Reviews

  • The House Next Door aka Meet the Blacks 2 (2021)

    The House Next Door aka Meet the Blacks 2 (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) I’m fond of silly comedies spoofing other genres, so there’s something in the vampire spoof of The House Next Door that provides at least a solid hook. I haven’t seen the first Meet the Blacks yet, but it’s not as if the basics are difficult to understand: When an average family sees a new strange neighbour move into the house next door, they can’t help but notice clues that something supernatural is afoot. Their suspicions are later proven right when the neighbour ends up being a vampire with a fixation on the protagonist’s wife. It’s a big blend of familiar tropes used as an excuse for Mike Epps (as the family-man protagonist) and Katt Williams (as the vampire antagonist) to goof around. Some of the material works, but let’s not pretend that this is good or particularly funny: the dialogue doesn’t fly high, and the jokes are seldom anything but obvious. The House Next Door has a straight-up male gaze, which would be far more enjoyable if the female characters had something interesting to do. But no — the focus here is on the guys and it’s not as if they’re worth the entire spotlight. Sure, it’s fun to see Danny Trejo and Snoop Dog appear for brief roles, but even their cameos can’t sustain the rest of the film when it sputters through familiar arcs and overextended jokes falling flat. The House Next Door, despite some indulgence and the combined attractiveness of Shamea Morton, Bresha Webb and Jena Frumes, remains a disappointing outing, not even successful at aping a Wayans-Brothers kind of comedy (which itself apes other better material). It wasn’t a complete waste of time, but I can’t see myself recommending most of it.

  • The Wild One (1953)

    The Wild One (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) Some of the fun in watching older “social issues” movies is how quaint they can feel. The barely repressed panic of The Wild One, for instance, consists in imagining the terrible things that could happen if some of those strange and scary motorcycle enthusiasts would take over a town for the weekend, rampaging through God-fearing innocent folks. (Admittedly all inspired by a rather sensationalistic account of the Hollister Riot.) Nowadays, of course, some cities voluntarily create events for bikers — and the spectre of social disorder has been transferred to other groups. Still, the world of The Wild One is built to accommodate Marlon Brandon as a swaggering biker — but a good one that fights against the truly evil bikers (their leader played by a magnificent Lee Marvin) and romances the village’s purest girl along the way. It’s schematic, but much of the interest of the film is in the methods it uses (safely limited by the demands of the Production Code) to create social terror among its viewers, and then somehow manage to make a likable character out of Brando’s performance. The Wild One reflects an interesting juncture in post-WW2 American history, as biker gangs emerged as organized groups — but take the “inspired by a real story” tack with some indulgence.

  • Spring (2014)

    Spring (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) There’s an intriguing mixture of genres at play in Spring, as a young man’s romantic holiday becomes something much stranger along the way. It begins in depressingly gritty dramatic territory, as our protagonist buries his long-suffering mother and finds himself eager to get out of town. Once on the shores of the Mediterranean, the film shifts in romantic mode as he meets a very strange young woman who seems to harbour a deep secret. That discovery lands us in horror territory, but what sets Spring apart from countless other femmes fatales of horror vintage is that it doesn’t stop there — it keeps going further in its premise, bringing the film close to a science-fictional examination of an extraordinary but still plausible premise. But Spring is not done yet — the climactic suspense of the film is to see whether it’s going to land in horror or romance, and while the answer is unsatisfying, it’s not quite so simple as what other genre films would have chosen. You can certainly argue that the script is slightly better than the low-budget execution, and that there are maybe one or two less-essential subplots to slow things down. Still, writers-directors-producers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead do rather well with a limited budget, and pack a few shocks along the way. Lou Taylor Pucci is fine in the lead role, but it’s Nadia Hilker who has the more difficult role as a flirty/mysterious/preoccupied young woman who’s really something else. Some nice Italian scenery completes the package for a surprisingly engaging film. Spring is probably not the film you expect, and that’s quite a relief in a landscape of intensely formulaic horror films that would all have gone in a very predictable direction.

  • Rebound (2005)

    Rebound (2005)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2021) I know that filmmaking is a complex, backbreaking, thankless business involving hundreds of professionals doing their best. And yet, the first thing that comes to mind in watching comedy Rebound is how lazy it feels. Lazy in conception, as a famous college basketball coach is fired for ungentlemanly conduct and finds accepting a high school basketball coach position out of desperation. Lazy in how it recycles dozens of underdog sports clichés in building its inept basketball team. Lazy in the jokes it attempts, lazy in the character relationship it builds, and lazy in the formulaic way it goes about its plotting. Lazy in its unimaginative direction from Steve Carr, lazy in its unremarkable execution. Also lazy in the broad choices made by Martin Lawrence in playing the protagonist—although there’s little surprise here. Oh, Patrick Warburton and Megan Mullally show up in short but competent supporting role (while a very young Alia Shawkat makes for a fun teen sportscaster) but that’s stretching to find things to say about a very unremarkable sports comedy aimed at kids. Rebound is not terrible, but it just sits there, merely making the minimum required for entertainment.

  • Mahanagar [The Big City] (1963)

    Mahanagar [The Big City] (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) As someone who bounces off writer-director Satyajit Ray’s films with unbecoming ease, I thought I had it all figured out when I deliberately selected The Big City to lull myself to sleep during a bout of insomnia: After complaining that his films were snooze-inducing, why not use that to my own benefit? Surprisingly, it did not work:  I really got into the film, as it follows the adventures of a middle-class wife who gets a job and upsets the power balance of her family. A terrific performance from Madhabi Mukherjee (playing off a frequently-irritating turn from Anil Chatterjee) anchors the entire film, but Ray’s script is interesting on a moment-to-moment basis even as we can see the big plotting threads evolve throughout. The portrait of early-1960s Calcutta is fascinating, in-between the clashing cultures left in the wake of the British occupation, and the lively everyday mixture of languages. My attempts to go to sleep went nowhere — I just wanted to see where things were going next. The ending is slightly too open-ended for my taste, but The Big City itself is a surprisingly accessible piece of neorealism whose effectiveness went past my usual objections.

  • Christmas Movie Magic (2021)

    Christmas Movie Magic (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) By now, I’ve seen enough Hallmark-style Christmas movies that I have resigned myself to evaluate them on their own merits, and to expect the usual formula repeated ad nauseam. These are not meant to be ambitious movies — they follow a formula because the audience demands it, and they go for a no-frill execution because that’s the cost-efficient budget they’re working with. So, imagine my surprise when I realized that Christmas Movie Magic was going for slightly more than the usual “City girl goes back to small town for Christmas, falls in love, the end”: Oh, that’s still the plot, but it doesn’t quite cover the added complications of the details. Here, the story has to do with the journalist protagonist writing about a small town where a classic Christmas film (think something like “It’s a Wonderful Life” with musical numbers) was filmed. This means that Christmas Movie Magic at least has to go through the motions of presenting a credible Holiday classic, figure out the details of its production and voluntarily blur the lines between the present-day action and the re-creation of the classic film. This culminates in a final scene of very unusual ambition for these kinds of film: a musical number blurring both timelines with good production values. Of course, director Robert Vaughn doesn’t have what it takes (budget, actors, time, skills) to do more than being ambitious: it doesn’t quite reach the level where we forget that this is a low-budget Christmas romantic comedy, nor does it embarrass itself with fine writing along the way. But I have to respect the attempt: coupled with the focus on classic cinema (always a way to get into my good graces), Christmas Movie Magic makes a much better and stronger impression than most of the formulaic stuff that plays on cable TV during December. Despite some flat acting and graceless dialogue, I may even give it another go next year. Or at least let it play while I do something else.

  • The Great Lie (1941)

    The Great Lie (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) The melodrama flies thick and fast in The Great Lie, as the film begins with a romantic triangle that is almost immediately complicated by the abrupt death of one of the principals, his impregnation of a second, and the third’s attempts to purchase the resulting child to raise on her own. Oh yes, this is soap-opera material in classic Hollywood fashion, with pesky marriages and reappearances always ruining everything. Fortunately, good execution compensates for weak source material: With Bette Davis and Mary Astor taking up most of the scenes, they at least give it all they’ve got in the acting department. (They also reportedly rewrote much of the dialogue to suit themselves, which is enough to make anyone wonder just how bad the original script was.)  Astor won an Oscar for her troubles, and Davis escapes unscathed from the ludicrous narrative. By no means an essential film unless you’re running down Oscar-winning performances, The Great Lie can be entertaining as an example of the sort of melodramatic silliness that Classic Hollywood often attempted, but it’s a relief to see it being rescued by its lead actresses.

  • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

    Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, December 2021) We’re at an interesting juncture in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, having concluded the first decade of the series with a climactic event. The focus right now seems to be on building a next generation of characters, burnishing the series’ progressive credentials and trying a few new things in the wake of a conclusion of sorts. As such, maybe a bit of sputtering is inevitable: Black Widow was a reheated plate of déjà vu, while Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is only notable if you’ve never seen anything in the Chinese fantastic martial arts tradition. (Which, admittedly, is probably the case for most western audiences.)  As someone who has watched a lot of eastern fantasy martial arts movies starting back in the early 2000s, I felt more antsy than anything else during much of Shang-Chi’s second half. The first one is clearly better: as an underachieving young man discovers his otherworldly pedigree, the film begins grounded in the here-and-now, with Awkwafina providing a sarcastic audience stand-in as things get weirder and weirder. Simu Liu is fine as the lead, although time will tell if he’s able to parlay this specific success into something more lasting. The top moment of the film has to be a fight aboard a 60-foot articulated bus — having ridden on near-identical buses for a long time, that sequence exceeded my wildest fantasies borne out of transit boredom. But as Shang-Chi’s action moves away from San Francisco to the Chinese supernatural underworld and then another realm entirely, everything felt increasingly familiar, and even Michelle Yeoh can’t make the entire thing stick together — as it went on, Awkwafina’s character felt duller and duller, absent her amazement on behalf of the audience. The final battle felt like a chore more than anything else. Links with the MCU so far are thin — other than Benedict Wong showing up briefly, a few references to the Snap and the usual credit teasers, Shang-Chi is a standalone film meant to launch a new character. In some ways, this lack of satisfaction is inevitable: the series is once again in build-up mode, but the expectations are much higher this time around. Next up is Eternals, although from the vantage point of being a patient viewer, I can already see the very bad reviews for the theatrical release…

  • The Entertainer (1960)

    The Entertainer (1960)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) For all of the self-serving myth-making that actors sustain about the profession of acting, there’s something more interesting to say about The Entertainer’s merciless look at a failed performer, one steadily heading toward irrelevance as the world moves on. The film takes place on a seaside British town, the kind of summer destination with performing halls fit for tourists. It’s a near-perfect playground for our protagonist (honestly played by Laurence Olivier), even if it’s in his own mind: As he performs to smaller and smaller crowds, his egocentrism prevents him from seeing how his life is falling apart — his repeated affairs harming his second marriage, his brother off to war, his father getting older, the music-hall tradition going away, and his commercial appeal being practically gone. Filmed in stark black-and-white by director Tony Richardson with an equally unsentimental script, The Entertainer is the cautionary tale warning anyone against an acting career. It’s really not a fun time at the movies, but the seedy atmosphere of desperation permeates the character and gives the film a still-unique feeling.

  • His House (2020)

    His House (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, December 2021) As far as premises go, blending a haunted-house story with an immigrant drama of culture shock is not bad at all: in the tradition of the best horror movies being less about monsters and more about a theme literally represented, His House presents an unusual take on an overly familiar topic, and manages to say something halfway interesting along the way. Our protagonists are an immigrant couple having made it to Great Britain despite terrible hardships, including the death of their daughter. Hardly greeted with open arms, they find themselves in a terrible apartment with some blunt directives: Don’t make trouble. Obey the law. Fit in. Or else: deportation. But that considerable burden becomes even more difficult to bear when a supernatural apparition starts haunting their new apartment: a presence out for revenge and the recognition of past wrongs. There’s an interpretation of His House that sustains a psychological drama angle — it’s all in the protagonist’s head, and the holes he knocks in the walls of the apartment reflect his errant state of mind. But while such an explanation may make academic dullards gleeful, it’s also the most boring. Far better to perceive the monster as a monster in addition to the incarnation of a metaphor. The rest of writer-director Remi Weekes’s film isn’t always so interesting, though: While there’s a caustic argument going on between husband and wife about whether they want to stay in the United Kingdom (this isn’t a heartwarming story of immigration), much of the film is a slow burn all the way to the final confrontation. Still, His House has more to say than the average horror film, and an angle of its material that feels unusual enough to be interesting.

  • The Wrong Missy (2020)

    The Wrong Missy (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, December 2021) In making a romantic comedy film centred around an obnoxious character, there’s a tricky balance between irritation and, for lack of a better word, redemption: how far can you push the actions of a character before making them completely unlikable for the rest of the film? Part of it has to do with skillful screenwriting and the other has to do with competent casting. A good actor can make the best even out of standard material written by mediocre craftsmen. So given that The Wrong Missy has to do with a middle-aged businessman (David Spade, looking his age) on a Hawaiian holiday getting swept up with a hyperactive woman with poor understanding of consent and boundaries, well, you have to get a strong actress in that part. Fortunately, the film had the good luck of stumbling on Lauren Lapkus — someone with a proven track record of making the best out of poor material (in Watson and Holmes, namely). In her hands, the “wrong” Missy keeps a thin edge of likability even through the worst possible actions of the film’s first two acts, even when bluntly handled by director Tyler Spindel and the rest of the Happy Madison production crew. This is really not a sophisticated film: the humour is crude, scatological and borderline repulsive. (Those consent issues? Yeah — a gender-flipped take on the same story would be incendiary.)  But Lapkus owns The Wrong Missy’s best moments and makes the worst tolerable until the third act gets down to more conventional likability. That’s not much of a recommendation, but it’s more than the film would have deserved with a lesser lead actress.

  • I vitelloni (1953)

    I vitelloni (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) I’m a big fan of early-phase Fellini— too mimetic, too dull, too realistic for my tastes. I vitelloni, being the adventures of four young men yearning to get out of their small Italian town, is clearly in the neorealist vein, but you can already see some of the flamboyance that would characterize and distinguish later-phase Fellini. As a slice-of-life kind of film (until the protagonist gets a revelation and acts on it), there are fun parts and not-so-fun ones. My appreciation for I vitelloni is limited, but that goes for pretty much all of Italian neorealism.

  • Lust in the Dust (1984)

    Lust in the Dust (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) As far as western comedies go, Lust in the Dust hits a very specific and rather sweet spot of camp flamboyance, ribald naughtiness and over-the-top absurdity. Divine stars as a rotund dancehall girl lost in the desert, where she encounters a taciturn cowboy (Tab Hunter, no less) and goes treasure hunting with the help of strategically tattooed maps. As comedies go, this one combines a dumb premise with weird characters, unusual situations and good one-liners even if the rhythm is uneven throughout. Still, Divine does well as the unravishable heroine (and the cross-dressing aspect hasn’t aged as badly as you’d think), while Lainie Kazan and Gina Gallego provide much of the nudity and raunch that make the film even funnier. By the time the film works itself off to a mutual stand-off above a treasure, well, we’re satisfied. Director Paul Bartel’s filmography is all over the place when it comes to comedy (Everything from Cannonball to Eating Raoul) and Lust in the Dust doesn’t clarify anything about his approach. While the result can’t be called a great comedy, it’s watchable and funny enough to be worth a look.

  • The Tender Trap (1955)

    The Tender Trap (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) Even from sixty-five years later, it’s easy to see the hook of The Tender Trap. No, not the catchy title song that became a Frank Sinatra signature tune, but the concept of a proto-sex-comedy opposing legendary womanizer Sinatra with pure-as-snow Debbie Reynolds in a battle of the sexes on the way to matrimony. Sinatra plays the bachelor of many men’s dreams, with a high-paying job allowing him to afford swanky clothes and a killer Manhattan bachelor’s pad. Such is his appeal that when a friend decides to leave his married Midwestern life behind, he immediately heads over there to crash as he figures out what to do, and takes advantage of a few female friends feeling neglected by the protagonist. Said protagonist is only too happy juggling numerous conquests, except when one of them, an ultra-organized monogamous gal (Reynolds), seems worth giving up everything. It’s all pleasant enough in a Mad-Men-inspiration vein — even for a film explicitly dealing with an unrepentant bachelor and a wayward husband, the tone is so resolutely restrained that it seems almost likable. There’s an interesting line to draw from The Tender Trap to the more freewheeling sex comedies of the 1960s — in fact, many viewers may have trouble believing it’s not a 1960s film. Sinatra is just as compelling as usual, and there’s a rather good scene in which Reynolds, then Sinatra, then Reynolds again take on the title song, each time making it richer and more interesting in its delivery. David Wayne (looking a lot like Daniel Craig!) is also a highlight as the married man taking a holiday — although the film certainly does not dwell on what he’s up to when he takes one of his friend’s regulars on late-night dates. It’s all quite amusing (as long as you can buy into the fantasy of a Manhattan playboy, that is), bolstered by Sinatra and Reynolds at their most charming and some clean crisp 1950s colour cinematography. The Tender Trap certainly paved the way for more daring films to follow, and fits comfortably in the string of New York City-set sex comedies of the following decade and a half.

  • Adam Had Four Sons (1941)

    Adam Had Four Sons (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) No one will ever mistake Adam Had Four Sons for anything but the straight-up domestic romantic thriller it aimed for — with a lovely governess (Ingrid Bergman, looking gorgeous) filling in for a dead mother and sniffing out a gold-digging harridan putting her claws into an easily flummoxed son. The story stretches over a few years, although much of the second and third act settles down in a shorter period after an extended opening featuring a great-looking Fay Wray as the soon-to-be-deceased mother. Then Susan Hayward takes centre stage as the adulterous, deceiving, booze-swilling, money-grubbing outsider who comes to steal the family fortune and seduce whoever she can to fulfill her role. (Meanwhile, our heroine is utterly chaste — but she does, as expected, ends up with the family patriarch once everything has been cleared up. The three lead actresses are unusually attractive here, but even that doesn’t do much to make up for the rather obvious script. This being said, there’s still some fun to be had even when knowing where it’s going: Hayward is deliciously evil here, and anticipating the melodramatic (melodomestic?) plot beats is almost as much fun as being surprised. Adam Had Four Sons is all rather pleasant in the end, with the bonus of seeing Bergman in an early Hollywood role—playing a Frenchwoman!