George Takei

  • Larry Crowne (2011)

    Larry Crowne (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2020) It’s interesting that Larry Crowne came and went with nearly no lasting impact – after all, it’s a Tom Hanks movie: he produced, co-wrote, directed and starred in it, clearly making this film his by any measure. It’s not a large-scale film: it revolves around a middle-aged man struggling to find meaning to his life after becoming unemployed. He can’t find a job, can’t make his house payments, and even his SUV is too expensive to run. The natural solution is to enroll to community college, make better financial choices and start riding a scooter to school. As we know, college is an opportunity to meet new people and change your life, meaning that he gets the attention of a free-spirited student and his burnt-out public speech teacher. Subplots include him using the teaching of his economics course (led by a self-absorbed professor hilariously played by George Takei) to straighten his situation and let go of the past. Larry Crowne’s biggest assets are its considerable charm and a terrific ensemble cast led by Hanks himself (in his everyman persona) and Julia Roberts as a dangerously disillusioned teacher at the end of her rope and her marriage. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is a ray of sunshine as a kind of character that could only exist in a movie, but does brighten up the entire film. Other familiar names, sometimes in very small roles, include Pam Grier, Cedric the Entertainer, Taraji P. Henson, Bryan Cranston and Rami Malek. The plot definitely has issues, and a credible argument could be made that the last thing we need is another film about a white male mid-life crisis. But Larry Crowne is almost ridiculously easy to watch – it has that immaterial “pleasure to watch” quality that simply keeps us smiling until the end. The romantic plot seems far-fetched (aren’t rebound relationships a bad thing?) and the interest that the younger characters take in the protagonist smacks of fantasy, but everyone is just so likable that it doesn’t matter much. It all amounts to a film that works preposterously well, but may not have the hook required to make a bigger impression. On a purely directorial level, Hanks meets his objectives here – there are clearly similarities with his earlier That Thing You Do! in terms of easy watchability, even though his craft may not be as apparent on a modern piece as opposed to a period one focused on music. Still, I can’t help but feel that its poor box office and general absence in film conversations means that Larry Crowne remains unfairly overlooked by everyone.

  • Tab Hunter Confidential (2015)

    Tab Hunter Confidential (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Even if you don’t know about Tab Hunter, you can still approach his engaging biography Tab Hunter Confidential with the assurance that you will learn plenty about this 1950s heartthrob whose career waned in the 1970s to the point where he was doing dinner theatre. Fear not: he bounced back in later years thanks to the success of the John Waters film Polyester. But Hunter wasn’t like most other 1950s icons—gay at a time when such things were strictly unacceptable in Hollywood, this difference ends up becoming the structural backbone of the film, as evolving social acceptance ends up reshaping his life and career. Hunter himself makes for a very likable subject, and the arc of his career from the 1940s to the 1980s is an interesting illustration of how things can go wrong for many actors even after hitting the limelight. Well-presented with some ironic footage (“I’m Tab Hunter, and I have a secret”), it sprouts interviews with notables such as George Takei, John Waters and Clint Eastwood, and digitally enhanced archival photos. Executed with more grace and substance than many other celebrity biographies, Tab Hunter Confidential offers a new light on Classic Hollywood, and makes for entertaining viewing as well.

  • The Green Berets (1968)

    The Green Berets (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, November 2018) Behold! The only pro-Vietnam war movie ever made! Well, maybe not (although search for “only pro-Vietnam war movie” and see what comes up), but The Green Berets has the rather dubious distinction of being the only major Vietnam film made during the 1960s to take an unabashed stance that the US should go there, and kill as many communists as possible in order to secure a future for the (South) Vietnamese children. No, really, the last scene of the film says exactly that and it takes place on a sunset beach with John Wayne holding a Vietnamese kid’s hand. Anyone who somehow harboured any doubts about Wayne’s political orientations will be set straight after watching this film, which he “directed” and starred in. Wayne, then 58, plays a Colonel who takes it upon himself to show to a cynical left-leaning reporter the true meaning of the US effort in Vietnam. It’s a very special episode of “Let’s justify American imperialism,” and the caricature of the opposing viewpoint is so acute that the propagandistic nature of the film quickly comes into focus. The Green Berets is at its worst when it talks down to its audience in its daddy-knows-best tone, and at its best when it lets go of the brainwashing in order to focus on the war sequences—there’s an attack on a Special Forces camp two-thirds of the way through that’s well-executed. Alas, and this speaks a lot about the film’s lack of dramatic impact beyond its simplistic pro-war message, this climactic sequence happens at least half an hour before the film’s ending, which concludes with a rather lame third-act mission. It’s not the only element of The Green Berets that justifiably earns critical scorn, as the film is crammed with war-movie clichés made even worse by its espoused cause. The only thing I really liked without reservations about the film is George Takei (and his unmistakable voice) showing up for a few minutes in middle of the film. Otherwise: nothing good. It’s amazing, historically speaking, that The Green Berets was released (to some commercial success!) in 1968, as the war was souring on a weekly basis and no one could be fooled by what it purported to show. It does qualify as essential viewing for those interested in the history of American war movies, mostly as a counter-example of just about everything else being made at the time. If nothing else, you can make an argument that it influenced, even though contrarian revulsion, the next crop of Vietnam movies.

  • Space Milkshake (2012)

    Space Milkshake (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2013) If you accept the premise that comedies are supposed to make viewers laugh, then there are few more depressing feelings than watching one and waiting for the laughs to begin… only to be confronted with the end credits.  Space Milkshake (which, unless I’m mistaken and I’m not about to go back to find out, features no milkshakes) is one of those laugh-free comedies where you wonder if the screenwriter spent any time thinking about jokes beyond the obvious word-blender silliness.  Oh, so there are space garbagemen working a space station invaded by a villain showing up as a rubber duck?  Fine: now bring in the jokes.  Alas, Space Milkshake seems so intent on replicating an alien-invader-in-space plot structure that it becomes remarkably dull.  The characters are generally unlikable, leading to dull banter and interminable “character moments”, the jokes fall flat, the plot goes exactly where you think it’s going, and the whole film seems more perfunctory than pleasant. (Heck, a character gets killed and replaced, and it’s treated as no big thing.) There may be a few things worth enjoying if you look hard enough: Kristin Kreuk looks cute as an electrically-charged robot with bangs, a rubber duck using tentacles to type on a keyboard could be amusing, I guess, and George Takei’s silky-smooth voice automatically raises the level of any production… even a dirt-cheap Canadian film shot in welcoming Regina, Saskatchewan.  The film’s direction does show moments of competence given the small budget and the four actors.  Still, the result is disappointing: Space Milkshake never meets its own goals, let alone surpass them: Viewers with low expectations may get something out of it, but it’s a cheap and dull comedy that’s not even worth the trouble of watching even when made available for free.