Reviews

  • Housebound (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2022) I really wasn’t expecting much from Housebound, and there are several moments where the film sorely tests anyone’s patience or indulgence. But it does eventually work much better than expected, with a few twists and turns that all play to its central theme and a pace that gets cracking when it needs to do so. The opening act is truly not very promising, though, as a too-irritating protagonist is put in house arrest following a botched robbery. The problem is that she’d probably like being in prison better than going back to her semi-rural childhood house for six months: she keeps picking fights with her mom, and strange sounds coming from the house are not calming her down—nor her mom’s insistence that the house is haunted. In a plot development that nearly blows up suspension of disbelief, she then discovers that her home was the site of an infamous grisly murder—something that somehow never came up while she was living there. If you can somehow get over that inanity long enough and also somehow ignore how incredibly annoying the protagonist is, Housebound then swerves into a last straight sprint to the finish, uncovering secret identities, twists and counter-twists in such a way that the film essentially redeems itself in time for the end credits. It’s not quite a comedy, but there are a few moments here that are funnier than expected, and the counter-twists are both creepy and more original than expected. I don’t think that it makes Housebound anywhere near a hidden gem or anything like that, but writer-director-editor Gerard Johnstone exceeds low expectations (some of them he lowered by himself), and that’s already not that bad. It could have been improved in many ways, but it does make an interesting addition to the New Zealand horror canon.

  • Trog (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) If you’re building yourself a nice little filmography of” terrible horror films that Classic Hollywood actors did in their late careers,” then Trog is a mandatory entry. Featuring no less than Joan Crawford as a scientist who gets to care for a troglodyte having made it to the modern era, the film clearly means to be a low-budget creature feature. The special effects are ridiculous, the production values are threadbare and the script is a bizarre blend of exploitation with just enough drama to distinguish it from a run-of-the-mill creature feature. Crawford was not doing well in her career by the time she paid the bills with Trog, and the film’s production history is rife with stories of her on-set alcoholism. But the producers got what they paid for: Her on-screen performance is significantly better than the rest of the film. It helps that the lead role is more substantial than in most other monster films. Here, she plays the good angel to the troglodyte’s nature, trying to tell others that it’s a peaceful creature to be treated well. But, of course, audiences paid to see violence, horror and a rampaging creature so that’s where Trog goes for much of its third act, as a villain frees him and riles him up enough to get him on a murderous rampage before the ending. Despite loftier aims, the script itself is an unpolished, atonal piece of work that fits well with the scattershot nature of the film’s execution. Some will like it because it’s so ridiculous: Trog has become something of a cult classic since its release. But if you’re not a fan of the so-bad-it’s-good school (and why should anyone, considering the sheer number of so-good-it’s-good films?), then Trog may boil down to an illustration of what a gifted actress can do even in the middle of terrible material and an even worse production.

  • Western Union (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2022) If you really want to know how I feel about Western Union, you’ll have to delve deep into the realm of quantic compliments. There’s nothing terrible about this big-budget Fritz Lang western: It even looks about ten years younger than it is considering its skillful use of colour at a time when most productions of its calibre were happy shooting in black and white. The topic matter is as grandiose as anything westerns ever tackle, considering that it’s about the construction of a telegraph line across the far west—you can compare it to railroad construction epics à la Union Pacific, or more modern takes on fibre-optic line construction. But being slickly executed is not necessarily enough to please, and I had a harder time than expected getting to care about the film, especially since it has no intention of being all that rigorous about the construction of the telegraph line itself. Aside from some background detail, it becomes a pretext for some very obvious drama built in Hollywood from nothing. Much is made of the Native opposition to the line, for instance, which is apparently historical nonsense, since the construction of the line was met with very little opposition. Western Union clearly plays to audience expectations, as it strings along genre tropes such as shootouts with bandits, southern white men passing themselves off as Native in an attempt to stir some trouble, capture and escape and climactic justice in a way that only plays in Hollywood. It works if you like westerns, but (colour cinematography aside) it feels roughly the same as dozens of other westerns from that time—not to mention the deluge of westerns that would follow in the 1950s. Lang does well as a director, but is nowhere as interesting as in the thrillers that make most of his Hollywood filmography. As such, Western Union is watchable, but not much more: you’d have to be a much bigger western fan than I am to dissect what really sets it apart from most other examples of the genre.

  • The Artists (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2022) You can feel lucky if movies appeal to one facet of your personality, but here TV documentary The Artists (a fix-up of ten shorter episodes) manages to reach me twice: first, by straight-on making a sustained argument that video games can be art (it opens with that Roger Ebert quote,) and then by taking a look at something I lived through: the early days of computer games. It hits many of the high points of the burgeoning videogaming scene (Atari designers leaving to found Activision, the creation of Electronic Arts with the famous “Can Computers make you cry?” ad, Infocom text adventures, MULE and the personal transition of its designer, Chris Crawford raising hell in his own industry, Doom, etc.) and bolsters its argument by interviewing several legends of the field, from Crawford to John Romero, Trip Hawkins, Nolan Bushnell and others. It’s fascinating when it describes how, even at a comparatively laughable level of technical sophistication, programmers were becoming artists in a brand-new field, being portrayed as rock stars and grappling with the meaning of what they were doing. The documentary has a nerds-to-fame quality but doesn’t necessarily brush over the less-pleasant parts of that history:  The ostracism that followed Danielle Bunten Berry’s gender transition, the failure of Atari, the post-Doom breakup of id, the market forces discouraging innovation, Chris Crawford’s legendary Dragon Speech and so on. But as someone who still has an original copy of the “Can Computer Games be Art?” ad, who was reading reviews of Crawford’s Balance of Power when it came out, who played MULE on the Commodore 64, who lived through the PC gaming transition from CGA to EGA and then VGA—this documentary hit all the right spots. Better yet, it seriously considers the obvious notion that video game designers are artists striving for emotional reactions, marrying technical elements with evolving notions of game design to produce something that can be considered an art form in its own right. Roger Ebert’s hasty declaration that video games cannot be art (something that he entirely recanted later on) did have the positive effect of leading to an entire corpus of games demonstrating what was obvious to players since, well, at least the 1980s: video games are a new artistic field, building upon other fields to create something that cannot exist in any other medium. That argument is stronger now than it was back when Ebert opined, given how the greater accessibility of game-building tools now enables individual designers to deliver highly personal works. Much, indeed, like the pioneer days of the 1980s when you could assign artistic ownership of a game to a single designer. The Artists could have spent more time making that link, but no matter—what’s presented in rather stylish way is a coherent documentary on a fascinating topic, and I can affirm that it gets its facts right.

  • Les nouvelles aventures d’Aladin (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2022) The Arabian myth of Aladdin (filtered through many pop-culture sources) goes for wild parody in silly French comedy Les nouvelles aventures d’Aladin. Placing its bets on all-out comic devices, the story has a framing device (with a ne’er-do-well trying to distract kids from an upcoming robbery by narrating a version of Aladdin’s story) that presumably explains the pop-culture references, multiple anachronisms and tone shifts in the genie’s tale. You probably know the basics: a likable thief, a beautiful princess, a marriage-hungry king and a mischievous genie. The production values are not bad—there are plenty of rough special effects to get the point across, some rather good set design, and one expansive musical number executed as a rap music video. Kev Adams plays Aladdin with some panache, Vanessa Gudie is cute as the princess and Eric Judor turns in a nicely charismatic performance as the genie. I strongly suspect that much of the film’s comedy relies on a thorough knowledge of French pop-culture circa 2015, as some of the jokes land weirdly from a French-Canadian perspective, and the film occasionally gesticulates wildly toward walk-on characters. (Sequel Alad’2 is much worse in this regard.)  There isn’t much here in terms of plotting, which is perhaps just as well considering how the film can rely on audience familiarity with the plot to tweak it humorously. (The sequence in which the traditional three wishes are extended to more of them is expected, but amusing.)  I smiled throughout much of the film and even chuckled a few times, which already makes this much funnier than several so-called “comedies” I’ve watched recently. Les nouvelles aventures d’Aladin is not meant to be particularly witty, but it does score a joke every few minutes. Not bad—although I seriously wonder how the film would fare in translation.

  • Witch Hunt (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) I was expecting more from Witch Hunt. I’m not sure what exactly, but what it delivers is limp and disappointing in so many ways that nearly anything else would have been more interesting. Positing a parallel universe where witches are real and living in contemporary America, it soon becomes obvious that writer-director Elle Callahan is far more interested in social commentary and character drama than any notion of rigorous fantasy or alternate reality. Yes, witches exist in the film’s reality and they have power such as telekinesis, pyromania or teleportation—but what’s really important here is a paper-thin metaphor on sexism and discrimination in America. It’s highly significant that the film takes place (and ends) near a wall separating the US from Mexico—but you don’t need to wait until the very end to feel tired of the bluntness with which the film scores its points. The plot has to do with a teenage girl whose mother hosts witch refugees and, in the least surprising plot twist imaginable, starts showing signs of witchery herself. But temper those expectations, because the entire film is executed in this boring low-key approach that doesn’t move fast enough to paper over its dumb plotting, poor character choices (exposing witchery to an entire bar, for instance) and wholly unconvincing world-building. Witches are real, but nothing much has changed: the film lovingly details the ways in which the red-headed witches are oppressed and killed, but otherwise posits a world so much like ours that Thelma and Louise’s digital restoration is a thing. (No, you don’t get any points for guessing that Witch Hunt’s inconclusive ending involves a speeding vehicle.)  This is lazy, disappointing, unbearable naïve writing—not even taking advantage of the possibilities of its premise to deliver a ham-fisted message about admirable ideals. So disappointing—it’s bound to frustrate large audiences, starting with anyone expecting a coherent fantasy story.

  • Simon (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) In Simon, we’ve got a dark comedy imagining what would happen if a human was brainwashed into believing that he’s an alien with a message for humanity. The weird humour of the film is clearly explained in its terrific few minutes, during which it’s explained that just about everything of significance in 1960s–1970s America happened at the whim of a handful of incredibly smart scientists growing increasingly bored and unethical in their experiments. That’s an excellent premise and in fact, it’s almost too good for Simon’s own good: Once past the great first ten minutes, the film sinks back into a plot that’s nowhere near as interesting as the hilariously demented scientists running large-scale social experiments on an unsuspecting population. In comparison, the story of the brainwashed protagonist taking on the small annoyances of life because he’s convinced that he’s from a superior civilization almost falls flat. The ugly shooting style, very close to found-footage documentary, certainly doesn’t help: using the depressing palette of 1970s cinema does Simon no favours and actually runs against the film’s more uplifting intentions. An interesting cast (Alan Arkin, Wallace Shawn, Madeline Kahn) can’t do much. As a consequence of starting with a premise better than its plot, Simon also suffers from constant lulls and weak moments: there isn’t enough plot to sustain the film, nor enough wit or imagination to get it purring throughout. It ends almost because it has to, without much of a climax. Frankly, rewind Simon to the end of its opening minutes and remake the rest—it’s bound to be a more interesting film than what follows.

  • Nightkill (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2022) Many Classic Hollywood stars ended their filmography with lower-end horror films, and it’s Robert Mitchum’s turn in the wringer in Nightkill, as he plays a gruff police officer whose role in the film only comes into focus rather late in the story. He’s obviously the box-office draw here in a film more concerned about cheap mean last-minute twists than anything else. There’s some promise to the initial premise, as two lovers plot the demise of her husband and then must deal with his body. But that’s far from the end of the murders and twists, all the way to a mean-spirited finale that shifts the film closer to horror than thriller. Murkily shot in dark grainy 1970 style, Nightkill was a German production that only saw release in the United States as a TV movie-of-the-week: The lack of good technical qualities shows up in slack editing, a meandering script (even at 97 minutes) and a failure to capitalize on the elements at its disposal. Mitchum’s gruffness is used effectively, but it’s clear that he’s slumming in a short easy role made to make the film more financially attractive to the production side. Nightkill is not much of a movie, but the sadistic ending helps (if that’s the word) make it more memorable than it should be. The premise could be used for a much better film, but in the world of low-budget films, in 1980 as of now, sometimes a bankable name and a quick shooting schedule are really all the producers are looking for.

  • Turkey Shoot (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2022) You may think that great movies make the grandest statements, but sometimes it takes a cheap and nasty exploitation picture to talk bluntly about things. Director Brian Trenchard-Smith’s Turkey Shoot is not meant to be a deep or elegant film—but its exploitation shenanigans about human hunting and concentration camps find justification in bog-standard totalitarian government recast in future Australia, which does add some interest to an otherwise schlocky film. Otherwise, anyone’s reaction will depend on their tolerance for out-and-out exploitation for gratuitous violence, sexual content and sadism. Turkey Shoot does have some energy, but it’s not necessarily harnessed in productive directions: everyone involved in conceptualizing the film clearly wanted some common-denominator financial returns rather than try anything as ambitious as its own world-building. I found it slightly more interesting and better-executed than many of its bottom-of-the-barrel equivalents, but that’s not saying much.

  • The Turning Point (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) There are several films called The Turning Point. One of them, released in 1977, is about ballet, was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award and I’ve been trying to track it down for a while now. The 1952 film called The Turning Point is most certainly not that film. No, this one is about a journalist fighting big-city corruption and paying a high price for it. Relatively obscure despite high production value and a good cast headlined by William Holden, it’s also a film that hits surprisingly hard toward the end, with a conclusion that seems unusually glum for the time. (Unlike other Production Code-era films that pulled out happy ending out of nowhere, this one does exactly the inverse.)  Despite being set in some Midwestern town, the film is obviously shot in Los Angeles, sometimes with landmarks that have since disappeared. As a story of cops and newspapermen fighting corruption, it’s still quite relevant even today, and has something grander on its mind than just a crime thriller. (Digging around the film, there’s quite a lot of then-contemporary material that doesn’t translate to modern audiences—such as a mid-film parody of a famous anti-crime committee witness.)  Holden is his usual dependable 1950s self here, as an incorruptible professional fighting the good fight and eventually paying for it. A rather good sense of urban atmosphere permeates the film, including a third act largely set in a boxing arena. While it’s sometimes a bit too cerebral to be as good as it could have been, The Turning Point has its own specific appeal—and an ending that defines the film, albeit not in an entirely satisfying way.

  • Boomerang (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2022) I know that Boomerang has a pretty good reputation in many circles. If you want to be specific about it, it’s one of the few noteworthy black-cast romantic comedies of the early 1990s, and it features not only Eddie Murphy at his most charismatic self, but such notables as Martin Lawrence and Chris Rock—not to mention a scene-stealing turn from Grace Jones, and lovely performances from Halle Berry, Robin Givens and a very sexy Eartha Kitt. It follows the romantic comedy formula of teaching a valuable lesson to its protagonist, as the womanizing protagonist (Murphy) meets his match in an equally-ambitious and promiscuous female executive, and spends the film learning how to appreciate true love beyond appearances and easy conquests. But beyond the bare bones of the plot, much of Boomerang’s best moments are spent in banter between Murphy and his co-leads (although the transphobic snippet hasn’t aged well at all), in Jones’ bravura satire of herself, in Manhattan locations and early-1990s period detail. I should, by all accounts, be pretty happy with the results… except that I can’t shake the impression that the film ends with the wrong romantic coupling, and misses an occasion to match its protagonist with an equal. Let me explain (and never mind the spoilers)—the third act of Boomerang has the protagonist give up his womanizing ways, realize that his female counterpart (Givens) is not the right choice and instead pursue the sweet, humble, authentic character played by Halle Berry. Fairy-tale ending, roll the credits, pick up your coat and walk to the exits. Except that I don’t believe it. I don’t buy into Murphy’s character’s “evolution” into a humbler, artistic down-to-earth monogamous person. Not helped at all by Murphy’s person, the protagonist is still grossly overpowered compared to his romantic partner — “I give them six months,” essentially. I’m bothered by the missed opportunity of engineering both of the insanely ambitious (and bed-hopping) characters to figure out a way of making it work at their matching levels. That would have been a more interesting third act to the film, and something far more credible than the idea of a leopard abruptly changing his spots. Now, I know, I know: romantic comedies are like that. But I still think he ended up with the wrong woman.

  • Metropolitan (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) If ever you wondered what kind of film Woody Allen would have directed in 1990 had he been forty years younger, Metropolitan looks like a solid answer. A very dialogue-based, quasi-theatrical experience featuring preppy Manhattanites on the cusp of their true adulthood, it’s a film based on the accidental inclusion of a lower-class young man in rarefied social circles, and the tension, drama, conversations and ideas that spark from the ensemble cast of characters. Writer-director Whit Stillman makes his debut here, and the film’s threadbare production history is a succession of heroic filmmaking almost unexpectedly resulting in a solid movie. There’s a compelling rhythm to the dialogue of the young adults grasping at understanding the world and their place in it, especially as they feel that the once-structured society that was built for people like them in changing in ways they can’t predict. Some of the dialogue is charmingly naïve; other moments are simply compelling, as ideas build upon each other. The ensemble cast (still largely unfamiliar) makes a good go at the film’s blend of social concerns, romance, jealousy, drama, breakups, exits and desperate rescue. The film is at its strongest when it portrays Manhattan as a playground for aimless rich young people, creating a timeless sense of place and time that still works rather well. I wasn’t necessarily expecting to be swept up in Metropolitan’s very stylized execution, or characters that I would usually find annoying in a the-rich-aren’t-better-than-others way. But it works, and it works in a distinct way that has few equals… except perhaps Woody Allen in some of his films.

  • Edge of the World (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) Considering the very long history of colonialist films, I really shouldn’t be criticizing Edge of the World all that much for its critical look at the British rule over its far-flung empire, especially when it’s lushly located in Malaysia (meant to be the historical Raj of Sarawak) and taking as a premise the existence of a white ruler after a series of events. It’s all in the jungle, confronting the realities of British imperialism and characters finding their own direction so far away from London. Boasting some impressive cinematography, complex performances and a story with a built-in hook for western viewers (it’s adapted from a true story that also led to the classic The Man Who Would be King), Edge of the World nonetheless fails to achieve much of its potential. To put it bluntly, it’s not particularly interesting. The script wastes the elements at its disposal, and the result feels like a spoon-fed history lesson. I expect opinions to vary widely depending on personal preferences—but director Michael Haussman can’t make the result as snappy or compelling as it should be, and that feels like a missed opportunity. It feels like a twenty-first century film about colonial history, though, so not quite a complete waste.

  • Devi (1960)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) Ah well—another classic Satyajit Ray film that I don’t quite like. As usual, I can recognize the kernel of something interesting in Devi—namely, the way a young woman is literally deified by her surroundings, showing both the lunacy of religion, but also the terrible costs paid by the woman, as others begin to consider her as more than herself. But while that’s a solid premise, I was rapidly bored by the execution. Ray’s typical style is slow from the get-go, but Devi seems to take things even more leisurely than usual. I can’t deny the cultural barrier either, as the film takes place deep in historical India with very few reference points and explanations for non-Indian viewers. (I recommend reading the plot summary prior or during watching the film, just to have a holding hand to unlock much of the film’s less-than-obvious meaning.)  I can see the care through which the film was made, I can appreciate the credibility of the historical recreation, and I can’t say much against the actors involved in the production. But when it comes to the essential “Well, did you like it?”, I can think of several Ray films I liked more than Devi (and just about as many that I liked equally, which is not very much). But so it goes—not all international cinema is as effective for everyone, and that’s part of the game.

  • Jungle Cruise (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, February 2022) There are some good moments in Jungle Cruise, but then there are others where the film struggles to keep its traction. Unfortunately, many of the best bits are toward the beginning of the film, and many of the worse ones toward the end, which doesn’t help the film leave a good impression. Dwayne Johnson stars as an Amazonian River captain who is recruited by a female adventurer (Emily Blunt) to find a long-lost wondrous plant. If much of director Jaume Collet-Serra’s work feels incoherent and apparently designed by a committee, some clues can be found in how it’s from Disney, it’s adapted from a theme park ride, and it’s apparently written by no less than five people in what looks like at least three separate writing teams. You can see the flavour of Jungle Cruise’s plotting steadily slide from much-heightened “realism” to out-and-out supernatural fantasy à la Pirates of the Caribbean the longer it goes on. Johnson’s charisma helps make the entire thing hold together, but even him and Blunt can’t quite manage to smooth the bumps out of a script that makes sure to fit, in slightly more than two hours, not only a supernatural historical adventure, but socially-conscious quips, a CGI jaguar, as much of the original ride’s patter as possible, and a German proto-Nazi submarine to boot. By the time bees are telling the German captain where to navigate his submarine through the estuaries of the Amazon (don’t laugh or acknowledge the average depth of the river), well, Jungle Cruise is the kind of film it’s meant to be. It doesn’t work and the ride is not quite as smooth as it should have been. By the end, it all becomes too much: in the tradition of films that overstay their welcome and don’t accelerate their pacing in their third act, the final complications are more exasperating than anything else and prevent Jungle Cruise from ending while we’re still entertained by its antics.