Derek DelGaudio

  • Kimi (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) A new Stephen Soderbergh film is a mystery box. He has worked in so many genres, taken so many chances, and threatened retirement often enough that you never quite know what you’re going to get. Maybe it’ll be great! Maybe it won’t! In Kimi, he goes back to his thriller roots to deliver something like a blend of homages to previous thrillers, questions about the techno-surveillance complex and a few pointed observations about the lockdown years. It stars Zoë Kravitz, a minor movie crush of mine who, to my recollection, never had a leading role until now despite a fourteen-year career in some showy supporting roles. Here she plays a young woman who, thanks to past trauma, fully embraced the shut-in lifestyle made popular during lockdown. Even a toothache won’t have her leave her apartment… or at least until she gets evidence of a murder and tries to escalate the matter through the appropriate channels. Unfortunately, she’s in the middle of a thriller in which evil people can hire hitmen, and where every movement can be tracked. There are traces of Rear Window, The Conversation, Michael Clayton and many other similar thrillers here, but when it’s combined with the lockdown quirks acquired in North-American society throughout 2020-22, the effect is fresher than you’d think. The script’s techno-skepticism isn’t as new (not when even animated family movies such as Ron Gone Wrong overtly talk about such issues), but it all blends together in a rather good mix. Our resourceful heroine is easy to like (the visuals of her agoraphobic self getting out of her apartment and sticking robotically to the walls are among the film’s strongest images) and she eventually levels up to a far-fetched but satisfying action heroine by the time the finale rolls around. There are a few interesting casting choices (most notably Derek DelGaudio in a villainous role), with Soderbergh keeping a tight control over the production. Kimi is not a bad thriller, but time will tell whether it ends up being a time capsule of current anxieties. In the meantime, it’s an easy-enough thriller to watch. Now what will Soderbergh do next?

  • In & Of Itself (2020)

    In & Of Itself (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) One of my pandemic hobbies has been to learn a lot more about magic — specifically, the tricks of the trade, advice to magicians, elementary card tricks (including how to cheat) and the basic elements of most magical performances. You don’t need to be worried about me being a pest the next time we meet — I don’t have the patience, the training time or the drive to become even an amateur magician. But learning about how the tricks are performed has led me to one big conclusion: Magic is not as much about the trick as the patter surrounding the tricks and the atmosphere in which people want to believe the trick. There won’t be a better illustration of this as In & Of Itself, a filmed version of the intimate off-Broadway show that Derek DelGaudio performed 552 times (we’re told) in Manhattan from 2017 to 2018. Calling it a magic show is both true and appropriately deceptive because DelGaudio creates an elaborate narrative frame around the dozen illusions he performs, and does so with disarming charm, getting closer to his audience in order to pull the rug from under them. A superior card trick is placed within the frame of a biographical episode in which he’s warned about the dangers of appearing to cheat at cards. A prodigious feat of memorization is placed within the frame of defining identities for ourselves. It’s a heady mix of philosophical references, storytelling, personal recollections delivered in a raw manner, a sense of continuity from show to show, and creating an electrifying atmosphere for the live audience that translates surprisingly well to the screen. (Director Frank Oz, who helped stage the live show, effectively uses duplicated footage from several shows in order to give screen audiences an idea of how the same effect played out over several performances.)  It’s all very effective, largely because of everything surrounding the illusions — I’m relieved that DelGaudio isn’t a cult leader, because I could recognize several of the techniques used to manipulate small audiences into fast intimacy and frenzies of belief. Still, as a show, it’s quite a show. The painstakingly crafted illusions are delivered effectively (even in throwaway bits, such as the visual shocker at the very end) and while I suspect that I know how many of the tricks were performed in a general sense, that takes nothing away from what remains a great performance piece.