Reviews

  • Nightmares (1983)

    Nightmares (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, November 2021) As yet another horror anthology film, Nightmares remains in the honest average for the subgenre — uneven stories, some striking moments, a few notable cast members but a lack of cohesion that makes it little more than a collection of short films rather than a deliberate build-up to something bigger. The anthology film is distinctive for being the work of a single director Joseph Sargent rather than several ones, but its origin as a TV series pilot does explain some of the restraints in those segments. The first story is a dull retelling of the killer-in-the-back-seat urban legends, not really setting a promising note for the rest. The second tale is far more ludicrous, and concludes on seeing Emilio Estevez using an arcade laser gun to shoot at a creature escaped from a videogame — it’s silly stuff, but I liked the throwback to the early days of videogaming. The third segment is a more sombre Duel-inspired affair involving a faithless priest, played by Lance Henriksen, confronted with a pickup from hell (yes, you read that right), but it does conclude on a decent car stunt. Finally, the film wraps with a story in which a family confronts a rodent of unusual size in their basement, with Veronica Cartwright playing the mom. All stories work themselves up to a moral of some sort and are mild on the thrills, so that’s a contrast from some of the more gore-oriented horror anthology films out there. Still, you may forget Nightmares faster than you’d think.

  • Two Smart People (1946)

    Two Smart People (1946)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2021) My disappointment at Two Smart People is not without precedent if I look at the less-than-impressed reactions about the film collected upon release and ever since. It’s even worse considering the promise of a Jules Dassin-directed film featuring Lucille Ball — Dassin’s later filmography showed a skill for noir, while Ball’s mid-1940s career was on a comic upswing. But there’s little of those skills in evidence here, as a mixture of overlapping confidence games and a cross-country train trip do little to entertain or amuse. Ball’s comic persona is muted, and the blend of crime and comedy doesn’t quite gel. The title suggests wit and sophistication, but the result is a clear notch under that — at best, Two Smart People is an amiable crime romance but one that’s generally featureless and forgettable. There’s a slight uptick of interest in the end, but it’s really not enough to lift the result out of the doldrums.

  • Ladies of the Chorus (1948)

    Ladies of the Chorus (1948)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2021) If you ever wonder what happens to a film when one of its secondary actors strikes it big, then Ladies of the Chorus is one of the exhibits for your edification. A rather ordinary showbiz romantic comedy musical, it just so happened to feature Marilyn Monroe in a supporting role as a burlesque dancer. The original top billing went to Adele Jergens (now a Classic Hollywood footnote at best), but when Monroe struck it big, the film was re-issued with revised opening credits, putting Monroe above the title, which remains the definitive edition of the film. (Just so we’re clear: Monroe’s role is significant here — it’s not a case of trying to hype a two-scene supporting appearance.) This kind of thing is not uncommon (especially in the direct-to-video, now streaming world where metadata reigns supreme) but it’s still an amusing anecdote about a film that, frankly, wouldn’t otherwise warrant much discussion. Ladies of the Chorus is, Monroe aside, a pleasant and familiar film of its genre: it’s got a few musical numbers, a few romances, a look at the thrills (and the backstage) of live performance, and goes about delivering a happy conclusion for everyone. There are at least a dozen very similar films… but only one of them features Monroe in her singing-and-dancing debut.

  • The Wizard of Gore (2007)

    The Wizard of Gore (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, November 2021) I know, I know — it makes no sense for me, who strongly dislikes gore films, to go watching something called The Wizard of Gore. To my defence, however, I thought I was going to watch the 1970 version of the film, which has been called a reference in the field of horror cinema (hence something to check off the list of the movies I should be seeing, if only once). It quickly became obvious that this was not the 1970 version, but seeing Crispin Glover’s name in the opening credit kept me watching, and looking up the cast to see a mention of “Suicide Girls” (a pin-up aesthetic I often like) didn’t hurt either. First up: yes, there is gore, as much of the film is about a stage magician bloodily “murdering” young women on a stage show, only for those girls (apparently unharmed by the end of the show) to die horribly hours later. The plot, such as it is, has to do with a journalist investigating the mystery and, obviously, getting sucked into this vortex of splatter. But the set-pieces of the film are about bodies being sliced open, internal organs taken outside, blood spraying everywhere and an appalling disrespect for the sanctity of the human body. I did not like the scenes of extreme violence, obviously, but was still hooked by some of the surrounding material. Set in downtown Los Angeles, this is a film that revels in the dirty, grimy, off-putting side of things — nearly every shot of the film is off-kilter, with terrible things lurking in the numerous shadows of the frame. The characters are all damaged, delusional or pupeteered by director Jeremy Kasten, as he seems intent on delivering as nightmarish a vision as he can. There’s some skill in the way the images are put together that definitely raises the film from the bottom tier of schlocky horror. Still, praising a gore film for not being quite as terrible as expected is not exactly high praise: it’s far from a recommendation. Still, this The Wizard of Gore remake is not quite as terrible as it could have been, and I’m going to stick to that as my assessment.

  • Hollywoo (2011)

    Hollywoo (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2021) Hollywood loves to talk about Hollywood, but French film Hollywoo is a look at Los Angeles moviemaking that could only have come from outsiders. It begins in Paris, as the voice actress dubbing an insanely popular TV show actress sees her livelihood threatened by the abrupt retirement of the actress. (Sidenote speaking from French-Canada: In real life, this doesn’t happen, as nearly all dubbing actors are specialized professionals with a portfolio of roles.)  Since this is a silly comedy, our protagonist does what no one else would do: fly off to California to try to convince the actress to un-retire. But realism does make a return for comic impact once it becomes obvious that no one (not even a French dubbing actress) can simply walk in to see a famous actress — complications repetitively emerge as various approaches are rebuffed. Then Hollywoo is off to a series of quests leading to other quests, eventually involving another French citizen and then, hilariously, a French-Canadian character presented as antagonist. (The biggest laugh in the film, at least for me, is when the purely European-French protagonist tries imitating the French-Canadian character, complete with swear words.)  The result is uneven: even swallowing the whopping insanity of the premise, the annoying emphasis on the character played by Jamel Debbouze is more a function of his circa-2010 popularity than something that serves the film. (His popularity has, since then, considerably waned — perhaps as a result of the over-exposure he received, as demonstrated here.)  Florence Foresti isn’t immediately likable here, but the film eventually warms up to her as she gets gradually saner over the course of the film and scores a few victories in her quixotic quest. As a look at Hollywood, Hollywoo is clearly an outsider’s rant — there’s almost as much reverence for an outdated idea of how it works as a gentle satirical jab at the people living there. Still, it’s almost refreshing to get non-Americans having fun in Los Angeles: Hollywood, for better or for worse, has not belonged to the Americans for a very long time. Everyone gets to say what they think of it.

  • The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

    The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, November 2021) Alas, I must classify The Edge of Seventeen in the “films I should not have missed” category. It happens — there are more new movies released every year than anyone can claim to see, and some will slip through the crack. An affectionate look at a seventeen-year-old high-school senior with many problems, it’s a film that navigates a fine line between dark humour and sympathy for its protagonist. Hailee Stenfeld does have a lot to do with how the many aspects of her character end up working well, with some able supporting work from Woody Harrelson as a sarcastic-but-supportive teacher and Kyra Sedgwick as a mother who’s clearly a lot to handle for a teenager with self-esteem issues. Writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig navigates some tricky material throughout, but keeps the result largely light and entertaining. Various hijinks (including what’s possibly the most embarrassing text message ever imagined) and subplots make the final victory taste even sweeter. It’s a great script directed decently enough, and the result is among the better teenage movies of the 2010s. I’m sorry I missed it the first time around.

  • Ararat (2002)

    Ararat (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2021) As I’ll never get tired of pointing out, everything I’ve ever heard about the Armenian genocide has been because of Turkish militants’ attempts to pretend it didn’t happen. From the Serdar Argic Usenet spam of the mid-1990s to modern attempts to silence filmmakers tackling the topic, it’s not an exaggeration to say that I got interested in the issues because some people tried really hard to pretend it wasn’t an issue. The Promise thus begat a documentary about its shooting, and one that interviewed Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan about his troubles with Ararat — including a meticulous campaign to discredit his work accompanied by a book-sized dossier on his film’s failings. As a good Canadian cinephile, of course I had heard of Ararat — but not being much of a fan, I hadn’t sought it out. That changed after the documentary, and that’s how I ended up learning even more about the Armenian genocide. In a way, it’s good that I saw Ararat after The Promise, as the two logically flow into each other: The Promise is a historical re-creation, while Ararat plays with the making of a film much like The Promise, as it affects circa-2002 characters. It’s scattered and filled with subplots (many of them metatextual), but there’s a sense that Egoyan, himself of Armenian descent, is not trying to convince viewers as much as he’s taking the genocide as a fact and musing on its reverberations. (At least one 2002 review goes about it the other way and complains that the genocide is not given enough attention.) A good and eclectic ensemble cast includes Charles Aznavour, Christopher Plummer, Eric Bogosian, Bruce Greenwood and the lovely Arsinee Khanjian (Egoyan’s wife, in a Genie-winning performance). I found Ararat scattered but interesting, and an interesting addition to the Armenian genocide filmography in that it presents a world in which the recognition has happened, but not the reckoning. (Canada formally recognized the genocide in 2006, while the United States recognized it in 2021.)

  • The Nesting (1981)

    The Nesting (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, November 2021) The early 1980s were uneven years for horror, with the worst slashers sharing theatre marquees with the best. But there was also plenty of average material, and that’s where we find The Nesting: an occasionally promising gothic horror story that can’t quite figure out what it’s doing, goes on dumb tangents and ends up overstaying its welcome. I’m a sucker for gothic manors and that’s what we get at the beginning of the film as a novelist moves to the country to unblock herself and take in some fresh air. Alas, it won’t go according to plan: strange things start happening, strange dreams plague her night and strange people roam about. As the scares accumulate, then don’t necessarily explain themselves nor fit in some kind of explanation: The Nesting’s writer-director Armand Weston clearly belongs to the school of horror that says that it doesn’t matter if it makes sense as long as it’s spooky. Unfortunately, even being spooky is usually beyond the rest of the result: tepid concern is the best that the film can do. By the time the conclusion reveals that the entire thing was no coincidence, well, what else is there to say? The only thing worse than making too little sense is making too much of it. In the end, it still amounts to a mediocre result.

  • The Oak Room (2020)

    The Oak Room (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2021) There’s a substantially more interesting movie dying to get out of The Oak Room — if only it didn’t end at the moment when it was getting interesting. I do like the way the film made the most out of its limited means, with interlocking bar stories set one within each other, a handful of snowbound characters who are all revealed to have a connection, and a dialogue-heavy style that creates as much atmosphere as exposition. There’s an appreciable irony to the film’s concluding moments, as disconnected pieces of the puzzle come together to reveal… a ghastly mistake. The theatrical origin of the story is obvious, but even then, there’s cause to wonder why the film couldn’t have leaned further on its strengths. Better dialogue could have helped. Better characterization as well. But mostly — following up on the third act revelation because otherwise The Oak Room feels like a film that spends more than an hour clearing its throat before saying something interesting — and then it’s already over rather than continuing in that vein. It’s too bad — as a Canadian film, it does have a very specific setting and does quite a lot with what it has at its disposal. But it never quite shifts in the horror that director Cody Calahan’s tone promised, nor does it impress through the sheer impact of its dialogue. I liked it, but it could have been much better.

  • In the Heights (2021)

    In the Heights (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2021) As a big, convinced, unabashed fan of movie musicals, it warms my heart to see something as joyous as In the Heights being given the big-budget, special-effects-showcase treatment. Much of it has to do with Hamilton’s runaway success, of course — while Manuel-Lin Miranda didn’t write or direct In the Heights (and only has a supporting role), his involvement as the co-creator of the original stage musical is enough that you can certainly see the similarities between the two — down to the cadence and writing style of the lyrics. A free-flowing look at the Dominican immigrant experience in upper Manhattan, the film juggles an ensemble cast but is largely structured around the final days of a shopkeeper in New York, as he is about to pack up his things and go back to the Dominican Republic, where he has bought his father’s business. But there’s a lot going on around him, from romance to summer jitters about returning to school, a massive power blackout and the frailness of an elderly character. In the best musical tradition, it’s all an excuse for spectacular dance numbers, the most impressive of them balancing all the stories, featuring hundreds of dancers in a poolside setting, or getting across a great joie de vivre. And that’s not mentioning the technical showpiece of the film, a sequence in which two characters are so in love with each other that they dance on the side of an apartment building. (The principle is the same as in the old Batman TV show, but the computer-massaged execution is still a wonder to behold.)  It’s all quite joyful (albeit with one affecting character death), getting us back in the classic Hollywood musical mould with no apologies about it. Suffice to say that I liked In the Heights a lot — it’s the kind of film I’d consider buying on UHD-4K just to get the best possible audio and video and be able to re-watch on a whim. I’m dismayed that it was a box-office disappointment: I’d love for musicals to remain a fixture of American cinema, and we can’t have that if they fail commercially despite great reviews.

  • The Voices (2014)

    The Voices (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, November 2021) Dark comedy is a tricky genre, and it doesn’t take much to send it flying into distasteful territory. Of course, The Voices goes far beyond “just a bit too much” in depicting the last few days of a schizophrenic serial murderer as he goes about stabbing female co-workers, dismembering them and keeping their decapitated heads for conversation. It’s about as funny as it sounds, which is to say — not much. Comic book artist turned director Marjane Satrapi (far better known for more wholesome fare) does play into the material as written — the film is strange in unpleasant ways, with the absurdity of the protagonist discussing morality with his pets (the dog — good; the cat —evil) and the heads of his victims. Perhaps the most interesting thing about The Voices does remain the lead performance of its star Ryan Reynolds: As an awkward young man troubled by mental health issues, Reynolds dials down his usual charm to deliver a borderline-repellent performance that we are very unlikely to see again since he has now ascended to nice-guy superstardom. Gemma Arterton and the ever-lovable Anna Kendrick also show up in supporting roles—but don’t ask what happens to their characters. Everyone in the film is clearly working in the same direction, delivering about as good a take on the written material as it was possible to do. But the point remains that I don’t really care about humanizing a serial killer, nor do I get any enjoyment at all from seeing young women turned into dismembered corpses. The Voices is terrifyingly dark and no amount of humour will remove the queasiness of the premise. Reynolds completists (even those with a liking for the rude-and-crude Deadpool) may have an even harder time than others making it through this.

  • Finding Love in Mountain View (2020)

    Finding Love in Mountain View (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2021) Having given relatively good grades to Finding Love in San Antonio, I was curious to see if its stablemate Finding Love in Mountain View would be equally charming. To save you from any harmful suspense (considering that this is a kind of film that does not believe in suspense), let me begin by saying that there is no common character, plot point, thematic intention or structural gimmick in common between the two romantic comedies:  As best as I can determine, they’re similar titles given by the production company for marketing purposes and that’s it. Having acknowledged that, perhaps the most noteworthy thing about Finding Love in Mountain View is how, in the grand tradition of Lifetime/Hallmark romantic films, it works overtime to systematically de-dramatize plot elements that would power entire other melodramatic films. As the story begins, for instance, our architect protagonist receives the news that her cousin has suddenly died, entrusting her two children to her. The subdued, almost inexistent, grief in those early scenes is noteworthy — this is not a film that wants viewers to wallow in pain. The thrust in abrupt motherhood has been used elsewhere as premise for entire movies, but here it’s mere backdrop for the protagonist moving back to her childhood home in Mountain View (unusually shot on location — perhaps that’s the point of the “Finding Love in…” series: location shooting rather than a Canadian production) where the real and familiar story of her rekindled romance with a past boyfriend gets going. This is, as usual, innocuous material: we know how it’s going to play out, and having the kids around simply adds more sweetness to the foregone conclusion. But even in the very rigidly defined subgenre of Hallmark romances, Finding Love in Mountain View struggles for distinction. Lead actress Danielle C. Ryan is unremarkable (trying to pass her off as a musician is a stretch when she can’t convincingly fake playing a guitar) and the use of location scenery is disappointing. But Finding Love in Mountain View is the kind of film that makes for a specific, unadventurous audience — blandness is an asset, and being able to predict plot points (such as the no-good boyfriend totally ignoring her while speaking on his phone!) is expected. For everyone else, though, Finding Love in Mountain View is hardly worth the trip.

  • Zardoz (1974)

    Zardoz (1974)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, November 2021) For years, Zardoz taunted me from my unseen-DVD shelf. A gift from a definitely mischievous friend, the film’s reputation fascinated and repelled me in equal measure. The early 1970s were not the best years for big-screen Science Fiction: New Hollywood only had a use for SF as a post-apocalyptic backdrop, and if you only had 1970–1976 to pick from, you would quickly understand why mainstream audiences and pop-culture commentators positively hated SF prior to Star Wars: films both naïve and downbeat showing a tiny flash of the genre’s possibilities, seemingly designed either for kids or masochists. Zardoz, seen from one angle, is exactly that. It’s stupid, untrustworthy of its audience, wallowing in brain-dead clichés and stealing everything from other better films. It has Sean Connery in a red leather thong outfit, and it doesn’t take five minutes for the immortal quote “The gun is good. The penis is evil.” to gobsmack any audience. Writer-director-producer John Boorman goes for some truly strange yet bland material here, taking a dull dystopian story and wrapping it up in weird surreal execution. Which ends up being the film’s saving charm, because despite the considerable silliness of its premise, Zardoz is often rescued by its over-the-top ridiculousness or from some genuinely interesting moments of craft. Boorman wasn’t a neophyte even at that early stage of his career, and that often shows in some still-interesting visual effects, oddly compelling scenes, fractured storytelling and audacious bets that don’t quite pay off. The film is bookended by an intriguing opening narration and a rather effective flashforward coda, but what’s in between varies quite a bit. The images are often of the I-can’t-believe-I’m-seeing-this (“Connery, how could you?” only rivals “Charlotte Rampling, how could you?”) and while that doesn’t make Zardoz a good movie, it does lend it an unforgettable quality that does elude many of the better Science Fiction films of that era. Now seen, I’m shifting Zardoz to the seen-DVD shelf… but it’s not done taunting me.

  • Taking Tiger Mountain (1983)

    Taking Tiger Mountain (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2021) Well, that’s a weird one. TCM Underground can be pedestrian and repetitive at times, but once every so often it comes up with a genuine curio, and that’s how to best interpret Taking Tiger Mountain. Taking the experimental film clichés (black-and-white grainy film, constant voiceovers, dystopian world, bizarre plotting, and clunky integration of wider concerns over plot) to their fullest extent, it’s a film that loosely tells us about a feminist militant cell’s attempt to brainwash a student (a young Bill Paxton, in his film debut) to kill the minister of prostitution. It’s all grim, with barely understandable material meant to surprise as much as to tell a story. Bizarrely, it’s an adaptation of a William S. Burroughs story named “The Blade Runner,” linking it to that other film in surprising ways. I can’t say that I liked Taking Tiger Mountain — it’s a kind of filmmaking I find intermittently interesting for playing with the grammar of film, but quickly exasperating — but it’s certainly different, and well-worth taking out of mothballs once in a while to expand the usual definition of what a science fiction film was circa 1983.

  • Blue Moon Ball (2021)

    Blue Moon Ball (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2021) As of this writing, Blue Moon Ball is a nonentity of a film. First broadcast on Canadian TV in November 2021 after a world-wide premiere in the small town of Camarillo, CA, where much of the film was shot, it’s still listed at IMDB as a 2022 film (we’ll see if they accept my documented update) and as such has no reviews, no votes, and no measurable commentary beyond various PR pieces written about the film by the filmmakers and exhibitors themselves. (No, the “Dove review” doesn’t count when it’s meant to reassure sensitive viewers that it’s an all-age film.)  As a reviewer, it’s thrilling to be in such terra incognita, writing a review without competing with dozens/hundreds/thousands of other takes on the material. On the other hand, well, Blue Moon Ball is not much of a film. It faithfully follows the usual Hallmark romance plot template of sending an urban professional back to their hometown, where they meet a past flame and they rekindle their romance while finding a reason for the protagonist to remain in town FOREVER. The plot variations are slight. Here, our protagonist is a romance novelist lacking inspiration for her next novel, and moving back to her hometown allows her to reconnect with her first love while working on saving a historical building from being torn down to make way for modernity. There are other disposable love interests that are eventually dispatched to make way for the film’s one true couple. The execution is competent, but that’s not saying much: director Tara Cowell-Plain doesn’t try to do much here except present a straightforward story in a straightforward way. I was drawn to the film because it featured a novelist as a protagonist, but this aspect is handled just as perfunctorily as the rest: it makes being a romance novelist seem like an artistic endeavour complete with writer’s block, whereas your average romance novelist (considering the economic imperatives of the market) is intensely familiar with genre formulas and able to churn them out professionally. But that would be adding more complexity than what the fairy-tale nature of the film would be able to tolerate. The saving grace of Blue Moon Ball, and other similar films, is that even at their blandest, they’re still pleasant to watch: there’s nothing to get angry about, nothing to challenge a predetermined notion of a happy ending for all. That does have some value, even as a break from more challenging fare.