Lady Gaga

  • House of Gucci (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, July 2022) As much as it’s impressive to see director Ridley Scott still alive, kicking and producing a stream of big-budget films well into his 80s, his track record of late is certainly not unimpeachable—and House of Gucci is the kind of almost-schizophrenic experience that’s enough to make you wonder about basic filmmaking decisions. It often feels as if there are two films here—a romance-turned-tragic set against the world of high fashion, and another comedic film about eccentric characters hamming it up and acting bizarrely when empowered with money and status. The first film features Adam Driver and Lady Gaga; the second has Al Pacino and Jared Leto and they’re edited together without much care for tonal consistency. But the bad decisions also accumulate elsewhere. For some unfathomable reason, the film is colour-graded in heavily desaturated monochrome, resulting in a dull black-white-and-blue cinematography that seems to leech life out of the film even when it’s not supposed to be sombre and serious. Another director would have chosen to film the early puppy-romance sequences in poppy colours and dial it down all the way to the film’s tragic ending. But Scott does whatever Scott wants and what made some sense for All the Money in the World or The Last Duel doesn’t work here. Letting slide the different tonal registers in which the actors seem to be working (or the unexplainable decision to stuff Leto in enough body suit padding and makeup to make him unrecognizable as an older man), the film’s running time at 158 minutes saps energy from the result as well—scenes don’t quite flow across the years of the plot and the film lacks the focus it should have stuck to. I’m not saying it’s a bad film—the story is compelling, the characters are interesting and some performances, such as Gaga, are quite wonderful. But many of House of Gucci’s flaws seem entirely unforced—rather coming from bizarre choices not serving the story… or an elderly director making his own decisions and lording them unchecked over an entire production.

  • Machete Kills (2013)

    Machete Kills (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2014) I’m a long-time fan of Robert Rodriguez’s films (all the way back to Desperado on VHS), but it sure looks as if he’s spent the last decade repeating himself with a long series of sequels and spin-offs.  Machete Kills is the third film to be spun off from 2007’s Grindhouse, and it suggests that the joke has been played out.  Not that the film itself is unpleasant to watch: As you may expect from its neo-grindhouse inspiration, it’s suitably over-the-top, allowing Rodriguez and his ensemble cast to have a lot of fun by sending up an assortment of action movie clichés.  Danny Trejo is compelling as usual as the titular Machete, but it’s a toss-up as to whether he’s having as much fun as Mel Gibson (as a Bond-grade villain), Charlie Sheen (as a lecherous President) or Sofia Vergara (using her shrill persona to good effect, for once).  Even Lady Gaga gets a role as a shape-shifting assassin.  The action gets silly quickly and never lets basic disbelief being an obstacle.  It’s all good fun, except that Rodriguez’s low-budget aesthetics (tight framing, cheap special effects, lazy blocking, editing that allows actors to share a scene without ever having been in the same room together) are less satisfying than one would expect… especially once they’re repeated too often.  Rodriguez can command bigger budgets than he used to at the beginning of his career –he should use that power for a few money shots.  Still, despite the over-the-top action, shameless exploitation (often going straight to comic parody) and self-aware ridiculousness, there’s a sense that Machete Kills is a bit too big for its aw-shucks attitude.  By focusing on the comedy, it even loses a bit of the edge that the first Machete had, and the focus on violence while downplaying the nudity is a step in the wrong direction.  It’s too long for its own good, and in stretching out some of its duller stretches, invites tiresomeness.  It probably doesn’t help that this is Rodriguez’s umpteenth return to the same source: For all of the chuckles and I-can’t-believe-I’m-seeing-this outrageousness, by the time the end credits roll, there’s no need for a third Machete outing.  Let’s leave well-enough alone and let’s hope that Rodriguez does something a bit fresher for his next effort.