blend of big business and alien invasion. Cleverly imagined, compulsively readable and constantly amusing, this is a book that should please a wide array of readers. Don’t miss it.

  • Die Hard [Nothing Lasts Forever], Roderick Thorp

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ivy, 1979 (1988 reprint), 232 pages, C$6.95 mmpb, ISBN 0-8401-0229-5

    You remember DIE HARD? Bruce Willis stuck in a skyscraper with terrorists? Alan Rickman as the bad guy with a weird European accent? “Yippey-Ka-Yay”? The hero throwing himself down the roof with a fire hose attached to his waist? Exploding helicopter? Glass shards embedded in foot? “I now have a machine-gun, ho-ho-ho?” One of the best action movies ever?

    Of course you remember DIE HARD. Everyone does. It’s a bona-fide modern film classic. It’s worth viewing every Christmas.

    But what you probably don’t remember is that the film is based upon a novel, Roderick Thorp’s Nothing Lasts Forever. And what you really don’t know is how much the film improves upon the book.

    Oh, it’s obvious that the two works are connected. In both cases, one lone man dispatches a busload of terrorists inside a high-rise building. The various action beats of the film are generally original to the screenplay, though the same general locations (elevator shaft, executive suite, roof) are used. The dramatic arc is identical, gradually mowing down through enemy ranks up to the final mano-a-mano showdown. But even with similar premises, the differences can be dramatic.

    Most significantly, the protagonist of Nothing Lasts Forever is nothing like Bruce Willis. Joe Leland (not John McClane) is a sixty-something man, an ex-New York detective with a clouded past, a wrong-man-condemned affair presumably stemming from a previous novel. He’s divorced, slightly bitter and not really prone to wisecracks. The author doesn’t wait a long time before using his alter-ego to fulfill deep wishes; barely twenty-five pages in the novel, Leland’s get a date with a woman nearly half his age. Creepier: the damsel-in-distress in the novel is the daughter of the protagonist rather than his wife.

    Where it gets interesting, though, is in the tone shift from novel to screenplay. Whereas the book is dark and nasty, the film is joyful and uplifting. Antagonist-wise, we go from political terrorists to high-tech robbers. Thorp intended to write a “serious” thriller; Screenwriter Stephen de Souza, coached by producer Joel Silver, obviously meant to sketch a mass-market blockbuster. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the conclusion of the novel, in which not only does Leland learns that his daughter is up to no good (P.207-208: “’Klaxon Oil has promised to supply the Chilean fascist regime with arms… Your daughter is one of the principals in this illegal transfer of weapons.”) but she actually dies, dragged outside the skyscraper’s 32nd floor by the corpse of the lead terrorist as he’s shot by the protagonist. Talk about a downer!

    But outside the obvious cheer of DIE HARD’s revised ending, the clean mechanics of the film contrasted to the often-muddled structure of the book clearly illustrate what a good cinematographic adaptation should be. The temporal unity of the action is tightened: The film ends at dawn while the novel drags on until nearly eleven AM. The film squeezes in an early ironic confrontation between hero and villain. Comparing both versions, the film comes out as a leaner, more focused work, a pure thrill machine unburdened by any higher aspiration, yet more effective because it doesn’t dwell on whatever issues bugged the novelist. Compare and contrast Leland’s internal monologue about women in positions of authority versus DIE HARD’s elegant watch symbolism and you’ll see for yourself.

    That’s not even touching upon the things that film can do better than prose. While the jumping-off-roof, breaking-window, being-dragged-by-falling-hose scene is in both the book and the novel, the written version seems limp and lacking in energy compared to the taut filmed sequence.

    In the end, Nothing lasts Forever is an average novel turned in a superior film, a book more interesting as an origin piece than a work by itself. Worth a look for fans of the film who want to understand why it’s so good.

  • Zoolander (2001)

    Zoolander (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, October 2001) Some comedies act a lot like mirrors, reflecting to us our own attitudes toward the film. If, say, you expect Zoolander to be dumb, well, it will be. If you expect it to be clever, it’ll be clever. It’s one of those stupid comedies by clever people, so deeper levels of comedy are available if ever the surface slapstick isn’t for you. As a spoof of the modeling world, it certainly reaches its target with the character of vacuous Derek Zoolander. Ben Stiller is as good as always as an actor and his directing skills are adequate for the job. A ton of cameos complete the fun, the best one of the bunch probably being David Bowie (Tam-tam-tadam-tam!) There are a few lengthier moments in the second half as the plot dynamics are advanced. (Of course, the best laughs come in the throwaway pieces in the first half.) Not a memorable film, but one that’ll lift your spirits on a depressing day. As long as you allow it to do so.

  • Training Day (2001)

    Training Day (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, October 2001) Ironically enough, this film about the corruption of a young police officer is also gradually perverted by the stupid plot mechanics of Hollywood thrillers. Unfortunately, unlike the protagonist this film gets no redemption by the end. Oh, it starts promisingly enough: Our clean-cut hero (Ethan Hawke) is happy as a puppy to join the drug-enforcement unit of a renowned officer, but his first day on the job proves to be much harder than he expected. For one thing, officer Alonzo (magnificently played against type by Denzel Washington) isn’t one for protocol or slavish admiration. For another, well, he seems as violent and ruthless as the criminals he’s fighting. By the time he tricks our stalwart law-enforcement representative in smoking PCP-laced pot, we’re deep in issues of justice versus law and the means required to enforce whatever ends are sought. It’s fascinating stuff, filmed in dirty gritty style. “Are you a wolf or a sheep?” taunts bad-dude Washington as the audience is willing to follow him wherever he wants to go. Alas, the film teeters too long between the two choices, and the inevitable conclusion mishandles everything. The fate of the protagonist, for instance, depends on a jaw-dropping coincidence, the type of thing that must either be foreshadowed hours in advance or simply re-written past the first draft. Then we go on to an unbelievable pair of confrontations. Finally, bad-guy Russians swoop on the film like plot devices and neatly tie up a dangling ending, because audiences would rather see the sheep win. Terribly unsatisfying, but the film is still worth a look if only to see Denzel Washington give a textbook-worthy charismatic bad-guy performance.