Reviews

  • ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction (2009)

    ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2021) I’ve seen enough low-budget zombie movies by now to have clear expectations: most of them are terrible. They’re often at the lowest degree of filmmaking, in which filmmakers who love horror more than movies get together with friends and a few gallons of red syrup in a small country house and patch up something like a film, confident that their gore effects and the mere word “zombie” in their title will be enough to satisfy audiences. My expectations upon any new zombie film are thus accordingly low. Fortunately, ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction exceeded them. Director Kevin Hamedani does quite a few things right — starting with putting the film’s human characters at the forefront rather than fetishizing its monsters. Explicitly set in 2003 against a backdrop of small-town anti-terrorist hysteria, the film adopts a satirical approach that’s sometimes overdone but otherwise refreshing. It’s also surprisingly engaged for a zombie film — featuring protagonists that are of Iranian ethnicity, homosexual orientation or progressive politics and confronting them with both the undead and reactionary politics. The film’s production values are improved by seemingly having taken over the real-life picturesque town of Port Gamble, lending an unusual amount of geographical cohesion to the result. I’m not saying that the result is particularly good — there are plenty of areas where the script could have been improved (such as the “interrogating a presumed terrorist” bit that’s funny the first time or two, but quickly loses its lustre afterward) or the tone sharpened to something less dated, but ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction is already a cut above most other zombie movies of its class, so that’s not too bad.

  • Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

    Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) There’s been, in keeping with the times, quite a subgenre of 1960s-activism movies latterly — many of them Oscar-nominated. A recurrent theme of this latest crop has been a hard look at the efforts of the United States government in sabotaging civil rights activism. Judas and the Black Messiah is even more caustic in depicting systemic racism within American law enforcement, escalating to murder in a way that will feel eerily familiar to twenty-first century viewers. One of the film’s strengths, as it presents the twin stories of Black Panther activist Fred Hampton and small-time crook turned FBI informer William O’Neal, is to present a convincing picture of what it was like to be involved with the Black Panthers at the time, in-between aggressive rhetoric and the toll taken by opposing the system. The real-life story dramatized here has a quasi-operatic tragic grandeur of betrayal and guilt — the real-life death of O’Neil providing a sobering coda to the film. While the script and direction of the film are both really good (some great work by Shaka King on both counts), the film’s biggest assets remain the acting talent assembled for the occasion. Daniel Kaluuya is incandescent as Hampton — playing a revolutionary with a flair for rhetoric takes panache, and you can see how Kaluuya ended up with an Oscar. Still, there’s also quite a lot in the ensemble cast: Lakeith Stanfield has a more subtle but not less difficult role as the reluctant informant; Jesse Plemons is his usual unbearable self as an FBI agent; Dominique Fishback is compelling whenever she’s on-screen; and there’s some irony in having Martin Sheen play J. Edgar Hoover. Comparisons with other recent films, such as The Trial of the Chicago 7, The United States vs. Billie Holliday and BlacKKKlansman, are inevitable, not unwarranted but not necessarily to Judas and the Black Messiah’s detriment — it has style, theme and narrative difference enough to distinguish itself, and some striking acting to appreciate on its own.

  • Nattvardsgästerna [Winter Light] (1963)

    Nattvardsgästerna [Winter Light] (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) At this stage of my tackling Ingmar Bergman’s filmography, I’m reminded of the gag “You’ve seen the best, now see the rest” — considering that I can tolerate roughly two Bergman films and a half (Persona and The Seventh Seal, and I can be talked into bits and pieces of Wild Strawberries), watching the rest of his movies, as they pop up on my automatically-generated list of “what to see next,” is starting to become excruciating. Where Winter Light is concerned, I’m really not interested in going to a small Swedish village in order to hear a priest talk theology and his doubts about God. The austere black-and-white cinematography, along with Bergman’s typically slow-moving direction, certainly does not help. There’s an impression that Bergman is talking out loud, that he’s doing some introspection through the movie screen — that’s good, I suppose, in upholding a filmmaker right to make their work personal. But the rest of us may feel left out of the soliloquy. As usual, there are a few interesting things that do pop up now and again: I found Ingrid Thulin and her character to be far more interesting than the priest’s self-absorption: the film’s best scene has him being unbearably mean to her, hastening her decision to simply get out of there—the closest Bergman gets to a happy ending. As for the rest, though, Winter Light is a very long 81 minutes to sit through, especially given how the film moves without economy and could have fit as a 20-minute subplot in another filmmaker’s snappier film. But so it goes — I’ve seen Bergman’s best, now I have to suffer through the rest.

  • The Misfits (1961)

    The Misfits (1961)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) To twenty-first century audiences, The Misfits does come with an outsized baggage of expectations: It’s the final film of both Clark Gable (who suffered a heart attack two days after wrapping up shooting, and died shortly thereafter) and Marilyn Monroe (whose next two years would be troubled, all the way to her death from barbiturate overdose), and the film does pair them up, presenting a transgenerational star attraction. The film’s production does make for fascinating reading, what with the script being intended as a gift from playwright/screenwriter Arthur Miller to Monroe in order to showcase her dramatic talents, but then clouded by their dissolving marriage throughout the production. While twenty-first century reviews have been positive, The Misfits’ initial reception, both commercial and critical, was underwhelming — a noted box-office bomb, it also got tepid reviews. Unusually enough, I find myself on the side of the 1961 reviewers — while there’s some meta-dramatic heft in seeing Monroe and Gable sharing screen time for the last time (even despite the significant age difference), the film is a slog to get through. Dramatic but overdone, small-scale and often desolate in its black-and-white cinematography, it’s trivial to the point of meaninglessness. Monroe is serviceable in her dramatic role, which is both not bad and not enough. You can certainly see some end-of-an-era echoes in the films’ themes, what with a cowboy in 1960 America capturing wild horses so that they can be turned to food. Still, The Misfits feels glum and overlong, not quite worthy of the spotlight placed on it by dint of being two icons’ final movie.

  • The Trouble with Angels (1966)

    The Trouble with Angels (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) At first glance, The Trouble with Angels feels like a silly comedy featuring two teenagers taking on their nun-run Catholic school. Child star Hailey Mills (fresh from the end of her contract with Disney) pairs up with June Harding to butt wills against a Mother Superior portrayed by Rosalind Russell. Mills’s character isn’t always likable in the opening minutes of the film, multiplying trivial hijinks out of what sounds like sheer boredom and dragging her new friend along. The highlight does remain Russell, almost ideal as the reasonable voice of reason keeping the girls in line. As it happens, though, this is indicative of where the film wants to go — away from anti-establishment comedy, and into a coming-of-age drama where The Girl Learns better. I still don’t quite buy the revelation-for-the-sake-of-drama that dominates the film’s last ten minutes (you’d think that such a shift would be more gradual, and that the best friend would be aware of it), but I don’t think the film is meant to be assessed on strictly realistic terms. You can recognize in The Trouble with Angels the kind of heartwarming film meant to reaffirm traditional values, right on time for family night viewing.   It’s not bad as such — a bit conventional in the end, but clearly engineered by director Ida Lupino to be innocuous and likable.

  • White Dog (1982)

    White Dog (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, July 2021) I love discovering older movies that, for a reason or another, still feel fresh — either because what they did hasn’t been attempted again, or because their themes are, in some way, curiously relevant today. White Dog scores high on both counts, and a look at the film’s immensely troubled release only adds fuel to its interest. Its unsettling premise can be summarized in a few words, as the film’s heroine discovers a dog that, she later discovers, has been trained to kill black people. As a way to literalize a metaphor, it’s on-the-nose — but it’s a great way to examine a troubling question under different constraints. It still feels daring and uncomfortable now, so it’s no surprise to discover that the film was practically buried by the studio upon completion studio back in 1982 — afraid of racial controversy, American distributors barely showed the film while it did some business in Europe (hence, I suppose, the French dub I watched). White Dog is now widely available, but you can see why the amount of handwringing — it’s easy to imagine a remake getting the same amount of controversy. This being said, I can admire the film’s premise without quite agreeing with its execution: hewing far too close to horror rather than drama, director Samuel Fuller gets to have a socially provocative premise and gory death sequences: For reasons not credibly explained in the film, the killer dog is allowed to live well after a few deaths, placing the moral responsibility of the later deaths squarely on the obstinate humans supposed to be the heroes of the film. White Dog gets increasingly outlandish as it goes on (most notably after the protagonist’s black co-worker gets mauled by the dog and the film shrugs on its way to another death) and seemingly does its best in sabotaging its meager social commentary by cheap genre-horror tricks. Given this, I would not be surprised to learn about a remake any time soon — in fact, I’m surprised it hasn’t already been announced, most likely featuring a K-9 unit to further drive the point home. In the meantime, the original White Dog remains a flawed dare — provocative enough to wow viewers forty years later, but not quite successful enough to satisfy the expectations that it raises.

  • Good News (1947)

    Good News (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) In many ways, Good News is a wholly unremarkable musical — it doesn’t have the top stars of the genre (I mean — yes, June Allyson and Peter Lawford aren’t unknowns but they don’t compare to some of the other people working in musicals at the time) and it doesn’t have memorable tunes other than “The Best Things in Life Are Free.”  It has adequate but not exceptional choreography and doesn’t quite distinguish itself with a campus narrative that draws in football with academics. On the other hand, it’s an infectiously cheerful romantic comedy— it’s practically impossible to stay grumpy once the film gets started and the silliness starts to fly between its football jock male lead and its French-tutoring female lead. Producer Arthur Freed’s touch is evident in the film’s accessibility and moment-to-moment fun. It’s peppy, colourful (thanks to some well-done Technicolor) and remains fun until the predictable end. As a French speaker, there’s some added interest in seeing Good News leads struggle with the language, either as they sing through “The French Lesson” or in hearing their spoken French oscillate between flawless and garbled in the span of a few syllables. (Ironically, Lawford’s French is pretty good, whereas Allyson’s isn’t.)  All of this doesn’t make Good News anywhere near the list of essential musicals. But it’s probably one that I’ll watch again with some pleasure later on — it’s perfectly serviceable in its own way, and a joy to watch even if it’s not a top example of the form.

  • Operation Petticoat (1959)

    Operation Petticoat (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2021) Even if it had been a terrible film, Operation Petticoat still would have been worth a look if only to see an aging Cary Grant go up against a younger Tony Curtis. Fortunately, it’s not a terrible movie. Far from it — by going back to WW2 submarine movie as an excuse for a silly but rarely absurd comedy featuring women passengers clashing with the crew, it’s a film that goes for four-quadrant appeal (as it existed back then, in-between teen audiences and veterans), good use of Grant and Curtis in their usual personas, and some large-scale physical comedy thanks to director Blake Edwards. Grant plays a captain keen on bringing his damaged submarine back to allied territory, and having to deal with a devious scrounger (Curtis) in order to accomplish his goals. While this keeps everyone busy through the opening half of the film, things take another turn when five nurses board the ship and they try running past the Japanese patrols. If you’ve seen many other WW2 submarine movies, let’s be clear that Operation Petticoat has plenty of new things to show you, whether it’s a torpedo “sinking” a truck, crying newborns being a sonar risk or a submarine painted pink. The presence of female characters in a submarine film is a giveaway that the film won’t be particularly progressive to twenty-first century audiences, but there’s something about Grand and Curtis’s charm that somehow makes it all tolerable. After overdosing on too many similar films in the past few months, I felt some relief in having far more fun than anticipated with Operation Petticoat — it’s quite entertaining, and the Grant/Curtis matchup is only a part of that. (Alas, the picture quality of the version I saw was very disappointing — still, the pink came through well enough.)

  • Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace (2019)

    Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) While I haven’t stepped in a movie theatre in years, I spent a good chunk of my time between 25 and 35 in Ottawa’s movie theatres, and have fond memories of the time — memories made even more special now that many of those theatres have closed down in the years since then. One of my showcase books is Alain Miguelez’s definitive and magistral A Theatre Near You: 150 Years of Going to the Show in Ottawa-Gatineau, which clued me onto the incredibly rich heritage that movie theatres left in Ottawa, including the magnificent Capitol Cinema, which was the city’s biggest-ever movie palace with 2,530 seats. The Capitol doesn’t exist any more: torn down in 1970, its history and ultimate fate mirror that of many other theatres built across North America during the initial boom of Classic Hollywood, and torn down once the crowds stopped going to the big screen as their primary form of entertainment. You may not care all that much about the Capitol, but the history of movie palaces is very much the story of theatrical exhibition, and it’s that topic that Going Attractions tackles in expansive fashion. A mixture of talking heads, archival material and modern footage, this is a film that propels us through a dense but easy-to-follow history of theatrical film exhibition from the early twentieth century to the 1970s, mirroring the rise and fall of movie palaces, with much of the film’s last act being dedicated to the restoration efforts made to preserve many of those theatres. Propelled by a strong soundtrack, we get to marvel once more at the grandiose ambition of those who built multi-thousand-seat theatres, the craftsmanship of their elaborate decorations and the experience of seeing a film in a place that employed professional ushers and strove to make everyone feel like royalty. Some of the material in the second act is tougher to stomach, whether it’s photographs of ruined theatres, footage of their demolition, or testimony from a photographer who faced many hazards in documenting their decrepitude. Even the fate of some of those theatres still standing is not entirely comforting — such as the East Lost Angeles Golden Gate Theatre, where people can walk in on the ground floor while… shopping at a CVS pharmacy, completely ignoring the elaborate cavernous space above. There’s a fine line to walk here between unwarranted nostalgia and honest appreciation of the power of watching a film with thousands of other persons, and writer-director April Wright threads the needle quite well, especially in showing how these theatres can still be relevant today as community centres. But much of Going Attractions’s interest is in the archival material and the evocation of a different time — as much as I do like my UDH home theatre setup, progress does not run in a straight ever-improving line: you gain some, and you lose some. It’s not a bad idea to reflect on what was lost once in a while.

  • Meet the Feebles (1989)

    Meet the Feebles (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2021) Some movies have sat for a surprisingly long time on my DVR for reasons that have nothing to do with apprehension — maybe I’m holding out for a better-quality version, maybe I’m trying to find a sequel/prequel, maybe I’m holding out for a specific mood. Or maybe I’m keeping it in reserve because I suspect that I’m going to have a particularly good time. Now, Meet the Feebles would, for a good chunk of its potential audience, fall under the “apprehension” reason to keep putting off a viewing — you can’t be aware of Peter Jackson’s colourful early filmography without being aware of the all-out offensiveness of his early movies and Meet the Feebles’ infamous reputation as a perverted version of the Muppets. Not specifically the Muppets as a satirical target (although, significantly, one character prays to a crucified Kermit), but using puppets for incredibly family-unfriendly purposes, presenting anthropomorphic characters involved in drugs, sex and violence. It doesn’t take a long time for the R-rated material to come out, with the deliberate juxtaposition of puppets with adult themes being both shocking and disarming at once — Meet the Feebles is both offensive and funny, even as the film works itself up to a mass shooting that takes out most of the characters. The streak of black humour runs a mile wide and is about as deep — don’t bother watching if you’re not the type to handle that kind of material. For those who can, well — the film is a strong dose, and there’s likely to be something in there to make anyone gasp. It’s quite a thing to watch — the version I ended up seeing was a terrible-quality French dub (although it thankfully leaves most of the songs in their original English with French subtitles — yes, “Sodomy” is far funnier that way) and the muddy picture quality almost added to the experience: this is a film best suited to VHS than UHD. Given this, I don’t regret the time Meet the Feebles spent on my DVR — I ended up seeing it at exactly the right time.

  • The Slams (1973)

    The Slams (1973)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) Straight from the height of blaxploitation, here comes The Slams, a prison film featuring former footballer Jim Brown as a criminal (but a principled criminal who doesn’t touch drugs) who stashes money from a heist, then gets sent to prison, then learns that his stashing place is about to be demolished. Asking someone else to go pick up the suitcase of cash would be unthinkable, so the only conceivable course of action is to break out of prison. The film is obscure: the image quality of the version that was broadcast on TCM was surprisingly terrible, but it carries an undeniable narrative attraction — The Slams is straightforward genre fare, blunt and coarse in its narrative devices but no less compelling for it. Brown is not a fine actor, but he forces his way into sympathy for the character. The prison stuff is familiar, but there’s clearly an intention here to confront racism within the walls, and the pacing (from director Jonathan Kaplan, who would go on to better movies) does a lot to make it all better. Ted Cassidy gets some attention in a supporting role, and so does Judy Pace. While I wouldn’t want to oversell The Slams as a hidden gem or anything like that, it’s a solid B-movie with plenty of early 1970s swagger — sure, the protagonist is indeed not that much of a good guy, but the film manages to make us like him anyway.

  • Kiss of Death (1947)

    Kiss of Death (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) Often hailed as one of the classic film noirs, you can see in Kiss of Death something that did not often exist in prior movies: Richard Widmark’s psychopathic performance (in his film debut!) as a two-bit hoodlum, with a wide-eyed smirk and sadistic laughter right before sending an old lady tumbling down a staircase. It’s a performance that does wonders with an underwritten part, and film historians tell us that this marked a turning point in the history of movie villains. (Widmark got an Academy Award nomination for the performance, and you can find echoes of it all the way to Heath Ledger’s Joker.)  Surprisingly enough, it still works well even after decades of psycho killers in films far worse than this one — and much of the effectiveness goes in establishing the protagonist as someone with a lot to lose, with two daughters and a new wife to protect against the evil antagonist. But it’s hard not to be impressed by most aspects of the film’s production — from a screenplay by classic Hollywood legend Ben Hecht to a credible use of location shooting to a result filled with procedural details and cynical dialogue, Kiss of Death is already a superior noir from the moment the actors step on set. Victor Mature does a good job in the lead role, a protagonist dealing with the suicide of his first wife while he’s in prison and turning informant in order to protect his two daughters sent to an orphanage. Colleen Gray provides the narration and some further dramatic heft to the film as a babysitter turned wife. It all wraps up in a good package, with a happier ending than is the norm in noir.

  • The Westerner (1940)

    The Westerner (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) The Western film corpus is large and not always distinguished — it’s filled with humdrum horse operas merely parroting the mythology of the wild west, cheaply conceived and indifferently executed. The Westerner, however, manages to clear the bar thanks to some skepticism and above-average acting. The story of a drifter who ends up in a long-term adversarial friendship with notorious historical figure “Judge” Roy Bean, the film is slightly ahead of the curve for the genre in poking at the heroic narrative of the west. As early as 1940, it fictionalizes Bean in a somewhat unflattering light, taking for granted that he was abusing his authority for personal gain rather than civilizing the west through frontier justice. This take on a sometimes-beloved figure is already interesting, but then there’s the great interplay between Gary Cooper (stoic but bland as usual as the drifter) and Walter Brennan (in fine form as Bean) — they elevate the material, and make it do it justice to a years-long battle of wills. One shouldn’t read too much into the historical figure of Bean as portrayed in the film: numerous liberties were taken with the facts, and the film is more comfortable poking at the idea of a hanging judge than the reality of it. Still, The Westerner is directed with some narrative energy by William Wyler, and the blend of straightforward western themes with more unusual elements, such as an English actress becoming the obsession of the film’s villain, adds a bit more flavour to the mix. I have muted reactions to westerns and The Westerner doesn’t quite do enough to get me to be enthusiastic about it, but it is a better-than-average western and should appeal more specifically to fans of the genre.

  • The Burglar (1957)

    The Burglar (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) Perhaps best characterized as a better-than-average middle-tier film noir, The Burglar takes a familiar crime premise (thieves on the run after a robbery getting increasingly uncomfortable with each other) and gives it a spin that’s both stylish and regional. Much of the film was shot on location in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, giving it a welcome difference from the usual California or New York City noir. Director Paul Wendkos also does much to give his own spin on standard material, with a newsreel opening, unusual camera angles and a stronger sense of camerawork than many contemporaries. Much of The Burglar’s claim to fame (and its reason for being released by a big studio years after its regional production) is starring a pre-stardom Jayne Mansfield, along with noir veteran Dan Duryea. Still, the film holds up reasonably well on its own — it doesn’t have mordant dialogue or memorable plotting (although the amusement park finale works rather well), but it executes its premise well enough to be entertaining.

  • It’s a Big Country: An American Anthology (1951)

    It’s a Big Country: An American Anthology (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) Watching many Hollywood movies requires, in some ways, buying into the self-aggrandizing mythology of the United States as the shining beacon on the hill. Over time, you often get used to it and maybe even stop noticing the unspoken assumptions… until an even more blatant example of the form comes along and strips away the pretence. I realize that there’s some irony in watching as blatant a propaganda piece as It’s a Big Country: An American Anthology on July 1st (Canada Day), but sometimes celebration is calibrated by comparison. Meant as a big showcase of MGM stars celebrating various aspects of American life through an anthology of short segments, It’s a Big Country remains a nexus for anyone trying to complete filmographies for stars as varied as Gene Kelly, Gary Cooper, S.Z. Sakall, William Powell, Ethel Barrymore, Janet Leigh, Fredric March or Van Johnson. If nothing else, you get snippets of familiar actors usually playing their screen personas in small roles — and there’s some fun in seeing Kelly romancing Leigh and going head-to-head with Sakall, or Gary Cooper playing a rancher “dispelling” some Texas-is-bigger myths. (It’s easily the best segment of the bunch.)  But I suspect that that biggest issue with It’s a Big Country sixty years later isn’t as much the depth of its America-can-do-no-wrong attitude (which is not unprecedented), but the spectrum on American values that the film tries to address. A segment purports to showcase black Americans, but plays more as an itemized list of “valuable citizens” making contributions to a country that still had institutionalized segregation. Another segment deals with a grieving mother being reassured that the war in Korea was about the values of America being projected upon the world. A late segment explicitly links religion (but a very specific religion) to the President of the United States. It’s quite a lot to take in at once, and few segments have the ironic humour of the Texas-is-best one to diffuse the earnestness. After a while, it’s a relief to see more dramatic segments that don’t explicitly wrap themselves in the flag and the cross — It’s a Big Country is best when it deals with characters rather than national virtues. It’s still worth a look if only for the talent assembled, but contemporary viewers may have a hard time not criticizing what the film ignores or sweeps under the rug.