Reviews

  • Our Dancing Daughters (1928)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) While the traditional definition of Pre-Code cinema usually starts with the beginning of sound cinema, it’s obvious that it didn’t spring from nothing—the trends were already there, the morals already loosened by the swinging 1920s, the appetite for frankly portraying the world already whetted. While Our Dancing Daughters is a silent film at the very end of that era, its frank subject matter revolves around a young woman (Joan Crawford, in a star-making turn) playing with codes of what’s a good or bad woman at a time where unprecedented freedom was available. The story, with its numerous supporting characters, eventually turns to romance which resolves with a rather hilarious punishing-the-bad-girl-by-throwing-her-down-the-stairs ending. Our Dancing Daughters is sometimes tedious to get through given the low narrative density of silent cinema, but it’s not uninteresting as a Pre-Pre-Code piece of cinema. Crawford here shows the qualities that made her a star, and exemplifies the flapper archetypes that silent cinema just managed to catch at the right time. Older cinema usually survives when it has something to say or illustrate, and there’s a good case to be made for Our Dancing Daughters as a still-interesting portrayal of another era.

  • Operator 13 (1934)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) There’s something interesting in Operator 13’s dive into American Civil War history as a pretext for a spy romance. It features Marion Davis as a showgirl pressed into service to spy on southern forces as a maid (in blackface, unbelievably enough). With Gary Cooper to blandly serve as a romantic interest, you can see how the film is an early shot at the four-quadrant demographics even in the 1930s. For modern viewers, the dismay at the blackface stuff may (or may not) be matched with the unusual nature of a spy story set at an unusual period—especially now when few spy thrillers ever delve beyond World War II. The ludicrousness of the story was apparent even to 1934 viewers, but there’s some lingering effectiveness to this early-Hollywood attempt to dramatize recent history (reminder: The American Civil War was as distant to 1934 as the mid-1950s are to 2022) even when it scarcely makes any sense.

  • Irene (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) It’s not because it’s classic Hollywood that it’s, well, classic—there are plenty of half-remembered films that don’t quite work even when they use tried-and-true elements, and Irene certainly feels like one of them. It should be better than it is—it certainly plays with solid tropes, with its shopgirl heroine getting swept into a Cinderella-like episode with a richer man. Irene’s most remarkable moment is when it goes from black and white to colour the time of an evening ball, but even that isn’t all that enough to keep the film from feeling unusually dull and distant. Romantic criss-crosses help but don’t improve the film enough. Despite being an adaptation of a Broadway theatrical, Irene doesn’t impress much with its musical numbers either. Anna Neagle doesn’t do all that badly as the titular character, but the film itself lets her down. Oh, Irene is watchable—but memorable? That’s another story.

  • Libel (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) In many ways, Libel should be more interesting than it ends up being. The story of an English aristocrat veteran with amnesia about his wartime years, it kicks into high gear when he’s accused of not being who he is—that he’s another person having usurped the noble’s identity. The ensuing trial takes us back to wartime POW camps when everyone starts having doubts about who he says he is. Dick Bogarde plays the protagonist (and, in a casting choice designed to keep everyone guessing, also the man he’s accused of being), while Olivia de Havilland plays the increasingly doubtful wife. While Libel’s first act is set largely against the stately backdrop of upper-class British estate, the rest of the film goes for POW camps and courtrooms. It all sounds promising on paper, but in practice it’s more annoying than anything else: we can’t quite care for the lead character, which doesn’t help a film in which we’re asked to root for him. It wraps up nicely, though—even if the road to get there passes through some very convenient amnesia. It’s not that bad, but Libel should have been much better, at least in reaching its own potential.

  • Blowing Wild (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) While Blowing Wild is technically set in 1950s rural South America, there’s something recognizably familiar about the setting—despite the oil derricks and cars, it’s the horses and sagebrush surroundings that suggest that this is a modern Western, harkening back to the themes of the form. That, and Barbara Stanwick, are probably the two most interesting things about the result, though: The film struggles to retain interest except when Stanwyck walks into frame. Sure, Gary Cooper and Anthony Quinn also star as oil men competing for her attention, but while Quinn occasionally flickers with interest, Cooper is his usual bland self. There’s still something provocative about re-using Western tropes in a modern (now historical) setting, but I don’t think Blowing Wind was thinking about developing itself along those lines. Alas, there isn’t much more to take up the slack.

  • La ronde (1950)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) I’m not going to seriously pretend that the French have something unique going on when it comes to romance, but there is a long tradition of French poetic realism that remains distinctive even after decades of cinema. La Ronde is very much in that tradition, with a flowery master of ceremonies introducing ten small segments on love. As per French standards, the material is more explicit than American cinema of the same era. Poetic speech, ironic circular structure and a diversity of approaches that fits an anthology film characterize La Ronde, which is interesting even when it draws long and repeats itself. Written and directed by Max Ophüls, it’s a change of pace from the usual narrative-driven film, but very much in-line with its tradition of romantic imagination. French speakers will be blessed to understand the cadence of the material.

  • Case 39 (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2022) There’s an interesting misdirection early in Case 39 when all signs point to a child being abused by her parents. But since that plot thread wraps up at the end of the first act, there’s clearly more to the story than adults trying to kill their kid. As the social worker on the case takes an adorable little girl home, the real shape of the story eventually develops—and gives splendid reasons to the adults for trying to stuff their adopted daughter into an oven. At its best, Case 39 is a bit wild, and greatly enhanced by a few good casting choices. For Renée Zellweger, playing the kind-hearted case worker means a relatively rare genre film excursion and she’s not bad at it. Jodelle Ferland gets an early great lead role as the unspeakably evil young girl, Ian McShane brings some gravitas to a stock character, but it’s Bradley Cooper who’s most interesting here: Dating from his pre-stardom days playing doomed boyfriends in horror films (also see 2008’s The Midnight Meat Train—Case 39 was actually completed in 2007), watching him here now has a different connotation than upon the film’s release: We expect him to last much longer than he does. It all adds to a straightforward but well-executed horror film that deals in (eventually) obvious matters but does so with a certain zip. The ending disappoints, though: after setting up its antagonist as someone with near-unlimited powers and bringing her back for a few encores, the climax of the film ends up being somewhat perfunctory after some better-handled moments in the third act. Still, not a bad pick—and at a time when horror films were going for the rough-and-gritty found-footage style, Case 39 marks a welcome return to a more conventional style.

  • Sin Takes a Holiday (1930)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) I don’t think I’ll ever get over my delight at the particular subset of Pre-Code romantic comedies set in the Manhattan upper-class, where marriage is treated casually as an excuse for the far more serious business of love. So it is that, in Sin Takes a Holiday, we have a suave bachelor agreeing to a marriage of convenience with someone with a crush on him, except that the marriage can’t be consummated and is agreed-upon to self-destruct after a year. (He wants to take himself off the market, but not too much.)  That’s not a particularly sensible set-up for romance, but you know where it’s headed anyway. While there’s some comfort value in this typically unreal depiction of love and marriage in the NYC upper-class in the early 1930s (no mention of the depression, never!), there have been many better films in the same subgenre, and Sin Takes a Holiday struggles to distinguish itself against similar offerings. Only the lead presence of Constance Bennett and good (if unrewarded) supporting turns from Basil Rathbone and ZaSu Pitts are interesting from a cast point of view and add to the film’s impact. The film is probably a little better-known than it should by virtue of having been accidentally dropped in the public domain a while ago and works well according to its sub-genre conventions, but it’s not as essential as many others.

  • Jack and Jill (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2022) Much as some films are instant classics, others earn near-unanimous enmity and that’s where Jack and Jill comes in—immediately reviled upon release by the critical consensus, it has since become a bit of a punchline when someone wants to make a point about a bad movie. The trouble starts with the premise and certainly doesn’t stop there: With Adam Sandler playing both the protagonist and his twin sister, there’s a lot of potential there for showboating, crude jokes and an overarching “Isn’t it funny to see Sandler in drag???” atmosphere that will irritate even those who don’t dislike Sandler already. But Jack and Jill keeps going further and further into ill-conceived moments. To see an aggressively dumb film as this one manage to pull in none other than Al Pacino to play himself as the butt of jokes is almost confounding. I won’t try to pretend that Pacino’s career is solely made of unimpeachable material, or that it’s always terrible for stars to make fun of their image. But there’s something unusually repulsive in seeing Pacino beclown himself to such a degree, and even having the film itself acknowledge how terrible it is (“Burn it.”) doesn’t bring much solace. Jack and Jill is just irritating throughout—never as funny as it thinks it is, even dumber than it pretends to be and seldom amusing even as it goes through the motions of having a serious actor laughing at himself. It’s just a confounding film and not one that’s pleasant to watch. Critics had a point—while Jack and Jill is still watchable on a purely technical level as the product of a big-budget professional filmmaking enterprise (hence none of that stupid “worse movie of the year” nonsense, please), it’s still markedly worse than most comparable films. Heed the warning and give this one a miss… or do as I do, and wait a full decade and an easy “record this” button on your DVR to finally have an aghast look at the wreckage.

  • The Boss Baby: Family Business (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) I’m not sure that the one-joke premise of The Boss Baby stretched to expand a sequel. After all, it was already such a poorly-motivated stretch that even the first film had trouble making it to the finishing line, barely kept up by a generally amiable tone. The sequel takes things to the next generation, as the grown-up hero of the first film re-experiences the baby empire through his kids. This time, they’re up against a mad educational genius who proves to be… yes… an evil baby. If your suspension of disbelief still holds, let’s just say that The Boss Baby: Family Business may or may not be credible, but it’s executed up to the level of most mainstream animated family films. Fast action sequences, straightforward narrative momentum, plenty of jokes and sight-gags, as well as a decent animation quality. There’s no real reason to watch this film if you haven’t already enjoyed the first one—but commercial logic works on its own level. I’m about half-certain that there will be a third film. I’m reasonably sure I’ll see it. I’m not at all convinced I’ll remember it a few days later.

  • Habit (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) Life’s too short to hate movies, but I’m almost willing to make an exception in Habit’s case, a black comedy so violent and profane that it challenges viewers to find any shred of interest in the result. Much of the story revolves around a bad girl with a Jesus sexual fetish turning to nun’s habits in order to conclude drug deals and eventually running afoul of a powerful drug lord who vows revenge. So far so good—a comic crime film is often exactly what I’m looking for, and it’s not as if I’m all that much of a good Catholic anyway. But there’s dark comedy, and then there’s a foul-mouthed unlikable protagonist who ends the film by graphically decapitating (with a knife) another woman. Ugh. Bella Thorne does herself no favour by playing the lead character in a thoroughly detestable movie (she also produces, which says much for her taste in material). The problem is not that Habit is sacrilegious—I’ve enjoyed far more blasphematory material before—but that it’s nihilistic, hollow, devoid of redeemable qualities and visually ugly as well. Janell Shirtcliff directs, which will serve as a warning for whatever film she tackles next. On paper, Habit goes for the foul-mouthed crime comedy genre, but in practice it feels like the result of a psychopathic cast and crew with no concept of humanity or decency—especially when it tries to crack jokes about repellent material. Pretentious yet juvenile, hateful to the point of being loathsome, Habit is a mess of a film that repels even its target audience.

  • Alad’2 (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) While Alad’2 is technically a sequel to the 2015 comedy Les Nouvelles Aventures d’Aladin, you don’t need to have seen the first film in order to make sense of this one (well, except for the call-backs)—in fact, the sequel aspect of the story following up on Aladdin’s familiar first adventure works no matter how the first adventure was told, and the off-the-wall comic approach may even feel fresher. The (disappointing) framing device has to do with a young man travelling by plane to the wedding of his former flame, and telling an Aladdin story very much influenced by his life to the boy sitting next to him. Within the framing device, we have a madcap, completely anachronistic take on Aladdin’s further adventures — complete with an evil dictator (Jamel Debbouze, returning to the big screen after a few judicious low-profile years following his massive overexposure circa 2002–2012 but still holding on to his showboating tendencies) competing for the lovely princess’ hand. The script throws everything it can think of in the hope that something will stick, and sometimes it does—although the funny factor of cramming an extended reference to Frozen’s “Let it go” is debatable. (Significantly, the gag very specifically relies on the French translation of the song—I wonder how that would get back-translated in English.)  The comedy is quite uneven and when it doesn’t work, it’s bad enough to grit our teeth. On the other hand, a lot of material does work, the special effects get the message across and the framing device helps get to the film’s somewhat unlikely happy ending. Alad’2 is a silly comedy and should be approached as such—fun if you’re indulgent, but probably not worth pondering longer than the end credits roll.

  • The Gallows (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, January 2022) I don’t necessarily object to teen horror movies, dumb premises, annoying protagonist or found-footage films by themselves, but blend those elements together and the result seems almost custom-made to exasperate. Beginning with a VHS-grade camcorder recording of a high-school theatrical play that goes horribly wrong when a teen actor is hanged for real (OK, who designed that set?), The Gallows does itself no favour by skipping ahead a few years and positing that the high school is putting together a revival of that very same fatal play. Seriously? Aren’t you just begging evil spirits to do their work at that point? But there’s even worse to come, since, as annoyingly chronicled through various handheld shots, the teenage characters are all as exasperating as they can be. There’s scarcely a difference to be made between protagonists and villains here, as they are all apparently as dumb as they can be while still passing their courses, and all blithely unconcerned about courting disaster with their new project. When they all start dying, well, it comes as a relief—the supernatural presence acting as a culler of the exasperating, cleaning house and leaving the school in marginally better shape once the caskets are buried. Yes, it takes a lot for me to cheer for the antagonist, but writers-directors Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing ensure that The Gallows handily earns that distinction within fifteen minutes of opening. Die, theatre students, die—and try not to leave a stain on the gallows so that it can be re-used. Because of course there’s a sequel… and it’s not any better.

  • Trigger Point (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) Either I’ve seen too many hitman dramas lately, or Trigger Point is the dullest, most obvious possible film in that subgenre. An unfortunate low-budget product of Canadian Content requirements (I’m proud of Canadian films, but not this one), Trigger Point makes a tepid blend of very familiar genre elements, starting with a semi-retired special operative (Barry Pepper, probably the most affordable “name” actor they could find) asked for one last mission by a former boss. That, for most genre fans, should ring alarm bells: he’s obviously being set up to be killed by his former mentor and, well, that’s the plot right there. But ah-ha, you hope, if the premise is lame, maybe the execution will be better? No such luck, alas: Director Brad Turner can’t make magic with the material and budget he’s working with, so all we’re left with as slightly awkward sequences of actors holding their guns, glaring each other and occasionally taking a shot. While I like the idea of a hitman drama being shot in and near Hamilton (Ontario), it’s not even the best such film—have a look at Things I Do for Money instead. But back to Trigger Point: there’s no escaping that this is a dull retelling of familiar genre tropes with no flavour whatsoever. More generous audiences will appreciate the small-town atmosphere, but there really isn’t enough here to satisfy. Pepper gives it all he’s got, but there’s little for him to do in the script he’s going through. Colm Feore is a highlight as always, but that doesn’t mean much when compared to the rest of the film. It’s said that the film could lead to a possible trilogy, and the only rational answer to that is a quiet “Please, no. That’s enough.”

  • Unaccompanied Minors (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) As far as holiday comedies go, Unaccompanied Minors remains most distinctive today for being a pre-stardom film from comedy director Paul Feig, an interesting collection of known comics in cameos, and a premise (kids without supervision in a snowed-in airport) that could have gone to interesting places. Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a spatial restraint even in a snowstorm, as Unaccompanied Minors only spends its first act in the airport before going away and diffusing its own mounting tension. Lewis Black is in fine form as a cranky anti-Christmas airport manager, but it’s noteworthy that the ensemble cast of young kids doesn’t sport many recognizable names—instead, you’ll have to look at the cameos for nice roster of circa-2006 American film comedians in small roles. It’s disappointing that the film couldn’t make the most of the assets at its disposal: Trying to dismantle teenage angst in time for the holidays sounds nice, but the film doesn’t quite get the balance right between the slapstick and the drama, and moving the plot away from the airport (well, other than tracking one father’s odyssey to make a tough drive to pick up his kids) ends up lowering the temperature of the result. Unaccompanied Minors is still watchable, not objectionable in the least… but a bit disappointing.