Alexandra Shipp

  • tick, tick… BOOM! (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, March 2022) I wasn’t too sure about tick, tick… BOOM! in its opening moments. A biographical look at a pivotal moment in the tragically departed Rent creator Jonathan Larson’s life, it’s clearly a film by and for theatre geeks. (I use the term with affection.)  It’s not necessarily inaccessible—but it’s a film that has much to gain by understanding whom it plays for. The film effectively takes us to the pre-stardom days of a struggling creator, working in a menial job to afford living in New York City as he slaves away at an audacious musical. The atmosphere of young creators trying to reconcile their big dreams with their hardscrabble lives is well-rendered, and it doesn’t take that much time for the film and its protagonist to become sympathetic. It’s a bit amazing that, despite Lin-Manuel Miranda’s oversized cultural profile over the past few years, this is his first film as a director—and he does exceptionally well at rendering the film’s musical numbers. Marrying classic Hollywood fun and expressionism with modern themes and technique, Miranda is able to give life to his film whenever his characters start singing. Of my five (!) favourite numbers, “30/90,” “Boho Days” and “No More” introduce the film, whereas “Swimming” and especially “Sunday” are when tick, tick… BOOM! fires on all cylinders. Also noteworthy are a few of the actors—Andrew Garfield, obviously, not simply for channelling Larson, but also delivering a credible singing performance. This is the second film this week in which I’ve been given the opportunity to stare at Alexandra Shipp, and her role here is quite a bit more substantial than in the disappointing Jexi. Also worth mentioning is the cinematically less-known Robin de Jesús in a solid dramatic/singing performance. By the end of the film (which starts by telling you it’s going to be an exhilarating but sad story), I was won over. Even in the middle of a much-welcomed resurgence of the Hollywood musical, tick, tick… BOOM! distinguishes itself through its approach and respect for its subject. I may be, in the end, far more of a theatre geek than I suspected.

  • Jexi (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2022) There are two movies going on in Jexi—a comedy in which an ordinary guy fights with his far-too-smartphone for control of his life, and a very safe romantic comedy in which said ordinary guy somehow gets the attention and devotion of a much more attractive woman. The first film has some mishandled bite to it; the second is utterly safe and boring. Alas, the second constantly gets into the first’s way. Another in a rapidly growing list of comedies in which modern technology goes haywire, Jexi is never better than when a rogue AI, impeccably voiced by Rose Byrne, cusses out the protagonist, shows how easily he’s controlled by technology and develops a possessive crush on him. (A scene redefines “phone sex” for modern audiences.)  The tone of the humour occasionally slips into vulgarity, but much of it is suitably absurd. At times, Jexi flirts with more interesting material than “Oh no, how can I escape an all-powerful AI?” as the relationship between the two deepens—too bad that the resolution is hardly convincing. Some good performances by known scene-stealers such as Michael Pena and Wanda Sykes also help that half of the film. Then there’s the human romantic comedy angle. After seeing Jexi and tick, tick… BOOM! within the span of a week, I’m adding Alexandra Shipp to my list of movie crushes—but her role here is as basic as it gets, looking great but being puppeteered through a bare-bones narrative that has her fall for an everyday schlub played by Adam Levine for no other reason than he’s the protagonist. It’s the featurelessness and convenient nature of that romantic subplot that’s Lexi’s biggest handicap—there’s almost nothing here worthy of note, and it only works as a counterpart to the wilder stalkerish main plot. The overall saving grace of the film is that it’s amiable enough to be watched even as it misses some strong opportunities to do better. Levine gets his laughs, Shipp looks terrific and Byrne can deliver profanity better than Siri. But there was a potential here for a much better film, and that may explain why, despite a pulse-of-the-moment premise, Jexi has struggled to find much of an audience.

  • Silk Road (2021)

    Silk Road (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2021) As someone whose experience of the Internet goes back to the very early 1990s, I’ve had the chance to change my mind about it as it evolved. My early quasi-libertarian enthusiasm for the utter freedom of speech (and significant freedom of action) of the Internet’s early days has been tempered by some unpleasant realizations about social dynamics, epistemological tribalism and the need to behave as members of communities. As such, I have an axe and a half to grind about the spectacularly dumb idea of cryptocurrencies, the abuse of technology for illicit pursuits and communities that don’t incorporate at least some kind of moderation. All of which to say — I enjoyed Silk Road’s depiction of the eponymous dark web site’s foundation, but never so much as when it showed how the result blew up in its creator’s face. As it happens, I was at least semi-familiar with the broad outlines of the plot, having read the original article on which the film is based. As it sets up both a technological whiz-kid and a grizzled veteran cop as antagonists, I kept waiting for the unusual twist I remembered from the article. Still, the film doesn’t too badly as an Internet procedural, detailing in bite-sized doses what made Silk Road so special and why it evaded consequences for a while. Nick Robinson is suitably irritating as a young man with lofty misguided ideals who ends up realizing he’s not better than a common hoodlum, while Jason Clarke does get a nice turn as a traditional policeman who keeps up with the latest in online crime. (Meanwhile, Alexandra Shipp is eye-catching as the somewhat ineffectual voice of morality trying to get through to the tech-obsessed protagonist.)  There’s a steady forward rhythm and some darkly amusing sequences on the way to the third act… which is where it all comes down uncontrollably. Perhaps hampered by an overly slavish adhesion to the facts of the case, the climax of Silk Road seems to run out of steam rather than build to a dramatic climax. (It’s made even worse by a framing device that tells you where it’s going and doesn’t add too much to the initial impression.)  There doesn’t seem to be much made of the lead characters’ relationship, and you can almost sense the missed opportunities for a far more aggressive approach in handling the material, not to mention engaging in a confrontation between naïve ideals and real-world consequences. But maybe I’m asking too much of a film built as a run-of-the-mill cyber-thriller: Silk Road is too afraid to go beyond the facts of the case and start asking questions that we need to discuss.

  • Shaft (2019)

    Shaft (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2020) Having seen the original 1970s Shaft not too long ago and the 2000 sequel/remake in theatres, my expectations for this newest instalment were calibrated just right. As much as it may irk some, the best thing about the original movie remains the title song—nearly everything else has been handled much better in other blaxploitation films. The 2000 film was an uninteresting follow up, so how much worse could another reboot be? As it turns out, this latest instalment feels like the most entertaining film of the trilogy. By explicitly setting itself up as a third film in an ongoing once-a-generation series and having both Richard Roundtree and Samuel L. Jackson play older versions of their own characters, this Shaft opens itself up to a new audience while paying a more respectful homage to the previous generations. The film clearly draws upon 2010s scripting techniques by blending comedy with action, adopting a fast pace thanks to director Tim Story and relying a bit too much on established stereotypes even as it decries doing so. Much of the story has to do with the newest, youngest Shaft (played by Jessie T. Usher), son and grandson of previous ones. He’s a data analyst with the FBI, who dislikes guns (while still being pretty good at them, as shown in one of the film’s best scenes) but is forced to team up with his elders in order to resolve the murder of a friend. The story isn’t as important as seeing a twenty-first century Shaft argue about approaches and techniques with his rougher elders, each coming from a slightly different era of blaxploitation. Jackson is particularly funny as a man out of time, but everyone has their chance to shine along the way. Alexandra Shipp makes for a rather lovely companion to the younger Shaft, while Regina Hall also makes an impression as an ex-flame of Jackson’s Shaft. Some of the humour is predictably directed at younger generation clichés, but it all reaches a polished climax high atop a villain’s lair. I liked Shaft quite a bit more than I expected, even though I suspect that it may not age particularly well… but then again neither has its predecessors. Not as much as you’d like to think.

  • Love, Simon (2018)

    Love, Simon (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2018) As much as I hate to admit it, I live in a comfortable bubble and movies are one of the ways in which I can understand that. A teenage romantic comedy whose Big Idea was to feature a gay protagonist coming out at first struck me as, well, unnecessary — but given that I live in Canada (and the progressive, French-speaking part of Canada at that), work in an environment that embraces diversity and carry my cis straight white male privilege around, I clearly didn’t fully appreciate what it meant to others. On its own, I quite liked Love, Simon: despite an annoying tendency to portray its characters at the edge of hipness with the perfect musical choices and coolest pop-culture references, it’s a warm, engaging, funny and dynamic teenage romantic comedy. It’s also inclusive in the sense that by the big triumphant romantic finish, I was aaaw-ing for the protagonist just as I would have for a straight protagonist (in fact, perhaps more so, because Love, Simon is a superior example of the form that leaves many blander hetero rom-coms behind). The dialogue is filled with good moments, the cast is performing up to the demands of the script and the atmosphere created by director Greg Berlanti approaches some of the earlier teenage movie classics. Comparisons with John Hughes films may have to sit a while, but don’t seem unwarranted at a first glance: I’m seriously considering it for my own year-end Top-10. Nick Robinson is quite good in the lead role, but the entire cast is fantastic — I particularly liked Alexandra Shipp, Natasha Rothwell and Clark Moore even in short supporting roles. Small funny script details about — I was particularly amused by the notion of a high-school performance of Cabaret, but sobered up when I realized that this was actually A Thing. And it’s in that vein that I’m willing to cut a lot of slack to Love, Simon — It’s a great movie, and it’s a great movie not necessarily designed for someone like me. There’s a wide difference of experience between this middle-aged movie reviewer and its target audience, and the notion of a gay teenage romantic comedy is important to its target audience — it’s not overdone, not obvious, not unnecessary. We all need to tell our own stories, and we will find unity in what they have in common.