Joe Dante

The Twilight Zone: The Movie (1984)

ByChristian Sauvé 2019-04-272023-03-18 Movie Review

(Second Viewing, In French, On TV, April 2019) There’s no use soft-pedalling it: The Twilight Zone: The Movie is an uneven anthology of stories inspired by the classic TV show, but it remains far more noteworthy for an on-set accident that killed Vic Morrow and two child actors, an accident that required changing much of the film’s first segment and considerably soured the films’ production—not to mention its critical reception. The behind-the-scenes drama is fascinating (there’s an entire book about it) but what’s on-screen is not quite as interesting. The opening sequence is cute but overlong. John Landis’ first segment, the one that led to the shooting deaths, is left as a trite morality tale—and while I think that unrepentant racists getting a taste of their own bigotry is wholesome entertainment, the segment feels like obviousness piled upon obviousness. The second segment, directed by Steven Spielberg, is far too cute and unsurprising to be interesting. Things do get quite a bit better with Joe Dante’s take on the omnipotent kid trope, with stylish directing (making the most out of the visual effects of the time) and an overall feeling of dread that makes the segment work even if we know about the twist well beforehand. But the best is kept for the end: the well-known (and much-parodied) remake of “Nightmare at 20,000 feet,” a typically intense George Miller production featuring John Lithgow as a terrified airplane passenger who glimpses something frightening on the airplane wing. That segment is a little marvel of tight editing, impressionistic direction (including bulging eyeballs in a split-second moment), Lithgow’s great acting and good execution rather than a striking premise. Those last two segments do much to erase the bland impression left by the first two stories, but the overall feeling left by The Twilight Zone: The Movie is very uneven, and a waste of solid premises made even worse by its cost in human lives. I actually remembered a few things from seeing this film when I was a teen, but my current disappointment with the film is newly renewed.

Movie Review

The ’burbs (1989)

ByChristian Sauvé 2017-03-272017-08-29 Movie Review

(Second viewing, On TV, March 2017) I was wary of revisiting The ’burbs: what if it didn’t measure up to my good memories? Fortunately, I shouldn’t have worried: As a comedy, it’s still as increasingly anarchic as I recalled, and the film has aged relatively well largely due to director Joe Dante’s off-beat genre sensibilities. Baby-faced Tom Hanks stars as a driven suburban man daring himself to spend a week at home doing nothing. But his holiday soon turns to real work as he starts obsessing over his neighbours and, egged on by friends, suspecting them of the worst crimes. Set entirely in a quiet cul-de-sac, The ’burbs still has a few things to say about the hidden depths of suburbia, dangerous obsessions and the unknowability of neighbours. It’s also increasingly funny as actions become steadily more extreme—by the time a house blows up in the middle of the climax, it’s clear that the movie has gone as far as it could go. Corey Feldman (as a fascinated teenager treating the whole thing like a reality-TV show), Bruce Dern (as a crazed survivalist), Carrie Fisher (as a voice of exasperated reason) and Henry Gibson (deliciously evil) are also remarkable in supporting roles. The “burbs may take a while to heat up, but it quickly goes to a boil and remains just as funny today.

Movie Review

Gremlins (1984)

ByChristian Sauvé 2016-10-122017-03-09 Movie Review

(On Cable TV, October 2016) I’ve been revisiting a lot of eighties classics lately, and this often means watching movies again for the first time in twenty-plus years. Not Gremlins, though: while I remember a lot of the film’s marketing (including the three “rules” of gremlins care and feeding), I had unexplainably managed to miss watching the film until now. I say “unexplainably” because Gremlins ends up being right up my alleyway and a quasi-classic after only one viewing. The anarchic mixture of horror and comedy rarely lets up once the film gets going midway through, and the second half is a gag-every-ten-seconds experience. Director Joe Dante successfully helms a film embarrassingly dense in practical effects, comic cues, dark humour and unbridled chaos. Despite the often sadistic humour (which helped usher in the PG-13 rating), it’s a lot of fun as a spectacle even if much of the connective tissue is dumb or irritating. The kitchen fight sequence is particularly good, making an action heroine out of an ordinary mom. Gremlins is compelling to watch (and I say this on some authority as I’m going through the often dull eighties greatest hits) and I’m now actively looking into watching Gremlins 2.

Movie Review

The Hole (2009)

ByChristian Sauvé 2014-06-122014-11-04 Movie Review

(On Cable TV, June 2014) Just about the only noteworthy thing about The Hole is that it’s directed by Joe Dante, a veteran whose influence in the eighties and early nineties has faded to nothingness ever since. His professionalism certainly shows through this minor production: Despite an imperfect script and a family-friendly focus, horror film The Hole is handled professionally, has a pleasant rhythm and doesn’t let late-script disappointment get the better of its presentation. The 3D motif feels silly on the small flat screen, but the direction is clean and polished throughout. The story of three teenagers who discover a bottomless hole in their basement reflecting their deepest fears, The Hole is decidedly a horror film for young teenage audiences: it’s barely gory, low-key in its scare sequences and plays off childhood fears more than deep-set adult trauma. Nonetheless, the quality of the production holds it aloft even if the script doesn’t quite manage to hold together: not only does it spend its time on the symptoms of the hole rather than its root, it squanders some promising leads when it devolves to fairly standard “confront your deepest fears” messaging, along with a suddenly-bizarre finale that literalizes too many metaphors with sub-standard special effects. Chris Massoglia is a bit dull in the lead role, whereas Haley Bennett easily steals her scenes with a bubbly girl-next-door portrayal (although, typically, later script revelations contradict her early-movie reactions). There is, frustratingly, a lot of untapped potential in the initial set-up that is nowhere nearly fulfilled by the rest of the film. Still, it’s handled fairly well, can be watched without too much trouble and generally holds interest until the end. As far as horror movies go, it’s not too bad, and considering the wretched horror films aimed at younger teenagers, The Hole eventually ends up feeling like a welcome throwback to the kind of movies that Joe Dante himself was directing in the eighties.