Vanessa Williams

  • A Rich Christmas (2021)

    A Rich Christmas (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2021) As far as Christmas films go, the BET-original A Rich Christmas is both conventional and slightly off formula. It helps that much of the story could take place perfectly well at any other time for the year, as a spoiled heiress is forced to help a local shelter after some legal shenanigans. That’s where, obviously, she’ll learn some basic human values, discover what she’s good at, and put on a fabulous fashion show as a way to save the orphanage shelter. It’s a movie that understands its audience — see the rich girl pay her dues, see the spoiled brat learn better, and have everyone look really good while doing it. Tyler Abron is beautiful but is almost unbearable early on as the spoiled bratty protagonist — fortunately, she gets better with time. Brandee Evans is substantially better in an easier role, while Vanessa Williams walks right on cue as exactly the character that we expected her to play. (The film doesn’t show her face during her first scene, but from the credit sequence it’s easy to guess who she is.)  You do have to evaluate this film by BET+ standards, and Christmas BET+ movies at that — the low budget clearly shows, the script does what it can to convey the essentials without having what’s needed for credibility, and the roughshod script barely papers over its biggest incongruities. The bit where our heiress decides that her best course of action is having her rapper boyfriend help in stealing from her father is… special, to say the least. And so is the very sanitized portrait of life in a shelter. And so, for that matter, is how the film lands on a high-class fashion show (organized within days, no less) as the centrepiece of its climactic sequence. But again — grading on a curve, A Rich Christmas lands in the honest average for BET+ movies. Nothing special, nothing too bad either. And it will probably play just as well in July — the title kind of shoots the film in the foot considering how little of it has to do with Christmas itself.

  • Soul Food (1997)

    Soul Food (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 2021) The overarching thesis in Soul Food is one I can get behind: No problem in life can’t be solved by food. Dysfunctional family? Food. Relationship problems? Food. Sudden absence of the matriarch? Food. Police arrest? Food. Financial strains? Food. Knife fight? Food. Kitchen fire? Food. Well, Food and a united family, which goes back to food in the film’s mythology. (Or rather: food, family and a stash of money.)  No, Soul Food is not meant to be that profound. But as a depiction of a family threatening to come apart absent the Sunday ritual of bonding over food, it’s well-intentioned, pleasant and heartwarming to watch. There’s a good sense of the relationships between the characters, and the actors (headlined by Vanessa Williams, Vivica Fox and Nia Long) go rather well in inhabiting the roles. Writer-director George Tillman Jr. has a clear idea of where he’s going, and the film finds a happy medium between comedy and drama in the final stretch. Like food itself, Soul Food is familiar, unchallenging and a bit heavy on the grease but sometimes exactly what you need.

  • Johnson Family Vacation (2004)

    Johnson Family Vacation (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2021) It’s not as if Johnson Family Vacation is a particularly smart movie, but its charm is to deliver almost exactly what viewers can expect from its first few minutes. Heck, maybe even from a cast list and the plot premise, as Cedric the Entertainer plays a family dad heading a few states west to attend a family reunion, driving all the way there with his estranged wife (Vanessa Williams), three kids (the two eldest being played by Shad “Bow Wow” Moss and Solange Knowles) and an enormous vehicle with accessories he doesn’t particularly care for. If you’re thinking, “black-cast road trip family comedy, lowest-common denominator,” then I have nothing to add. An episodic comedy in which several segments end with the family running back to their car, Johnson Family Vacation doesn’t aim high, but does hit its targets. Most of the jokes are drawn along very predictable lines, but if director Christopher Erskin has one ounce of wittiness to his plan for the film, it’s in the way he plays with viewers: You know it’s coming and I know it’s coming and let’s see how long we can draw this out. The cast of a few supporting roles occasionally adds interest, whether it’s seeing Steve Harvey as a family antagonist, Shannon Elizabeth as a hitchhiker or Jason Momoa in a small role as a Native American hunk. The incredibly familiar premise will have you wondering if this is a remake of anything, but apparently not — although Cedric the Entertainer seems to be aping his performance on Chevy Chase in the Vacation series. There isn’t much to say about the perfunctory way the film is executed, completely aligned with the way broad comedies are filmed. It’s not much, but Johnson Family Vacation clearly knows what it’s contractually obliged to deliver, and only expends the minimum effort required to do that.

  • New Jack City (1991)

    New Jack City (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 2020) Often lumped in with the neo-Blaxploitation “hood movies” of its time, New Jack City ends up being something a bit more grandiose, enjoyable and action-oriented than the films it’s often compared to. It certainly does not deal in the quotidian lives of ordinary people stuck in the hood—it’s a New York City-wide criminal epic with unsubtle, grander-than-life characters, overblown action and ham-fisted atmosphere… and that is part of its charm. Part of the appeal is an interesting cast of actors in early roles, from Wesley Snipes as a crime lord, Ice-T as a detective, Chris Rock in a supporting role, director Mario van Peebles also taking on a small role, and the beautiful Vanessa Williams as new-style gun moll. It’s all a clever blend of an unusually good soundtrack, an ambitious script, social inequality commentary, interesting (but inconsistent) stylish direction, a good ending and great moment-to-moment watchability. Explicit references to James Cagney and Superfly tie the black cinema of the 1990s both to the Blaxploitation era of the 1970 and the gangster films of the 1930s. Given this, New Jack City is better than expected, and a decent film in its own right. Have fun watching it on BET, though—the film is heavily censored and inconsistently so: sometimes, the closed captioning bleeps out mild profanity even when the audio doesn’t!

  • Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991)

    Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, In French, On TV, August 2019) Now here’s something that younger generations may not understand: there were two solid decades, roughly 1975–1995, where the late 1990s were fiction’s “techno-thriller years”—a time where writers set stories that were a bit like the future but not too much. Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is a really good example of that: By setting their story forward in 1996, the filmmakers are free to imagine a slightly more dystopian future (no ozone layer!) with stronger corporate control and, crucially for the story, a new synthetic drug. The narrative gets started when two bikers rob an armoured van and end up not with cash but a substantial shipment of drugs that are, of course, property of corrupt corporate executives. As the title suggests, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man dives deep into the biker outlaw archetype, with Don Johnson and Mickey Rourke showing a much-inflated opinion of themselves as they strut around thinking that they are the epitome of cool. But the film is all attitude and bluster, and not as much fun thirty years later. There are some moments that stand out: Vanessa Williams and Tia Carrere have supporting roles (the first as a singer), the portrayal of mooks in bulletproof long coats seems prophetic of a late-1990s cliché, and there’s an occasional so-bad-it’s-good quality to the over-the-top dialogue and mindless action of the film. It’s also interesting to measure the results against familiar western archetypes, making an argument about bikers being modern cowboys. To be clear, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is not good, and nearly everything intriguing about it has been seen elsewhere. You also have to tolerate unearned machismo in order to even get into the film (although the opening monologue from a radio DJ rather efficiently sets the tone). But I’ve seen much, much worse, so at least it’s got that going for it.

  • Eraser (1996)

    Eraser (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, In French, On TV, December 2018) I recall seeing Eraser in theatres, and not being all that happy about it. (The idea of a portable railgun firing “near the speed of light” with no recoil seemed hilarious to me, but laughing alone in the theatre isn’t one of my fondest memories. But then again I placed a lot more emphasis on scientific rigour back then.) In retrospect, though, Eraser had aged decently enough—it does feature Arnold Schwarzenegger near the prime of his career, after all, and the kind of big dumb action movies made in the mid-1990s have grown scarcer in recent years, accounting for a bit of nostalgia. I mean; in how many 2018 releases do we have a parachuting hero bringing down an airplane rushing toward him with nothing more than a handgun? Some rough-looking CGI (alligators and human skeletons!) add to the charm. At the time of the film’s release, much of the release chatter had to do with how the audio and CGI team had to work around the clock right before release to change all mentions of the villainous “Cirex” to “Cyrez” after computer chip company Cirix complained. In terms of star vehicle, Eraser is pretty much what Schwarzenegger could handle at the time—and having a featured role for Vanessa Williams is more interesting when you realize that the film never goes the obvious route of creating a romantic subplot between both of them. James Caan also has a good turn as a mentor-turned-villain. The political machinations justifying the plot are better than average for an action movie, and the coda seem closer to a political thriller than an action film. Eraser is still not a good movie (and it pales a bit compared to other late-1990s actioners), but it has aged into a decent-enough one.

  • Filthy Gorgeous: The Bob Guccione Story (2013)

    Filthy Gorgeous: The Bob Guccione Story (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2014) Bob Guccione will forever remain famous as the publisher of adult magazine Penthouse, but for me he was first and foremost the mad genius who put together the now-legendary OMNI magazine in all of its blended fact/fiction science/speculation glory. Filthy Gorgeous takes us through Guccione’s full life, spending a lot of time on the more scandalous aspects of his career, while not forgetting the way in which he tried to move beyond adult magazines and create something new: The infamous exploitation movie Caligula, the launch of OMNI and other magazines, the ill-fated investments in fusion power reactors and Atlantic City casinos. Guccione remains a compelling figure throughout, as artist, businessman and dreamer, first-amendment fighter and social nexus for high-powered visionaries and supermodels alike. Guccione’s role in expanding the limits of allowable discourse is also carefully explained here, cementing his place alongside Larry Flynn and Hugh Hefner. (Ironically, though, the most infamous Penthouse issue, featuring a nude pictorial of then-Miss America Vanessa Williams, eventually proved a costly crest for the magazine, which suffered significant consequences from the episode and so may have started its own downfall.) As a documentary, Filthy Gorgeous is a fairly standard assortment of talking heads and archival footage, albeit with a bit of tasteful nudity in accurately portraying Guccione’s artistic pursuits. A fascinating subject makes for a fairly interesting documentary film, and it’s hard to ask for more than that.