Jamie Lee Curtis

Forever Young (1992)

Forever Young (1992)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, December 2019) Here’s a confession, dear reader: Whenever I see “Forever Young,” I hear the chorus of the Interactive dance music cover version of the Alphaville song on a repeat loop. This has nothing to do with Forever Young the movie (except to brand me as someone who listened to a lot of dance music in the mid-nineties), although at the time I would have wished for a little bit of synth pop to break the film out of its staid execution. Featuring Mel Gibson, Forever Young is, in a few words, about a 1940s test pilot getting cryogenically frozen, forgotten, and then accidentally revived in 1992. Don’t ask how that works.  Once past the prologue, you can insert roughly 45 minutes of fish-out-of-water jokes in between the protagonist’s quest to find what happened, the scientists who took care of him, and eventually his long-lost love. Bits and pieces may have influenced the MCU’s Captain America arc. The one big whopper here is a cryogenic process that merely delays the aging process, meaning that our protagonist ages visibly in spurts, allowing Gibson to showcase elderly makeup, and the screenplay to have a ticking clock that it eventually abandons once it has shoehorned one last big climax. Bland and manipulative, Forever Young does have early-1990s Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis going for it, but the science-fantasy material isn’t as bad as the bland screenwriting impulses that it enables. I have just seen and reviewed the movie, and yet it’s still the song that remains in my mind when I see Forever Young.

Terror Train (1980)

Terror Train (1980)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, August 2019) The early 1980s were thick with slasher horror films, in which one psychopath took on a dwindling number of teenage characters. One of the more unusual of these was the Canadian co-production Terror Train, which set the murders aboard, well, a train. A teenager-filled train travelling during winter (this was filmed near Montréal), which severely limits the option of stopping the train. Jamie Lee Curtis once more stars as a screaming young woman fighting back against homicidal evil, but the draw here is the restrained setting, the stylistic experimentation from director Roger Spottiswoode and the thematic emphasis on magic, featuring none other than David Copperfield as a magician entertaining the teenage audiences. (Yes, he gets killed at some point.)  Despite those few points of distinction, Terror Train itself isn’t particularly fun or entertaining to watch: it quickly falls into the same boring morass of murder sequences, each death being slightly more annoying than the last. By the end, we’re just relieved that even at barely more than 90 minutes, it’s over and we can watch something else.

Halloween (2018)

Halloween (2018)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, June 2019) You can take the opening sequence of this Halloween remake as a summary of its strengths and weaknesses in a nutshell—a sequence giving us suspense in broad daylight, maxing out the spooky stuff, but ultimately signifying nothing and ending in mid-air with nothing achieved. A lot of sound a fury signifying nothing—if you’re not the kind of person who enjoys slasher movies and would go as far as to say that this kind of film should be left in the dustbin of history, then this newest endless umpteenth version of Halloween is not going to change your mind. For all of director David Gordon Green’s skill in crafting suspense sequences that have a little bit more to offer, there is nothing here to make us rethink the staleness of the genre’s approach. The crazy-prepared shtick by Jamie Lee Curtis is fun but doesn’t lead anywhere new. The psychologist indulging in some of that murderous mayhem is merely a five-minute detour that other movies have explored at length. The transgenerational trauma is presented as new but was seen in H20 already. To be fair, this Halloween far better than the Rob Zombie movies that no one wants to acknowledge, better than H20 and better than the fourth-to-sixth ones. (Halloween III exists in another dimension, and I tend to consider Halloween II to be an extension of the first) Curtis is magnificent in a role that a lot of actresses her age would have killed for, Judy Greer is far better used in comedies (although she does get a good gotcha moment at the end), while Andi Matichak is undistinguishable as the granddaughter. Still, there isn’t much here to make us think any better about slashers in general—it feels as if all of this Halloween’s ideas are cribbed from previous instalments in the series itself, with only a patina of good execution to keep things afloat.

Blue Steel (1990)

Blue Steel (1990)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, March 2019) Try as I might, I can’t really find any truly compelling reason to recommend Blue Steel despite some half-promising elements. Probably the best reason remains that it’s a police thriller directed by a woman (the legendary Kathryn Bigelow) at a time when there weren’t that many of them, and seeing the better-than-average stylistic sheen she can give to the result. On the other hand, well, there’s everything else. An over-the-top criminal thriller in which a rookie police agent (Jamie Lee Curtis, not stepping too far away from her then-Scream Queen persona) discovers she’s dating a serial killer, the film unapologetically goes from thriller to slasher horror. It sits at an awkward point in late-1980s tropes and execution (intrusive score, slap-dash motivations, use of genre conventions trumping realism or even elementary logic) that magnify the issues inherent in the result. Some elements are lazily developed—the antagonist doesn’t appear to have any deeper motivations than just being crazy and while the cast features some names that would become famous (Richard Jenkins, Elizabeth Peña, Tom Sizemore), they don’t really have anything interesting to do. There may be some ironic material in the film’s obsession with guns and gender-role reversal, but it’s not developed particularly well. For Bigelow herself, the film is eclipsed by her later titles, not leaving much in Blue Steel for cinephiles to investigate unless they’re completionists.

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On DVD, August 2017) Is A Fish Called Wanda overhyped, or was I just in the wrong mood for it? No matter the reason, I’m tempted to label this acknowledged classic as mildly amusing and leave it at that. The fault isn’t with the actors: John Cleese is in fine full persona as a stiff upper-lip barrister, seduced by a curiously sexualized Jamie Lee Curtis as part of a larger robbery plot. Various quirky characters populate the edges of the film, none more forcefully than Kevin Kline as a grossly caricatured American villain. The script is densely plotted for a comedy, and it deftly mixes physical comedy with fine repartee (the apology moment is a quote for the ages). The direction is sometimes more dynamic than expected, and that may be a clue to A Fish Called Wanda’s more humdrum reception today: What may have been striking back in 1988 is the norm today. I may have been partially inoculated to the film’s charm by having watched its “equal” Fierce Creatures a few months ago—the two films share the same sensibilities, and the first one seen may end up feeling like the better of the two. Still, it’s not as if I disliked A Fish Called Wanda: I merely found it good but underwhelming, and there are worse critical assessments out there.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, November 2016) Given that I have no perceptible affection for the slasher genre, revisiting the Halloween series twenty years later via Halloween H20 is more interesting for what it shows about the evolution of the genre in two decades and where the slasher genre was at the end of the nineties. Comparing the original 1978 Halloween (and its inseparable first sequel) to this nineties remake shows the gradual taming of the subgenre over the years. The 1998 version is slicker, glossier, occasionally sadistic but just as often hesitant to go too far. (e.g.; no killing kids in public restrooms, thankfully!) The focus on teenagers remains, even though this late sequel cleverly makes middle-aged Jamie Lee Curtis the hero of this belated fight with Michael Myers. Perhaps most of all, though, is Halloween H20’s demonstration that the nineties slasher genre was profoundly dull. Once the film spends the first 30 minutes setting up the plot pieces, everything else follows without much surprise or interest. It predictably builds up to a culminating fight in which the final girl presumably kills the villain … at least until later filmmakers change their minds. The problem is that Michael Myers is remarkably dull even as a quasi-supernatural psycho killer—he has no personality to speak of, and he feels less like a mortal threat than an annoyance you can’t get rid of. It’s possible to damn Halloween H20 with the faint praise of competent execution, even though even that has its limits: Much of this 90-minute film feels far too long, stretched beyond impatience through endless “suspense” moments in which we wait for the next predictable event to occur. At least there is some fun in looking at the cast: Beyond a competent Jamie Lee Curtis, there’s the big-screen debut of Josh Hartnett, an early appearance by Michelle Williams, a minor character for LL Cool J and a very short role for Joseph Gordon-Lewitt. It says much about the film’s interest that there’s more fun talking about the cast than in what happens in the film. Slasher movies periodically rise from the grave to annoy new generations, but few people seem to miss them when they go away.

Halloween II (1981)

Halloween II (1981)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, November 2016) Slicker, gorier but ultimately less interesting than its predecessor, Halloween II at least has the distinction of picking up moments after the original, making for a surprisingly integrated sequel from a narrative point of view. Of course, the match isn’t perfect: Having disposed of much of the cast in the first movie, the follow-up has to reintroduce new characters to kill by moving the action to a nearby hospital. Audience expectations being what they were in 1981 at the height of the slasher craze, the sequel is also significantly gorier, with bigger hints of nudity than the original. Then, of course, is the nature of the antagonist, here even more mysterious and invincible than in the original. There’s also a generally useless revelation regarding the link between heroine and psycho-killer that is best forgotten. But in “improving” upon the original in this way, the sequel also moves closer to the average eighties slasher. As a result, the things that still make the first Halloween remarkable aren’t to be found in the sequel. At least Jamie Lee Curtis isn’t bad as the heroine. Still, the best argument for watching Halloween II is that it closely continues and completes the first film’s story—if you get it in the same DVD series pack, then why not watch it as well? It’s barely more than 90 minutes long, so you can actually watch the two films one after another in the same evening.

Halloween (1978)

Halloween (1978)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On TV, October 2016) I have no affection and only little academic interest in the slasher genre. It’s not a kind of film that I enjoy (although I’m not opposed to other supernatural horror genres), but in trying to build a coherent picture of the horror genre over the past few decades, it’s often necessary to watch some reprehensible films along the way. Halloween remains a reference largely due to its influence on the horror genre in the following decade, in which an explosion of similar films dominated the lower rungs of the B-movie ecosystem. (I was five in 1980 and ten in 1985, so you can imagine the nostalgic memories of discovering VHS stores at the time and their terrifying cassette box art.) Knowing this, the biggest surprise in watching Halloween is how restrained it is: While there is disturbing violence, it rarely revels in the gore and terror of the victims. While there is teenage hanky-panky, there is no nudity. While the film sustains an atmosphere of dread and suspense, it feels far less exploitative than many of the films it influences. There’s a fair case to be made that Halloween is closer to a thriller than to horror and while I don’t entirely agree, this is a film now most notable for the tropes it does not use. Director John Carpenter is at the top of his game here, and the direction of the film remains remarkable even today. (The opening point-of-view sequence is still upsetting even at an age of found-footage films.) It’s also difficult to avoid mentioning the iconic soundtrack of the film, which set an example that would dominate a slew of eighties films. A very young Jamie Lee Curtis is fantastic in the lead role. While the film remains a slasher, it’s a competently executed one even today (and especially considering its low budget). It’s striking, however, how much of Halloween’s impact is now dictated by the movies it influenced than by itself.

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.

Fierce Creatures (1997)

Fierce Creatures (1997)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2015) So it turns out that I was in the mood for a farce and didn’t even know it.  Upon its release, Fierce Creatures soon became known as “the not-as-good companion film to A Fish Called Wanda”, featuring many of the same cast and crew and resonances in plotting.  Not having seen A Fish Called Wanda yet (this will change soon), that freed me to enjoy Fierce Creatures on its own merits and while not all of it works as well, it does have considerable charm and strong moments.  Perhaps the most refreshing thing about the film (besides the zoo environment, and the sympathetic role given to the animal minders) is how clever the script can be in acknowledging and responding to comic clichés.  The first half of the film, for instance, has a ton of dumb plans that end up easily detected and defused by the protagonist: in lesser films, those dumb plans would have carried the day.  (It also heightens the stakes for the film’s last fifteen minutes, in which another dumb plan it set up –will it be detected and defused as well?)  Otherwise, the film features strong roles for John Cleese as the gradually sympathetic protagonist and Kevin Kline as two imbecilic antagonists, while Jamie Lee Curtis unusually plays up her sex-appeal.  The innuendos work, the sight-gags can be very funny and if the film’s first fifteen minutes feel a bit disconnected, much of the film is pleasant enough to watch, building up to a few good set-pieces. (The running gag about the protagonist’s perceived insatiable sexual appetite gets funnier and funnier.)  Nearly twenty-five years later, Fierce Creatures remains a well-executed comedy that stands on its own.

Freaky Friday (2003)

Freaky Friday (2003)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Netflix Streaming, September 2015) I have very dim memories of seeing the original 1976 Freaky Friday as a kid, but I don’t think that it changed me or anything.  This remake won’t have much of an impact either, given how closely it sticks to its body-switching premise and the most obvious implications of it.  Here, Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan play a mother/daughter pair who, thanks to mysterious Chinese magic, swap bodies on a most inconvenient day.  It goes without saying that the mom is an overachieving control freak and that the daughter is a just as stereotypically rebellious teenager.  Both of them learn valuable life lessons, they learn about walking a day in the other person’s shoes and the universe goes back to normal.  The script slickly sets up all of the target it later takes down, leading to an experience that’s as professionally put-together as it’s intensely predictable.  Given that it’s aimed at teenagers, the film plays dumb often, failing the “would this happen in our reality?” test several times.  The shortcuts to show adolescent rebelliousness are crude, which is reinforces by a mildly annoying soundtrack that repurposes older songs in a punk style. (Let’s face it, though; as a teen I probably would have thought this would have been awesome.  Alas, I’m closer to parent of a teenager than a teenager nowadays.)  Still, Freaky Friday does have its redeeming qualities: Jamie Lee Curtis is pretty good when she’s letting her inner teenager run rampant, and a pre-downfall Lindsey Lohan shows what comic skills she once had.  There are a few chuckles here and there despite the rote nature of the film, and I suppose that everything could have been a lot worse.  The film’s heart is in the right place, and by the time the happy ending rolls around, I doubt that anyone cares.

You Again (2010)

You Again (2010)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On-demand Video, April 2012) It feels churlish to criticize a film that’s not meant to be much more than a lighthearted comedy with a female-centric cast, and perhaps even ungrateful to do so when it does deliver a few laughs, but You Again simply isn’t as good as it could be.  While the idea of a decade-deferred vengeance between bully and bullied is interesting and definitely can be mined for comedy, this script seems confused between slapstick, retribution and reconciliation.  The first act is annoying in how it presents a relatively innocuous situation where an easy way out is dismissed through sheer dramatic inevitability: the main conflict of the film exists because the characters are self-destructive, and the ending doesn’t do much to send an anti-bullying or even anti-revenge message.  But, OK, fine: this is not a “message” movie, even though it shoots itself in the foot comedy-wise by trying to reach for a heartfelt moment or two late in the game.  It’s perhaps best to focus on Kirsten Bell’s physical comedy in the lead role, or the casting of Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver as dueling rivals, or the always-hilarious Betty White and Kristin Chenoweth in small supporting roles.  (There are also a few cute cameos.)  Meanwhile, the male performers all wisely take a step back in order to let the actresses shine.  It adds up to a film that’s not too difficult to watch, but goes through a number of fuzzy plot choices that do nothing to bring You Again out of average mediocrity.  Good casting; flat script: could have been much better.

True Lies (1994)

True Lies (1994)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Second Viewing, On DVD, July 2010) I hadn’t seen True Lies since it was first released in theatres, and while it has visibly aged since then, it hasn’t lost much of its appeal.  Beginning like a competent James Bond clone featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, the film soon takes a then-unusual turn in portraying a secret agent dealing with matrimonial issues.  While this trope isn’t so fresh now after such films as Mr and Mrs Smith (and was adapted from French film La Totale in the first place), it’s still rich in possibilities that True Lies exploits relatively well.  Unfortunately, what seems more obvious now are the pacing issues: There’s a mid-film lull that more or less coincides with increasingly unpleasant harassment of the lead female character by her husband, and even the reversal/payoff later in the film doesn’t completely excuse the bad feeling left by the sequence.  On the other hand, the action scenes are almost as good as they could be despite some dated CGI work: True Lies may be among director James Cameron’s lesser work, but it shows his understanding of how an action scene can be put together and features mini-payoffs even in the smallest details.  The last half-hour is just one thrill ride after another, culminating in a savvy Miami high-altitude ballet.  In terms of acting, it’s fun to see Eliza Dushku in a small but pivotal pre-Buffy role as the hero’s daughter or Tia Carrere as an evil terro-kitten –although it’s no less strange to see Jamie Lee Curtis get a few minutes of screen time as a sex symbol and I can’t help to think that Schwarzenegger, however great he is playing up to his own archetype, is singularly miscast as a character who should look far meeker.  Uncomfortable mid-film harassment sequences aside, True Lies nonetheless holds up fairly well more than a decade and a half later, thanks to a clever blend of action, humor and married romance.  What really doesn’t hold up, though, is the bare-bones 1999 DVD edition, which is marred by a poor grainy transfer and a quasi-complete lack of supplements.  We know about James Cameron’s reputation for excess during the making of his movies: There’s got to be an awesome documentary somewhere in this film’s production archives.