Reviews

  • Orphée [Orpheus] (1950)

    Orphée [Orpheus] (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) Avant-garde cinema and I aren’t good friends, so it would be trivially easy for me to dismiss Orphée as nothing more than a pretentious experiment. But I like the result more than I expected: In taking Greek mythology and setting it in then-contemporary 1950 France, Jean Cocteau already has something interesting as a foundation. Trying to present a fantasy story with the special effects limits of the time is a further challenge—and given Cocteau’s oft-demonstrated stylistic flair for the poetic, he wouldn’t settle for cheap and ridiculous if cheap and effective was available. So it is that relatively simple optical tricks are used to good effect to portray ghosts and people walking through mirrors, or strolling through a devastated post-mortem landscape with the protagonist standing out as being more real than the dead. (One of the few times that rear-projection degradation is used to stylistic effect.) Other shots include reversed images and other eeriness that do create an effective atmosphere. And that’s not even getting into the updates to the Orpheus myth, with things as mundane as a radio or a rear-view mirror taking on symbolic meaning. While Jean Marais is intermittently annoying as Orpheus (the silted dialogue doesn’t help, nor the odd tonal shifts), María Casares is fascinating as a representative of death—her character seems surprisingly modern in the middle of so much formalism. Now, there are clear limits to my appreciation of the result—my rational mind can’t really rest well in the middle of so much artistic haze, and you can find Cocteau’s commentary about Orphée in my dictionary as the definition of insufferable. But there’s a bit more to Orphée than many French films of the period, and I would argue that the film is now more effective than it ever was, because we are now looking at a millennia-old myth filtered through a poetic take based on reality now seventy years distant. There’s an additional dimension there that was absent for contemporary audiences, and that does help Orphée become an even more fascinating film.

  • Dangerous When Wet (1953)

    Dangerous When Wet (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) There were a lot of movie musicals in the 1950s, and they can’t all be memorable or effective. Dangerous When Wet, to its credit, does have a semi-memorable hook, what with noted aquatic actor/dancer Esther Williams as the elder daughter of a family of fitness freaks. When their eccentric nature is discovered by a promoter who develops a crush on Williams’s character, he contrives a way to stay close to them by proposing a publicity stunt to have them swim across the English Channel. So far so distinctive, and the film’s most memorable sequence has Esther “swimming” with Tom and Jerry in an animated segment that brings to mind a similar sequence in Gene Kelly’s Anchors Aweigh. The rest of Dangerous When Wet is hit and miss—the opening act in rural America is decently funny, but the film seems to scatter once it heads to Europe and goes back and forth across the channel as an international love triangle develops and resolves itself. Williams herself is a likable presence, although she can’t be as eccentric as the supporting characters that make up her film family. Still, the film suffers from having few snappy tunes or expansive showcase sequences—the Tom and Jerry number is nice, but it’s not over the top. Still, if you’re attuned to the “voice” of 1950s MGM musicals, Dangerous When Wet is a representative example of the form: it can be watched easily, does have a few laughs along the way and features a likable heroine in Williams.

  • Children of the Damned (1964)

    Children of the Damned (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) I’m not sure that the original Village of the Damned needed a follow-up, and after watching Children of the Damned I’m even more convinced of that idea. To be fair, it does not pick up where the explosive finale of the first classic film ended: it takes the idea of hyperintelligent children with no morals and runs with it in a slightly different direction, except without the intriguing buildup of the first film or its likable protagonist. The result is not terrible—it plays with moral ambiguity, has some chilling set-pieces, and ends on a suitably bittersweet note—but it’s not all that interesting either. It’s a remix that does more to evoke memories of the original than to do its own thing, and as such can’t get away from the shadow cast by its predecessor. There are plenty of ways the film could have been made better, especially through a reworked ending. Even for fans of the first film, Children of the Damned is not essential: at best it’s a surprise for those who have seen and enjoyed the first, albeit coming in with low expectations.

  • Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935)

    Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) Despite clearly tying itself to Gold Diggers of 1933, the follow-up Gold Diggers of 1935 is a different beast in many ways. The plot is completely different, as could be expected—while a theme of good-natured “gold-diggers” (though they’re rather prefer being called “wealth seekers” or simply “aiming to marry high”) is carried through, the plot itself is different and doesn’t carry any of the characters. More importantly, this film came in right after the imposition of the prurient Hays Code dictating the material that could or could not be shown, and as a result the film feels considerably tamer than its prequel. Which doesn’t entirely invalidate it, of course: Once again, the light comedy material holds the picture long enough until the distinctive Busby Berkeley musical numbers have a chance to wow audiences. While “I’m Going Shopping with You” makes for an early funny song, the film moves in higher gear with “The Words Are in My Heart,” a number that echoes the neon violins of the previous film by undulating movie grand pianos as far as the eye can see. Still, the masterpiece of Gold Diggers of 1935 has to be “Lullaby of Broadway,” which is a self-contained number describing a day in the life of Broadway, with numerous tight stylized shots of people waking up, going to work and going to the shows afterward. It’s quite a good capper to a relatively average film, although those who are interested in 1930s movie musicals will eventually see this one even if for no other reason than to see Berkeley at work. Having such names as Dick Powell, Adolphe Menjou or Gloria Stuart doesn’t hurt, though. There would be two other instalments in the Gold Digger series, but Gold Diggers of 1935, along with the 1933 original, remains the best known of them.

  • Body Bags (1993)

    Body Bags (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2020) Clearly a film by and for horror fans, Body Bags can best be described as another horror anthology movie (patched together from a failed proposal for an episodic TV series), with a moody framing device (John Carpenter playing a morgue worker messing around for the audience) setting the stage for three twenty-some-minute-long segments. The first is “The Gas Station,” featuring Alex Datcher as a student taking up a gas station attendant job in the middle of the night, and (rightfully) feeling scared when a killer is identified as prowling around. Directed by John Carpenter, this a rather straightforward action thriller segment is well-executed but familiar in its topic matter. The second segment, “Hair” (directed by Tobe Hooper), is somewhat more comedic, as a middle-aged Stacy Keach takes increasingly drastic steps to reverse his increasing baldness. It ends in creepy-funny material, although the abrupt end once the joke is explained seems unsatisfying—at least it takes the time to properly dissect the various reactions of its characters to encroaching baldness. The third segment, “Eye,” lands us in straighter horror territory as a baseball player (Mark Hamill with an unfortunate moustache) who lost an eye in a car accident is the recipient of a transplanted eye… who belonged to a serial killer. The eye predictably takes over with disastrous results. As an anthology film, Body Bags is not all that bad—but its most distinctive feature is its unapologetic appeal to horror audiences: There are tons of cameos from horror director here, and the tone is the kind of horror/comedy that reaches as far back as the early EC comics. It’s not world-changing entertainment, but it’s a chance to see a few familiar names having fun, and one of Carpenter’s last good films.

  • C.C. & Company (1970)

    C.C. & Company (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) The more I explore the movies from earlier decades, the more I realize that while the best-known movies (the “classics”) have a timeless quality, you have to dig into the lesser-known one in order to get a better atmosphere of the times, its pet obsessions, fads and mood. Bikers were a big thing in 1970 with the rise of the Hells Angels, the success of Easy Rider and the free lifestyle that they pursued. It would be inevitable that cash-in pictures would follow, and that’s probably the best way of describing C.C. & Company. This one does have a few things going for it, though, the first of those being none other than Ann-Margret as a journalist who is seduced by our free-living protagonist and eventually kidnapped by his opponent. Much of the fun of the film is in its period detail, naïve-sounding approach to the subject matter, trying to be edgy and cool but today sounding a bit blunt and idealized. Still, considering the mood at the time, C.C. & Company was made to ruffle feathers: bad language and promiscuity abound, taking up the New Hollywood norms over traditional ones. It’s not a particularly good film: the script is not elegant, the shock effect is deployed in lieu of sophistication, and the climax hovers on the edge of ridiculousness. But it’s clearly a reflection of its times, and whose can be worth a look by themselves.

  • Deddo sushi [Dead Sushi] (2012)

    Deddo sushi [Dead Sushi] (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2020) If I have properly understood the dynamics of the Japanese film market, there is a minority of movies out there that are made to be excessive, even by Japanese standards. Unfortunately, those are the films that are distributed widely in North America, skewing our perception of what’s happening over there. (Still, you can’t convince me that there’s not a secret clause in the Japanese Constitution that mandates that the country should set a proud world standard for weirdness.) Dead Sushi would clearly be in that tradition: A horror comedy featuring nothing less than homicidal sushi reanimated from the dead thanks to a nonsense serum; it’s clearly a joke writ large. There’s nothing subtle, nothing serious, nothing profound here: just gore effects used to execute a comic premise. I’m not always convinced by gory horror comedies, but Dead Sushi does manage to keep the balance between horror and humour: it’s ridiculous more than anything else, and that makes the dismemberments, impalements and general mayhem easier to take. Curiously enough, the film does spend some time discussing the intricacies of creating sushi, and the good form for eating it—adding substance to the film, but also, paradoxically, making it even funnier once it takes into account the seriousness of the characters about their sushi. I would be wary of showing Dead Sushi to just about any audience, but fans or horror comedies should have a great time watching it.

  • Stray Dolls (2019)

    Stray Dolls (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) You may go in Stray Dolls expecting another exploitation film in which two downtrodden women take up arms against bad boyfriends and The Man—I certainly did, based on the logline and an incorrect assumption that the title was referencing “Straw Dogs.” The truth, as the very first few moments make clear, is considerably more nuanced. As writer-director Sonejuhi Sinha makes clear, the film is in a grimmer, more superficially realistic tone. As an Indian immigrant (played quite well by Geetanjali Thapa) finds a job as a maid in a seedy hotel, she is forced to befriend a rebellious American girl (Olivia DeJonge, in full trashy demeanour) and quickly gets swept up in a succession of escalating crimes. Drugs, sex, not much rock-and-roll: Taking place in the depressing reality of ultra-capitalistic lower-class America, Stray Dolls goes through the fatalistic descent into hell that marginalized characters are forced into. There’s a decent amount of character development along the way: our Indian immigrant, for instance, if far from being the immaculate flower that other movies could have shown—scar and special skills betray a troubled past, and makes her introduction in the underworld of rural New York State easier than you could imagine at first. I can’t say that I liked the film—It’s dirty, deliberately made to be as un-fun as possible, and the fleeing-to-Canada ending seems like what was left on the table after better ideas were taken away. But Stray Dolls does introduce a few new actors and filmmakers to watch. I do like its willingness to remain serious about a topic that could have spun into exploitative fantasies, and even the grimy settings have their reason in the context of the film.

  • The Marrying Kind (1952)

    The Marrying Kind (1952)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) According to contemporary accounts, audiences didn’t quite know what to make of The Marrying Kind’s blend of comedy and drama, as it worked its way backward in flashbacks from the divorce court to show the strains of an ordinary marriage. Helmed by George Cukor, the film showcased funny scenes in between more dramatic ones, and I can understand how unpleasant it must have felt for critics and audiences back then to sit through what feels like ninety minutes of arguments between husband and wife. But there’s been a critical re-evaluation of the film by later generations, helped along by a growing familiarity with movies blending comedy and drama—we can draw parallels with 2019’s Marriage Story as a sombre film with darkly comic moments, and quite a few romantic comedies willing to showcase more serious moments on their way to a happy conclusion. It’s not a stretch to say that modern audiences are more sophisticated about their movies—or at least that they’ve seen many kinds of tones and moods. As a result, The Marrying Kind does work relatively well today: The unusual flashback-filled structure is more interesting than most similar films of the time, Cukor makes good use of ironic visuals to counterpoint spoken narration, and there’s an attempt to depict an unglamorous reality at work here. Far from the idealized portrait of marriage and archetypical characters, here we have two people struggling to make it work, suffering humbling setbacks and yet building something together. Judy Holliday does well as the wife, while Aldo Ray is sometimes a bit caricatural as the husband. Still, their work does find a happy compromise between the attempt at realism and the glossiness of studio pictures at the time. It’s a bit too dark to be fully enjoyable, but it will be interesting for those looking for evidence that the studios knew about real life even at the beginning of the glossy glam 1950s.

  • The Invisible Man (2020)

    The Invisible Man (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) While I was on-board for the idea of a “Dark Universe” reimagining the classic Universal Monsters for modern audiences, the evidence so far is clear: the movies that attempted to play in the shared universe were not good, and the ones that didn’t were better. The most recent proof of this can be found in The Invisible Man, a clever rethinking of the classic premise in a modern and surprisingly intimate setting. Rather than blowing up trains, the invisible man here is a supporting character—a sociopathic abuser who keeps tormenting his girlfriend even after death. Starting with a surprisingly disturbing portrait of spousal abuse, The Invisible Man relegates its title character to supporting antagonist status, and instead focuses on the victim as the lead character. Played very well by Elizabeth Moss (not an actress I like, but one that I respect), our heroine spends most of the movie being tormented in various ways by an opponent she can’t see. Cleverly melding cinematic form with theme, writer-director Leigh Whannell spends a lot of time ratcheting us the tension by showing us… nothing. As the camera pans to reveal an empty corridor, as it composes its shots away from its speaking characters to include vast expanses of… nothing where the antagonist could be, it creates a great sense of tension over what may or may not be there. Surprisingly enough, it takes about fifty minutes for the film to start using the special effects that we expect: much of the starting sequences are in fairly realistic mode, with little here to show us the science-fictional aspect of the story. But The Invisible Man is, at its core, a horror film and it’s really effective as such: Fresh from his work on Upgrade, here we have Whannell delivering another well-executed project. It’s not perfect: it’s definitely a bit long and repetitive at first, and the climax is intentionally not the one we could have expected. But it’s suspenseful and effective, and it shows that salvation for the Universal movie monsters is to be found in smaller, heartfelt projects rather than grandiose plans for yet another cinematic universe.

  • The Intervention (2016)

    The Intervention (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, September 2020) There are a few actresses out there that may not be household names, but have attracted my attention one way or another. I make a half-hearted effort to follow what they’re up to, especially when they leave the world of big-budget movies to do smaller movies. The Intervention not only brings together four of those actresses, but is also written and directed by none other than Clea DuVall, an actress whose first decade in the business was filled with roles in big-budget pictures, and then switched to lower-profile projects and TV series. With The Intervention, she works on both sides of the camera and delivers what could be called a Hollywood home movie: a low-stakes drama set in a secluded location, featuring an ensemble cast of characters played by friends and acquaintances. As a strategy to become a writer-director, it’s a clever one: the budget stays low, the friendships between the actresses translate into screen chemistry and the film can be approached as an actor’s showcase without the logistical complication of big costly sequences. The flip side of Hollywood home movies, however, is that they often feel similar: As with a theatrical piece, we get a first half of growing complications, and a second half of detonations. The camera moves in traditional ways, the script is good enough to provide a template, and the focus is on the performances. The Intervention does not escape the mould and, at times, feels like half a dozen other movies. Still, it does have its advantages. It’s set in Georgia rather than in the Hollywood Hills, and the cast is filled with recognizable names. You may not care as much as I do about Melanie Lynskey and Natasha Lyonne (here reuniting with DuVall seventeen years after the classic But I’m a Cheerleader!), or Alia Shawkat and Cobie Smulders, but here they are playing off each other. I found the overall result more interesting than entertaining, but it’s true that I’m far from the target audience for the film. I wish the film could have taken more cues from theatre plays in setting up and then playing off its interpersonal conflicts: there’s a tendency here to pull back from confrontation that I found annoying, but only in the context of wishing for a harder-hitting piece. If DuVall wanted to deliver something softer, then it’s up to her, and The Intervention accomplishes those objectives.

  • Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

    Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) In some ways, Gold Diggers of 1933 is very similar to the other top musicals of the period: It was a time, only a few years out of the silent film era, when you could still feel the giddiness of film producers in wowing audiences with dazzle-dazzle singing and dancing. The story takes place on/near Broadway, as many musicals of the time did, in order to provide audiences a familiar frame of reference as to how the music was integrated in the film. Recognizable names such as Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rogers and Dick Powell are in the cast, as the story focuses on four women trying to marry rich and make it big. Perhaps more interestingly to modern audiences, it’s a pre-Code film, meaning that it features scantily-clad women and a playful attitude toward risqué subject matter that wouldn’t fly even two years later. (Indeed, its direct sequel Gold Diggers of 1935 would be far tamer in that regard, the Hays Code having taken over Hollywood by then.) While Mervyn LeRoy directs the comedy material of this musical comedy, the dance numbers are directed by Busby Berkeley, whose touches become more and more apparent as the film goes on. “We’re in the Money” kicks things off with a memorable tune sung by Rogers, “Pettin’ in the Park” is pure pre-Code hilarity, but the film really reaches its apex during “The Shadow Waltz,” especially during a moment where the dancers carry neon-lit violins and the overhead camera shot practically turns to animation. “Remember My Forgotten Man” concludes things with fewer pyrotechnics, but more striking result. Worth noting is how, in a decade known for escapism, the Great Depression is an integral part of the plot (and the songs, given that “We’re in the Money” imagines an end to the Depression), giving us a tiny glimpse at life outside Hollywood fantasies. Being like the other musicals of the time isn’t a bad thing when most of them still hold up nicely today, and Gold Diggers of 1933 does have a few added qualities.

  • It’s Alive (1974)

    It’s Alive (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) I had semi-high expectations going into It’s Alive: writer-director Larry Cohen often worked in B-movies, but he usually had an extra spark of imagination that made them worthwhile regardless of budget. In It’s Alive, you can see his intention of doing something weirder than usual, but also the limitations of his approach. In a premise fit for the ages, this is a film about a mutant baby that goes on a murder spree from birth (an experimental drug is involved, in classic mid-1970s post-Thalidomide fashion), and the efforts of the police forces and his new father to track it down. It sounds crazy enough and, to be fair, the film does a lot of mileage out of that premise. Unfortunately, the film is not all that pleasant to watch: the gritty New Hollywood style compounded by the low budget means that the film is ugly from beginning to end, and that’s before getting into the gore inherent in the premise. In typical Cohen fashion, it’s got more on its mind than just murder, and you can have a relatively good time decoding the various themes and issues that the film touches upon beyond the horror premise. Still, it doesn’t make It’s Alive any more compelling to watch—call it a half-miss or a half-hit, depending on how generous you feel.

  • Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967)

    Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) Whew, that was a wild one. By modern standards, Spider Baby isn’t all that wild—it’s about a family of killer children, the man taking care of them, and what happens when there’s an intruder into their well-regimented lives. But by 1967 standards, it’s something else. Two or three factors conspire to make the film feel even older (and wilder) than it is: Obviously, the black-and-white cinematography at a time when most movies were shifting to colour. (This is not entirely accidental—Spider Baby was shot in 1964, but not released until years later due to the producers’ bankruptcy.) Then there’s the presence of none other than Lon Chaney Jr. as the girls’ caretaker, harkening back to a much older tradition of horror films. The result, of course, is not straight horror: there’s enough dark comedy here to echo the Archers/Hammer British film tradition. But much of the film’s interest is in just seeing what the script throws up on screen in an effort to make viewers uneasy or better yet queasy. I can’t say that the result is all that good: there are a lot of meandering tangents here that take away from the main story, and Spider Baby isn’t exactly focused on narrative when there are so many creepy sequences to lay out. Still, it’s an experience, and it straddles an interesting period in horror looking back at the classics and anticipating much more disturbing things to come.

  • Deathsport (1978)

    Deathsport (1978)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) Maybe you, like me, have heard about Deathsport and made associations with Deathrace or Rollerball as a Science Fiction sports movie of the 1970s. But let me break that link right now because Deathsport is nowhere as good as those two other movies, even if you don’t happen to think too highly of those. What it does have in common with them is a loose (that is to say: bad) understanding of SF plot devices as filtered through a limited budget, except that Deathsport happens to have a much, much lower threshold than the others. Set in a future post-apocalyptic dystopia that sometimes looks like a crystal-infused utopia, Deathsport can’t be bothered to set any rules for itself, nor stick to them. The titular deathsport unexplainably has circa-1970s motorcycles and death rays that instantly vaporize their targets, except when the riders go head-to-head fighting with crystal swords. It’s boring and ridiculous. Those two qualities don’t necessarily always go together, but Deathsport feels like every single bad trend of 1970s Science Fiction blended into one movie, with all of the energy sucked out of it. It feels like an over-the-top film, except that there’s nothing to send over the top. The result is just to be avoided—even as an illustration of 1970s SF movies, I can think of much, much better examples.