Reviews

  • Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

    Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, December 2000) A fantasy game movie adaptation filmed in Eastern Europe on a low-low-low budget. If at this point you’re not expecting total trash, you haven’t been paying attention. And, for the first ten minute, Dungeons & Dragons seems to deliver exactly what we’re expecting: Pretentious and confusing voiceover, choppy editing, uneven directing, embarrassing overacting, awful dialogues… it’s all there. But, at the ten-minute mark (as the young female mage lassoes the two thieves), something quite remarkable happens, and the film suddenly becomes entertaining in a good way, almost shamelessly daring us to have fun with it. The quality of the writing improves dramatically, the jokes fly and the direction is handled with the appropriate amount of fun. For slightly more than half an hour, we’re plunged in the heart of “Dungeons & Dragons”: Saving the world while having good fun with friends. (Around the kitchen table, with an unhealthy supply of chips and soft drinks) Alas, that fun is dashed at mid-film as soon as a main character is killed. Then the film turns somber, dour, boring and, yes, pretentious. The political scenes are naive, the overacting gets worse, Thora Birch looks like a china doll tarted up to look like a cheap Amidala ripoff and not even a liberal injection of special effects can save the film from the disappointing finale. Not a good film by any means, but at least there’s a decent stretch somewhere.

  • Dr. T & the Women (2000)

    Dr. T & the Women (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, December 2000) This might be a rather impressive misfire, but at least Dr. T & the Women can boast one of the most descriptive title of the year. There’s the plot in a nutshell, how a gynaecologist (Richard Gere, in a fairly good role) deals with the woman in both his professional and personal lives. I’m not sure if the screenwriter actually lives on this planet (Woman looking forward to their visit to the gynecologist? I’m no expert on the subject, but that’s news to me.) but it’s clear that s/he’s got no skill writing comedy: Despite the potential of the film’s elements, it falls singularly short of exploiting its own quirkiness. (At one point, I kept hoping for Dr. T. to say “My wife’s a nut, my sister-in-law’s an alcoholic, my lesbian daughter is getting married to a guy, my secretary’s hitting on me and the most normal member of my family is a conspiracy theorist!”) lot of missed opportunities, slow pacing, implausible situations (even for a Robert Altman film) and a truly awful ending which doesn’t resolve anything. But don’t think that I didn’t enjoy the film, flaws and all. The star-studded cast is impressive in itself, there’s some welcome female nudity and if you don’t know the ending you can kid yourself in being interested in how worse the plot threads can get for the intrepid Dr. T. Kudos to my sister for uncovering a subtle interpretation of the film, as she maintains that it’s Dr. T. himself who’s responsible for the nuttiness of the women around him. All in all, a film that’s worthwhile almost despite itself.

  • Back to the Moon, Homer J. Hickam

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Island, 1999, 494 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-440-23538-3

    There are thrillers and then there are superthrillers.

    Thrillers are usually adequate beach reading, stories of evil conspiracies, military skirmishes or criminal affairs. They feature ordinary characters, plot puppets moved by an author writing as fast as he can to ship off the manuscript to his editor and make up payments on his mortgage. Thrillers are entertaining, but not much more; most of them will be undistinguishable only a few weeks after closing the last page. Thrillers abound on the shelves of your local bookstore; just pick’em up and you get instant entertainment.

    Superthrillers, on the other hand, are another thing entirely. They are, most noticeably, bigger. Bigger in terms of scope and ambition, not necessarily in terms of stakes or length. They go to fascinating places we’ve never seen before, display prodigious amounts of well-integrated details, involve original gadgets and ideas, feature Cool Scenes and end on a succession of ever-more exciting thrills. Super-thrillers are thrillers that are a magnitude over and above what we can expect from a normal thriller. And Back to the Moon fits this description perfectly.

    Oh, it doesn’t start that way. The first hundred pages are fun but oddly reminiscent of other thrillers, as it looks like terrorists are getting ready to take over a shuttle flight. The fun starts when things go wrong and the “terrorists” explain their mission and their motives.

    Like other superthrillers, Back to the Moon takes risks that might doom it to failure. It uses Cold War weaponry hidden at an unlikely place, a last-minute revelation, a secret conspiracy to control nations and reckless opponents willing to combine unlimited means with inexistent morals to stop the protagonist. Not all of these work perfectly (one last-minute revelation smacks of desperation; the secret conspiracy seems stolen from the X-Files) but they do bring extra interest to a novel that already have more than enough to sustain a quick read.

    When Back to the Moon works, it works extremely well. The various battles keep on getting better and better, the power alliances keep shifting and reforming in every-threatening configurations, the hardware is ingenious, the technical details are convincing without being overwhelming and the characters are well-defined. In fact, the novel even manages to create an impressive sentimental moment three-quarter way through. It had been a long while since I’ve had a lump in my throat while reading a thriller.

    This confessed, it must be said that Return to the Moon will work best on an readership of space nuts, technical enthusiasts and science-fiction fans. The same audience that loved the film OCTOBER SKY (itself a dramatization of Hickam’s teenhood autobiography Rocket Boys) will respond most favorably to the novel’s none-too-subtle pro-space propaganda.

    But keeping aside the thematic goals of the novel, Return to the Moon delivers the goods in terms of entertainment. Readers lucky enough to get a copy of this book will turn the pages faster and faster as the action heats up. Homer J. Hickam vaults within the ranks of the best thriller writers with his first novel, and his next is eagerly awaited.

  • Cecil B. Demented (2000)

    Cecil B. Demented (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, December 2000) Very uneven satire of the Hollywood movie industry. Though John Waters is revered for his irreverence, Cecil B. Demented seems more like a half-hearted routine satire than a definitive statement on the industry. The best part of the film, aside from some great lines (“Patch Adams doesn’t deserve a director’s cut! It’s long enough as it is!”) is the endearingly kooky troupe of guerrilla filmmakers characters. They promise a much stronger film than what is ultimately presented here, as their innate interest is trampled by a script that simply goes through the motions. The low production values often show and hamper some scenes. The conclusion feels forced and somewhat immature. Film buffs, needless to say, will get much more out of the film than the “average moviegoers” that Cecil B. Demented is lambasting. Worth a rental whenever you’re at the video store and can’t stomach yet another syrupy Hollywood product.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, January 2021) I was curious to revisit Cecil B. Demented after twenty years of film education, now that I can reliably recognize the directors whose names are referenced by the band of cinematic rebels at the heart of the film. The plot is simple enough, as movie outlaws kidnap a Hollywood star in order to force her to star in their guerilla-style production. The real point of the film is to allow writer-director John Waters to rail against the worst aspects of circa-2000 Hollywood (which have only been magnified twenty years later), with blatant messages inserted in the mouths of its speaking characters. It’s surprisingly fun, especially at first: This isn’t meant to be a polished or subtle production, and the rough-hewn charm of its explicit message is part of the film’s entertainment. Cecil B. Demented’s first half, in particular, is quite a bit of fun: Stephen Dorff leads an adorable bunch of misfits, each of them identifying as a rebellious director in cinema history. There’s some serious fun in seeing a young Maggie Gyllenhaal as a Satanist, or an equally baby-faced Michael Shannon as a gay driver. The first half of the film is heavy on jokes and comic wackiness, and stands above the second half, as Waters doesn’t seem to have as good a conclusion in mind for his crew. The deaths pile up, the jokes become cheaper, the suspension of disbelief snaps. Perhaps the film does itself a disservice by being insufficiently caricatural—there’s a clash between Waters’s wilder ideas and gritty cinematography of the film that keeps bringing the film back in the real world where it doesn’t belong. The conclusion seems engineered to be unsatisfying, perhaps betraying the corner in which Waters wrote himself in taking potshots—his rebels aren’t created to have a happy ending. Still, I had a bit of fun in watching Cecil B. Demented now that I can better appreciate where it’s coming from—but it’s not anywhere near to fulfilling its potential.

  • Cast Away (2000)

    Cast Away (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, December 2000) The middle section of this film is nearly an actor’s dream: to be featured alone, without co-stars, for nearly an hour. It’s a testament to the talents of Tom Hanks that Cast Away is able to do so without boring the audience. It is the film’s biggest asset, but unfortunately almost its only one. The beginning of the film is snappy enough (pausing only to establish the required scenes of romantic interest), followed by a pretty good airplane crash: as always, Robert Zemeckis is a competent technician and knows how to film complex setups like these. The island sequence is far more interesting than expected, even though it’s regrettable that the evolution of the character is simply glossed over by a title card. The third act of the film is by far the most unsatisfying, with a rushed conclusion that can’t avoid its built-in limitations and doesn’t go much further than the obvious. Audiences with room-temperature IQ will have recognized the film’s final shot from the tell-all trailer anyway. Cast Away remains a good enough film and a splendid actor showcase, but it never really exploits its theme to the fullest.

  • Best In Show (2000)

    Best In Show (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, December 2000) Mock documentary about dog, shows and owners. It takes time to heat up, as the characters and their dogs are all introduced one after another and we warm up to their various eccentricities. The film finally reaches his peak with the arrival of Fred Willard as a loud-mouthed sports commentator hilariously stuck describing the workings of a dog show to an unfamiliar audience. The overall plot is easy to guess, what with arrogance being punished and the little guys overcoming all tribulations, but in no way does this take away from the overall fun of Best In Show, one of the overlooked gems of the year.

  • Almost Famous (2000)

    Almost Famous (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, December 2000) Cameron Crowe strikes me as a writer/director with interesting things to say, but not always as successful in actually delivering a coherent finished product. Jerry Maguire seemed to invent plot difficulties in thin air and if Almost Famous is a more accomplished film, it does seems forced at times. (That it is “based on a true story” is a feeble defense for structural flaws. If you’re going to invent Stillwater, it would have been justified to boost the dramatic content of their struggles, who here appear rather underwhelming.) This being said, Almost Famous is a tremendously enjoyable film, which will undoubtedly work wonders on members of the generation depicted in the film. Younger viewers won’t feel as concerned. Some funny scenes, some poignant moments and some astute lines (destined to be quoted for years to come; “You do not make friends with the rock stars.”) all mix up, as with Jerry Maguire, to deliver a film that will please many different audiences at the risk of feeling somewhat unfocused itself.

    (Second viewing, On DVD, August 2002) I’m not sure if it’s because of the 35 minutes of extra footage, my own more reasonable expectations or the great commentary track, but Untitled (the “bootleg” director’s cut of Almost Famous) seems far more compelling than the original film. In many ways, this is a film best seen at home rather than in theaters; not only does in now clock at 160+ minutes, but it is far moodier and closer to its characters, which might play better in a small context. Acting credits are excellent across the board, especially with Kate Hudson, whose performance seems more remarkable here than in the shorter cut. The DVD edition offers several extras, the most unique being the long (ten minutes) “Stairway to Heaven” deleted scene which requires you to play along. Also included is a short “Stillwater” audio CD as well as a wonderful audio commentary with not only director Cameron Crowe (whose loosely adapted teenage years formed the nucleus for the film), but also his mother, who proves to be as formidable a character as Frances McDormand’s film depiction. What else can I say, besides strongly recommending it?

  • Fatal Terrain, Dale Brown

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Putnam, 1997, 448 pages, C$33.95 hc, ISBN 0-399-14241-X

    When do you say enough is enough?

    When do you start giving up on formerly-good authors, despite repeated substandard works, an overall feel of staleness and, frankly, a lack of fun in their latest novels? What’s “giving them another chance”; buying in used bookshops, tracking down cheap paperback copies, loaning at the library?

    Dale Brown drove me to these questions with Fatal Terrain, the limp follow-up to Shadows of Steel, an already lifeless military thriller several notches below his earlier efforts. As Brown desperately tried to interest me in Chinese politics, I felt more fascinated by the mechanisms driving a formerly exciting author to mediocre output than with the actual plot of the novel.

    So here is, in a few easy steps according to the Dale Brown corpus, how to become a has-been author.

    One: Start your career with a few good books. That’s essential to become a disappointment, otherwise you’re just a mediocre author who keeps on churning trash. Dale Brown started his career with gripping high-concept novels such as Silver Tower, Hammerheads and what probably remains his career high, Day of the Cheetah. Good fun, fast reads, good characters. At that point, the sky wasn’t even the limit for Brown.

    Two: Settle in a routine. If you managed to invent a few original gadgets and characters, just keep re-using them until you’ve squeezed out all interest, and then keep using them some more. Brown had an fascinating gadget in his first novel; a high-tech, refurbished B-52 capable of almost all military feats. (A natural wish for an ex-B-52 crewmember like Brown) While its use was integral to Flight of the Old Dog and justified in Night of the Hawk, it became ridiculous to see Brown apply his “magic toy” over and over again in his latest novels. Snap out of it, Dale, and that also stands for the characters you so lovingly fleshed out in the first novels: Now that the readers know everything about them, stop propping them up one more time whether it’s credible or not.

    Three: Try to adjust your universe to fit the real-world. This works especially well if your earlier novels are wildly implausible. In Day of the Cheetah, a Soviet traitor pilot hijacks a thought-driven experimental plane and flies it to a Central-America country that is subsequently bombed by the Americans… in 1996. That’s fine when your novel dates from 1988, but not as fine when your latest novel maintains that it all happened, while trying to integrate increasingly realistic real-world elements in the plotline… The Brownverse should diverge, not converge with the real world. (Also see the latest works of Tom Clancy for a further example.)

    Four: Downgrade your writing and make it less interesting and far more verbose while ignoring sustained plotting. Whereas Brown’s earlier novels were snappy, exciting, well-paced entertainment, his latest novels seem built around two or three key action scenes each requiring dozens of pages of laborious setup. Whereas his earlier novels moved quickly to the action, his latest are dogged down with useless techno-speak in an unconvincing effort to add more realism. It’s not only tedious, it’s exasperating.

    Five: Stick with one plot, book after book. So… hmm… American interests are threatened and foreign forces led by evil generals attack and all hope is lost until one lone high-tech plane comes in and bombs them all away! Sounded good for Flight of the Old Dog. Sounded increasingly worse for Skymasters, Chains of Command, Shadows of Steel and now his latest.

    Fatal Terrain is the culmination of these threads, a limp “thriller” that spends too much time setting up and justifying battles than actually describing them. Only a significant character point and one neat concept (the underground airfields) save the book from total failure. As it is, the only thing driving me to read Brown’s subsequent book, The Tin Man, is the promise that it’s based on something totally different. Hey, wish me luck.

  • The Armageddon Rag, George R.R. Martin

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Pocket, 1983, 399 pages, C$19.95 hc, ISBN 0-671-47526-6

    To youngsters like myself, born in the latter quarter of this century, the mindset and attitudes of the “sixties” are either ridiculous or alien. Granted, an impressive fraction of the values pioneered in that decade has endured and even entered mainstream society (often through unusual means, such as the philosophies underlying the Internet as we know it), but digging back through the easy clichés of the period, we find a movement that simply appears too strange to have been real. Free sex, communes, political riots, anticipation of a revolution, drug advocacy… no wonder the United States were so screwed up during these years.

    Those were excessive years, and the return to the norm has been harder on some than most. Still, unless someone explains those years to us, the younger generation will miss out on a decade of experiences that could be useful to learn.

    That’s what George R.R. Martin does in The Armageddon Rag, cleverly disguising it as a crime thriller with supernatural overtones. You may be fooled into thinking that it’s just a very good novel set in the early-eighties music industry, but it’s really a recapitulation of a generation, with some nostalgia and a lot of style.

    The Armageddon Rag begins by hooking us as a good crime thriller: Sandy Blair, novelist in creative crisis, receives a phone call about the death of a rock promoter. But not just any promoter; the ex-manager of the Nazgûl, the best rock band of the sixties. And not just any death, but a gruesome murder with plenty of evidence to suggest that it was done by someone with a thorough knowledge of the band…

    Before long, Sandy has chucked it all: The expensive Manhattannite girlfriend, the assorted apartment and the creative crisis, all for an article on the murder. But as he progresses further, not only does the events surrounding the murder get stranger and stranger, but Sandy is drawn further back in his own past sixties, filled as they were by rebellion, violence and barely suppressed pain.

    All and all, the plot is a rather good excuse to systematically revisit the sixties through various archetypical characters. Sandy himself is the observer turned pro, the ex-journalist now novelist. Other friends haven’t fared so well: One revolutionary turned ad executive, another still living in an increasingly silly commune, another stuck in mental constructs far more restrictive, another turned college teacher, another (draft dodger) now claimed mentally ill by his domineering father… All facets of the children of the sixties, morphed by latter events.

    Before long, we’re (maybe) deep in a supernatural plot to unleash demonic forces on the world. Or maybe not; it’s that type of novel. But the ambiguity isn’t too terribly frustrating.

    It’s all quite fascinating, and unusually readable too. Martin is, after all, a Nebula and Hugo-winning pro, and The Armageddon Rag sucks you right in, holds you tightly thanks to some good plotting and doesn’t disappoint through the ending. Characters are sharply defined, the style is brisk and the details are telling. The music-related details are well done, bringing in evocative rock concert descriptions, believable lyrics and an overall feeling of authenticity.

    Best of all, The Armageddon Rag doesn’t really show its age, whether it’s thirteen years after initial publication or thirty years after the main period of interest. Musically, it’s easy for a modern reader to imagine Nazgûl as sounding more or less like Rage Against the Machine on a good day. As far as the “spirit of the sixties” is concerned, it works rather well at presenting a particular point in time and the mindset associated with it, even though the concept of a “revolution” nowadays will be cause for more giggles than nods of approval.

    It’s hard not to like this novel, both for what’s it’s saying and how it’s saying it. It’s a gripping read, and should appeal to a wide readership, whether or not the individuals were there during the sixties or not. Rock and roll will never die!

  • The Way Of The Gun (2000)

    The Way Of The Gun (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2000) As this film was written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who also penned The Usual Suspects, you could have expected a good crime thriller done with wit and effectiveness. The end result is not as satisfying: First mistake is to depend on two singularly boring small-time criminals as protagonists. (Which shouldn’t be interpreted as a dismissal of the good acting by Ryan Phillippe and Benicio Del Toro) Second mistake is the languid pacing, which allowed me to doze off twenty minutes without missing a single important plot point. Third mistake is a weak conclusion that neither surprises nor satisfies. Add to that the manipulative use of a pregnant woman, uniformly unlikable characters, pretentious narration of the criminal-thinks-deep-thoughts type, boring gunfights and you get a below-average thriller with nothing special.

  • True Romance (1993)

    True Romance (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2000) The first time I tried to watch this film on TV, I drifted off fifteen minutes later, distracted by housework. This time, stuck in a second-run movie theater, I had no choice but to keep on watching, and I must that that the end result isn’t bad at all. A lot of famous names and faces (including one good sequence between ever-dependable Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper) plus an odd script from the pen of Quentin Tarantino, built around only a few sequences that last a long time each. Some surprises, a good action finale and crunchy dialogue make up for ridiculous plot development seemingly lifted from teenage fantasies and a roster of largely unsympathetic characters.

  • 01-01-00®, R.J. Pineiro

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1999, 406 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-56871-0

    Being a book reviewer is best left to the intrepid. While the best part of the job is being able to rave about an under-appreciated gem, there are other, less pleasant aspects to the profession. Horrors lurk in libraries, unimaginable atrocities waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting readers. It’s my job, as a reviewing-kind-of-guy, to warn you against these… things. Make no mistake, the life of a reviewer is always intense!

    So today, I have to warn you against 01-01-00®. To be fair, any sufficiently attentive buyer won’t need the advice of book reviewers to put down the book and run away. The title alone contains two serious danger signals.

    The first one is, of course, the reference to Y2K. (Pineiro’s previous book, unimaginatively enough, was also called Y2K.) It’s already hard to recall, but the late nineties were filled with schlocko thrillers built on the semi-mystical century switch, with almost uniformly atrocious results. I suppose we should be grateful for that opportunity to come up with a technological rationalization for the end-of-the-world boogieman, but somehow I can’t bring myself to it. At least we’ve had the opportunity to knock down (with a mallet) every seal-cub-like author who hasn’t resisted the lure of the buzzword. Like Mr. Pineiro. Onward.

    The second warning signal contained in the title is the ® so thoughtfully appended to 01-01-00®. Call me old-fashioned, but I think that artistic endeavors should be as far apart from marketing as possible. By the time a title is registered, it’s time to pack it up and go home. (Are you listening, Clive “Dirk Pitt®” Cussler?) Digging deeper in the novel’s foreword, it turns out that 01-01-00® is a registered trademark to another guy, who ended up licensing it to Pineiro. Or the reverse. Or the inverse. Whatever. If you think that ®egiste®ing an a®®angement of bina®y symbols and dashes is a good idea, then 01-01-00® and you dese®ve each othe®.

    It gets worse as the novel opens. A hacker brings down Washington’s traffic system, causing (very indirectly) a speeding mother to have an car accident, fall down a cliff and kill the rest of her family. Bad driving? Yep. Bad luck? Sure, but when said mother becomes a super-computer-cop for the express single purpose to catch the hacker who did that to her, well, that’s got to rank fairly high in the top-ten misguided character motivation list.

    Such psychological howlers are common throughout the book, with perhaps the best one left for the end: The protagonist gets a moment of “total empathy” with the world, and sees “how a vagrant killed himself following [her] stoplight speech about getting a job and not being a bum.” [P.397] Obviously, Pineiro doesn’t have much of a clue about the psychology of the homeless, or vastly overestimates the persuasive powers of his heroine.

    I’ll leave out the technological funnies inserted here and there; that’s too much of an easy target. I’ll just point out that in 01-01-00® Pineiro mixes aliens, Y2K bug, emasculated terrorists, new-age feel-good philosophy, all-powerful computer viruses, perfunctory romance and the Mayan calendar with barely an self-critical eye toward all of it, or even a cursory nod toward Pope Gregor’s calendar reforms.

    Bad doesn’t begin to cover it, but “boring when not funny” will do the job. As a book critic, I have to slog through all of this crap so that you don’t have to, so if ever I am to do a single good action with these reviews, please don’t read 01-01-00®. Ever. Trash it if it’s in your to-read pile and don’t ever buy it if it’s not.

    Chances are that most copies have been pulped anyway. Who the hell wants to read a Y2K book now?

  • Sunset Blvd. (1950)

    Sunset Blvd. (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, November 2000) There’s a reason this film is often called a classic: Great script, archetypical characters, unconventional plotting and crunchy dialogue. Narration has quite possibly never been done this well ever since. Surprisingly enough, modern films have stolen a lot from Sunset Boulevard: The style of L.A. Confidential, lines from Cecil B. Demented, clichés from Hollywood exposés (“I’m still big; it’s the pictures that got smaller”), scenes from countless parodies… It’s a testimony to the impact of the film. Granted, Hollywood loves talking about itself, and that might explain Sunset Boulevard‘s enduring reputation, but the film itself is rather good. Not only a good story, but also a courageous film, with its willingness to go beyond the star system while simultaneously starring some personalities as themselves (Cecil B. Demille, Buster Keaton, a Warner brother, etc…) Wow.

    (On Cable TV, September 2021) For years, Sunset Boulevard was one of the few “classic Hollywood” films reviewed on this site, and this first viewing certainly reflects the perspective of someone unfamiliar with vintage filmmaking. Revisiting the same film after a few thousand black-and-white movies is certainly interesting, because I’m not seeing the same thing. I now hail the greatness of writer-director Billy Wilder, I’m aware of Gloria Swanson’s silent film stardom, I like William Holden, and I can recognize on sight such notables as Eric von Stronheim, Hedda Hopper, Fritz Lang and Buster Keaton. It’s easier to see the film noir influences (even if the film itself is a very different take on film noir), easier to catch the Hollywood in-jokes, and easier to appreciate the deceptive simplicity of the film’s structure. In other areas, however, the film simply feels as fresh as ever: The script is deliciously good, mixing a strong narration (from a dead man’s perspective, no less) with a carefully gradated escalation in the film’s intensity. It does a very fine job at balancing the outrageous, sometimes macabre drama with quips from the protagonist – and while the overall story remained in mind from a first viewing, I had forgotten some of the finer, more subtle moments, such as when the narrator allows himself to become manipulated by the older woman. Hollywood was roughly forty years old when Sunset Boulevard was released, and in the grand perspective, you can see this middle-age-crisis film being part of its evolution – reflecting on an earlier era, and making a good movie out of it. (Singin’ in the Rain would be released the following year.)  I thoroughly enjoyed my second viewing of the film – knowing more about Hollywood does make the result even more remarkable.

  • The 6th Day (2000)

    The 6th Day (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2000) The nineties have been a rough decade for superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not only has no one learned how to spell his last name right, but he’s gone from career highs (1990’s Total Recall, 1994’s True Lies and most famously 1991’s Terminator 2) to mega-bombs (1993’s underrated The Last Action Hero), pathetic comedies (from Kindergarten Cop to Jingle All The Way) and severely average action pictures (Eraser and End Of Days). The 6th Day isn’t much of an improvement over most of his 90s output, but at least it’s better than End Of Days. Here, we get two Arnolds for the price of one, as we delve in an ambitious future marked by cloning. It’s not all that successful, but it works rather well, isn’t as completely routine as you’d think it would be and provides one or two good concepts. The actions scenes are okay, though they seem almost dated. (Note to screenwriters: To be clever, hip and postmodern, it’s not enough to have a character say to another “Cool, a car chase!”) Faint praise, but not every film has to be exceptional. A decent enough choice, provided you haven’t seen Total Recall enough times already.

  • Red Planet (2000)

    Red Planet (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2000) Mixed impressions about the second Mars-themed film of 2000: It’s certainly better than Mission To Mars, but even then it’s no great film. Acting-wise, most of the cast is wasted, at the possible exception of Carrie-Anne Moss, who solidifies her action heroine status after The Matrix. The special effects are rather nice. The problems pop up whenever the script is involved: Gigantic plot holes, incompetent plotting, boring subplots, unsatisfying characters and atrocious scientific errors all join forces to sap all energy that could have been produced by the intriguing premise. It’s not a complete failure, mostly because it tries so hard, but no one shouldn’t feel guilty of passing this one up in video stores.