Hugh Hefner – Christian Sauvé

Star 80 (1983)

ByChristian Sauvé 2019-06-012023-03-19 Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, June 2019) The early 1980s were an interesting time in Hollywood’s history—a period where there was a battle going on for the soul of Hollywood, lines drawn between the New Hollywood of grimy dark stories, and the purveyors of Pop Entertainment that sought to bring cinema back to its crowd-pleasing origins. We all know how things played out, but even as late as 1983 you could still see movies steeped into 1970s aesthetics and themes. A movie like Star 80, for instance, which details the abusive relationship between a Playboy playmate and her homicidal ex-boyfriend. It’s all based on a true and sad story. (Hugh Hefner and Peter Bogdanovich both show up as characters, with portrayals consistent of what we know of them.) Given that this is a movie about a centrefold model, expect a fair and persistent amount of nudity—but keep in mind that Star 80 delights in contrasting the eroticism of the lead character with her bloody end, so it’s not exactly wall-to-wall fan service. At times, the film does give the impression of indulging in trash exploitation—the regular cuts from the biographical narrative to the maniacal murderer muttering about his revenge do get a bit ridiculous after a while. Mariel Hemingway is nice and doomed in the female lead role, while Eric Roberts is uncommonly slimy as the prototypical abusive, over-controlling boyfriend from hell. The role is written without any subtlety, and he holds nothing back—giving an intensely unlikable performance that actually quite good from an actor’s perspective but unbearable to the audience. Much of the same can be said about Bob Fosse’s direction: an atypical choice for him, with blunt-edged effectiveness. Pseudo-interviews are interspaced here and there to present the illusion of a documentary and further tie the film to 1970s cinema-vérité style: points given for a collage approach that was relatively new at the time, but still not quite satisfying. The overall effect is, frankly, a bit dull—it doesn’t take a long time to figure out where the thing is going, and the film just keeps going there relentlessly, with little character nuance beyond the angelic victim and the irremediable killer boyfriend. When you look at the way the 1980s turned their back on New Hollywood, you can point in Star 80’s direction as an example of why.

Movie Review

The House Bunny (2008)

ByChristian Sauvé 2016-10-102017-03-13 Movie Review

(On DVD, October 2016) As a film, The House Bunny may work best as a showcase for Anna Faris’s comedic charm than anything else. Taking on campus sorority comedy via a disgraced playboy bunny forced to find a way for herself, this is a film that doesn’t aim too high and seems content with executing its own goals modestly. As it confronts beauty with authenticity, the script laboriously moves through synthesis, antithesis and synthesis is a measured fashion, most plot points perceptible long in advance. Despite the all-inclusive ending, there’s still something uncomfortable in the film’s first half, as playboy-centric beauty seems to be promoted as the ultimate goal. Fortunately, Faris is likable enough as the ditzy heroine to keep the film enjoyable no matter how far away it gets into its short-lived promotion of superficiality. The characters making up the underdog sorority rescued by the protagonist are fun (with particular props to Emma Stone in a pre-stardom role and Dana Goodman for boldly throwing herself in a hilarious character). The moral lessons of the film are deeply muddled (one suspects that giving a supporting role to Hugh Hefner himself is enough to blur whatever good intentions The House Bunny may have about an empowerment message) but the various laughs that the film gets, often through sheer mugging, are good enough to forgive many other transgressions. The House Bunny may be confused, but it is good-natured and, like its animal namesake, is cuddly enough to like despite its flaws.