Dan Aykroyd

Spies Like Us (1985)

Spies Like Us (1985)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, October 2019) As I go through the 1980s back catalogue, it feels as if every new Chevy Chase movie I see highlights how badly his abrasive comic persona has aged. Or maybe been overexposed: his arrogant man-child persona has been repeated ad nauseam by other performers such as Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn, and I found it all more annoying than funny in Spies Like Us. Whoever thought he was even remotely likable as a womanizer has now been proven wrong and unfortunately, we’re still stuck with the result. The film takes the low road to international comedy, by featuring two bumbling Americans being pressed into the spying business as decoys for other more competent operatives. Of course, the rules of comedy mean that they’ll end up being Big Heroes by the time the nuclear missile flies. (This shouldn’t be a spoiler.)  It’s easy to see why director John Landis would be interested in a script with large-scale comic set-pieces, international vistas, Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase and half-a dozen cameos from comedy directors that you have to be a cinephile to catch. Spies Like Us is not bad, but it does drag much longer than necessary and it relies far too much on Chase’s unpleasant comedy persona—Aykroyd is far more sympathetic. I do wish we’d see more ambitious big-budget comedies these days (rather than the improv-type stuff), but I don’t miss Chase at all.

Stardom (2000)

Stardom (2000)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) The interesting cinematic conceit on which Stardom is built remains intriguing twenty years later: What if we saw the rise and fall of a supermodel entirely through camera lenses, as if a mad fan collected her TV appearances and home videos in a compilation video? Jessica Paré convincingly stars as a Cornwall (ON) hockey player plucked out of obscurity to become a fashion supermodel, loving and leaving a trail of men in her wake (including a restaurateur played by Dan Aykroyd). Executed at the turn of the century and taking place in a media-saturated environment, Stardom has aged significantly more than many other movies of the time, but it’s already showing signs of being a period piece rather than being dated: the references dwell in the late-1990s, and a circa-2019 take would have more cell phones and social media than we could stand. It does take a few minutes to get used to the collage aspect of the film (save for a brief introduction and a quiet epilogue, we get “in the camera” early on and escape the structure of a typical narrative), but its effectiveness does start to build, especially when we realize that the years are accumulating and the scope of the story is going from Cornwall to New York and places beyond. Could it have been better? Well, yes—as much as it’s enjoyable to piece together the narrative of the protagonist’s life through indirect and often misleading footage, it’s not much of a story. The satire is fine but typical (news reports from the past two decades have made the same point over and over, cutting away from mass tragedy to celebrity gossip) while stock characters abound. Writer-director Denys Arcand does know what he’s doing, though, and the mixture of French-Canadian and English-Canadian actors (plus notables such as Frank Langella) is interesting in its own right. Intriguingly, Stardom does have its built-in distancing mechanism: as interesting as it can be for movie geeks to see a film told through surface footage, there aren’t that many pathways to what the character is thinking or feeling: This is akin to a second-grade biography made of media clippings rather than interviews with the subject. Our protagonist is often used by other people making their own points, which is part of the lesson. Still, Stardom is more than worth a look on a purely experimental level, as an exploration of what cinema can do once it gets away from its own conventions. I’m a bit surprised that the film remains obscure outside Canada, but that’s the nature of non-stardom.

My Stepmother is an Alien (1988)

My Stepmother is an Alien (1988)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2019) Considering the continuous parade of dumb movies coming out of Hollywood, it’s probably unfair to single out the 1980s as being a particularly stupid decade. This being said: Wow, the 1980s were a particularly stupid decade, and you don’t have to look much farther than My Stepmother is an Alien as a mortifying example of that. The production history of that film is wild—the first draft of the film, written four years earlier, was meant to be a horror film as an allegory about child abuse. Good luck detecting any of that original intention in the deliberately idiotic result as it appears on-screen, though: Here we have a Science Fiction comedy in which no less than Kim Basinger plays an alien being sent to Earth to seduce a nebbish scientist (Dan Aykroyd) who accidentally holds the key to her planet’s survival. It’s already unpromising, and you haven’t experienced the execution of it all yet. The film squarely feels as if it’s been written for the kids’ market, and not the smart kids’ market. I’d like to talk about the film’s charm, but that’s a stretch—at best, there’s a nod of appreciation at Aykroyd playing a good-dad scientist (to Alison Hannigan, in her first movie role). Then there’s a Basinger, as a naïve (yet incredibly old) alien unaware of the effect she’s having on everyone else. There’s maybe a good film struggling to get out of this mess, but it’s not one we can get from what’s on-screen. The 1980s have produced some memorable films, and some infamous ones, but My Stepmother is an Alien is neither of them—it’s just dumb and forgettable.

Nothing but Trouble (1991)

Nothing but Trouble (1991)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, April 2019) If you’re curious to know what would happen if you mixed Silent Hill with gross-out dumb comedy, then have a look at Nothing but Trouble … but heed this: It’s not going to make you happy. This so-called horror comedy follows Chevy Chase and Demi Moore as they make their way from their comfortable upper-class Manhattan penthouse to the depths of rural New Jersey where they will be tormented by murderous hillbillies led by the local hanging judge. The film’s execution is meant to be comic (with a lot of fake screaming, cultivated grotesqueries and a series of dumb sketches strung along) but the effect is more puzzling and dreadful than funny. The only sequence worth highlighting as being tolerable features Digital Underground and a few party girls bringing some welcome urbanity back in the film—but then the same sequence features Dan Aykroyd’s worst tendencies in having him join the song with a piano bit. Landing the blame at Aykroyd’s feet is only natural given that he’s the film writer, director and producer, in addition of holding two on-screen roles—with a smattering of other Aykroyd family members in the supporting cast list. Nothing but Trouble definitely reflects a personal comic sensibility trying to find a happy middle ground between horror and comedy, but doesn’t succeed at even mastering one or the other—at best, the film settles for a series of disgusted yucks and blank stares at what it thinks is funny. There’s a waste of John Candy (in dual roles, one of them in drag), the overuse of Chevy Chase (now known to have been as unpleasant behind the scenes as his reputation suggests), and not a whole lot to do for Demi Moore. The set design is good, though—it’s a shame that it couldn’t have been used for anything better. I suspect that the film has aged slightly better than upon its reception, if only because it features a few familiar names in earlier roles, because there’s now an even bigger glut of hellbilly horror movies that it could be seen as parodying and because today’s audiences may be more familiar now with genre hybridization. On the other hand, there’s been many better horror/comedy hybrids since 1991, and the limits of Nothing but Trouble are now even more apparent.

The Great Outdoors (1988)

The Great Outdoors (1988)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, April 2019) When I say that The Great Outdoors is about taking a trip, it’s not necessarily in the way reflected by the plot of the film. Yes, sure, it’s superficially about two brothers and their families spending a week at a lake cabin, and the various tensions between the brothers playing themselves out. But in more significant ways to twenty-first century viewers, The Great Outdoors is a trip back in time, to an era with a very specific aesthetic when it comes to dumb comedies. Written by John Hughes, directed by Howard Deutch, starring John Candy and Dan Aykroyd, you can clearly associate the film with the mainstream of mid-to-late-1980s American comedies. For anyone on a steady diet of more modern films, it’s a different experience watching a dumb 1980s comedy, with its painfully obvious plotting, shot dumb gags and abandoned emotional arcs. (I’m not saying modern movies are smarter—but the stylistic conventions are different.)  But dumb 1980s films can be reasonably fun, so if you can tolerate the expected gags and predictable third-act plot developments, the end result isn’t too bad—especially considering how The Great Outdoors does a lot of mileage on Candy and Aykroyd’s pure comic talents, with Candy as a goofy dad and Aykroyd as a fast-talking urbanite. (Meanwhile, Annette Bening’s screen debut here is probably an early shame considering her later body of work.)  There are a few things I really liked—notably the use of “Yakety Yak” at the beginning of the film, and the very funny scenes featuring subtitled raccoon talk. The Great Outdoors is not a great film, but it does have an amiable quality to it: if nothing else, it’s not mean-spirited at all in showing some heartwarming family moments.

My Girl (1991)

My Girl (1991)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On DVD, March 2019) There’s a reason why My Girl remains a bit of a traumatic film for an entire generation of viewers, and that reason will become blindingly obvious to even the least observant viewer by the time the film hits its third act. (Spoilers ahead, obviously!)  It does start innocently enough, for quirky values of “innocent”—here we have baby-faced Macaulay Culkin, fresh off his breakout hit Home Alone, playing the friend to our protagonist, a cute 11-year-old girl (Anna Chlumsky) with a widowed dad (Dan Aykroyd, quite likable), a funeral parlour as a home, a senile grandma and a writer’s soul. It takes place in the 1960s, further fostering a false sense of nostalgia for a simpler time (“Nixon renominated”) bolstered by the small-town setting of the film. We’ve seen enough of those coming-of-age films to understand that there’s no way anything will go wrong in such a setting, right? And then, well, then … the bees strike hard and kill one of the main characters, shocking a generation of kids (no, seriously; search for “my girl trauma”) and making this film into something else entirely—an approachable discussion of death and grieving, or maybe a bid for relevance ensuring that we still reference My Girl when so many other family movies from the early 1990s have been forgotten to time. The bait-and-switch (but is it, with the foreshadowing?) is something—coming-of-age comedy one moment, heavy drama the next, with a sequence nothing short of horrifying as the linchpin between both. There are films I regret not seeing in theatres when they came out, but My Girl isn’t one of them—I’m rather glad I’m seeing it now than at an impressionable age.

Tommy Boy (1995)

Tommy Boy (1995)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, December 2018) The formula behind Tommy Boy isn’t complicated—take an outrageous comedian with a funny physique (that would be the late Chris Farley) and cast him as a man-child chaos-maker, then pair him up with a somewhat more conventional comedian with an ability to freak out in amusing way (that would be David Spade) as the straight man, and send them off on a road trip. There’s a sub-genre with a list of movies a mile long all revolving around the same concept, and Tommy Boy doesn’t break any new ground in following tradition. The details are unimportant, what with two young men trying to save their auto part company from going under by going on an extended sales trip. There’s some mechanistic character development, perfidious antagonists, comedy legends in secondary roles (Dan Aykroyd!) and a car that gradually breaks down over the course of the trip. As is tradition with road movies, it also features both characters singing along to a song. Narrative cohesion isn’t a big concern of the script, as much of the details are of the episodic one-thing-after-another variety. In execution, however, Tommy Boy depends a great deal on the specific comedy of Farley and Spade (better yet; both of them together), a pop-heavy soundtrack and some outrageous visual gags. (If you’re a fan of cars gradually falling apart, this is a movie for you.) It’s not good, it’s not memorable, it’s not clever but it just may be enough for an undemanding viewing in-between more substantial fare. Just don’t get Tommy Boy confused with the other Farley/Spade movie.

The Blues Brothers (1980)

The Blues Brothers (1980)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Third or fourth viewing, On Blu Ray, September 2018) There are good movies, great movies and special movies. The Blues Brothers is one of those special movies, capturing something that deserves to be passed on to new audiences a few decades later. It’s a comedy and a really good one at times (especially when it fully embraces its absurdity and unapologetically give more weight to laughs than believability), but its greatest strength remains the music and the musicians it captures. As a musical comedy, there isn’t a single dud in the entire soundtrack, and seeing some of the best R&B stars croon their tunes is like mainlining pure cinematic bliss … even for those viewers who don’t know much about blues. James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin … this is a time capsule of them at their finest, singing and dancing memorable pieces. As many of the film’s stars are no longer with us (in the past two years alone, we’ve lost Franklin, Carrie Fisher and Toys’r’Us), the film doesn’t feel sadder but stronger for preserving them in such great shape. I must have seen the film two or three times as a teenager and young adult, so much of the dialogue and sequences are hard-wired in my head, and it was sheer pleasure to run from one highlight to another—whereas other movies struggle to get one or two memorable scene, The Blue Brothers has roughly a dozen of them. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi hit career-high roles here, and the integration of non-actor famed musicians goes better than anyone would expect. If you haven’t seen The Blues Brothers, any day is the right time to do it. If you’ve already seen it, you already know that any time is the right time to see it again. What a classic.

Trading Places (1983)

Trading Places (1983)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2016) In one way, I’ve been waiting more than twenty-five years to watch Trading Places,—spurred by an intriguing comment in High-School economics class that it was a movie that featured a stock-market crash. But watching it today, the one distinguishing characteristic of the film, and the one that ensures that it’s still relevant today, is the charged racial humour, as a street-smart hustler is set up as a patsy for a stock-brokering scheme. Eddie Murphy is very good as the hustler made respectable, with Dan Aykroyd as the naïf who becomes far more world-aware after being disgraced. Jamie Lee Curtis also shows up (sometimes naked) as a prostitute with a solid plan for her future. Trading Places is obviously a product of its time—the technical references are charmingly dated, the portrait of a wintry Chicago is pure period, the World Exchange Towers show up in an eerie cameo, and much of its financial shenanigans aren’t revelatory given a few more economic crises and the rise of the day trader. Still, the class-warfare component of the film remains just as pressing today, and the jokes still work pretty well despite a slightly slower pace and some strange plot loops toward the third quarter of the film. Watching Trading Places has been worth the wait, though—Seeing Murphy in top form is always a delight.

Behind the Candelabra (2013)

Behind the Candelabra (2013)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2013) In the hands of HBO and Steven Soderbergh, made-for-TV movies clearly aren’t what they used to be: Here, with Behind the Candelabra, we get nothing less than two top-notch actors delivering a love story set against the flamboyant backdrop of Liberace’s career.  Michael Douglas is a surprisingly good Liberace (embracing the skill and the generosity but also the pathos of the man), while Matt Damon plays Scott Thorson, the (much) younger man who was his lover between 1977 and 1981.  (If the film has a flaw, it’s that Matt Damon is considerably older than Thorson was at the time –this softens much of the tension that an accurate portrayal of the story would have given.)  The doomed love story may be predictable, but it’s well-executed to make it dramatically interesting.  The two main actors are also fearless in their performances, openly embracing (and demonstrating) the romantic relationship between their characters, but there are plenty of scene-stealing cameos elsewhere in the film, whether it’s Dan Aykroyd playing a mousy manager, or Rob Lowe’s plastic-faced surgeon/dealer.  From a directing standpoint, Soderbergh delivers his usual brand of audience-riling iconoclasm, making the most out of his budget and crafting a film that’s more engaging than many of his last few colder efforts.  But the star of the show, frankly, are the set dressers, makeup artists and costume designers that bring to life the famed excess of Liberace’s work and personal life.  The camera moves through a lavish re-creation of Liberace’s homes, dwells on his spectacular stage outfits and convincingly recreates his performances.  It’s -to take up a theme of the film- a grand show, and it’s easy to just enjoy the film for its moments of comedy and pure surface sheen.  There’s more to Behind the Candelabra, of course: a reflection of that type of content that TV (well, HBO) audience are willing to embrace, a bit of a late screed against the unfairness of repressing one’s sexuality, a look at the way the rich and powerful can sculpt other people… this is a Soderbergh film, after all, and there’s a bit more behind the surface. So it is that we’ve come to this: A pretty good film, with big-name stars and impeccable technical credentials, delivered by TV.  Given that I’m an HBO subscriber, I can only applaud this.

On The Nose aka Delaney’s Flutter (2001)

On The Nose aka Delaney’s Flutter (2001)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On DVD, January 2005) There is a whole universe of slight comedies out there on the “straight-to-video” shelf, and this one is no different than most. Featuring solid actors (Robbie Coltrane, Dan Aykroyd) in low-profile roles, a competent script without too much flash and an interesting idea or two, it’s exactly the kind of film completely unsuited to the massive Hollywood marketing machine, which would probably end up creating false expectations anyway. In fact, it’s best to come to this film without any preconceived notions. How else to enjoy a tale of a compulsive gambler who comes to discover the secret to infallible horse-picking through the preserved head of an aboriginal in a jar? (It naturally gets more complicated as the head becomes an object of interest for parties such as the mob.) No, you’ve never heard of the film, and neither have any of your friends. But that’s all right: just have a look. The story is no worse than any of the blockbusters, and the oddly unassuming charm of the production is a strength in itself. Not too bad, despite the thin and laid-back comedy.