To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since I have a weak spot for Sanaa Lathan and since it was available on Disney+, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, the intro was really promising. Indeed, I really liked the concept of a black romantic-comedy with a hip-hop background and the whole thing started with an interesting genuine vibe. Unfortunately, it fell apart fairly quickly, I’m afraid. Basically, they followed the same concept used in ‘When Harry Met Sally...’ , in my opinion, easily one of the very best movies in this genre. However, there is something rather annoying and frustrating to see two people who are obviously in love, who obviously should be together, spending almost 2 hrs to figure it out while the viewers knew it from the first 5 mins. In the case of ‘When Harry Met Sally...’, it still worked amazingly because Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal were amazing and because the dialogues were so hilarious. Unfortunately, I’m afraid, with this movie, as soon as Sanaa Lathan’s and Taye Diggs’s characters started to interact, the whole thing felt phony or, at least, like any average romantic-comedy. I’m not sure if it was Lathaan and Diggs who were weak or if it was because they were given some poor dialogues but the end-result was certainly not impressive. I mean, I have to admit it , they were both charismatic but it wasn’t enough and, like I said before, this concept is rather frustrating unless you have some really awesome characters to make it work. At least, it started to work better from the moment they added some supporting characters like Queen Latifah (who was underused here) and Mos Def AKA Yasiin Bey. Especially Mos Def, he turned out to be the wild card here and everything involving him was gold. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but, since it was directed by  Louis Leterrier and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as check it out. First of all, I only discovered afterwards that this movie was actually a sequel to ‘De l'autre côté du périph’, a rather obscure French comedy obviously starring these 2 actors, but I should definitely check it out whenever I have the opportunity. Well, the opening scene for this sequel with its kinetic and nauseating editing was fairly abysmal and, to be honest, I was rather convinced from the start that the damned thing would be pretty lame. However, even though it was completely unexpected, I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by how much I actually enjoyed it after all. Sure, there were plenty things that still didn’t work though. First of all, like many (all?) Netflix productions, the whole thing looked so cheap, even the action scenes, except for maybe 2 of them, were just underwhelming. And, yet, I actually had a pretty good time but it was probably only thanks to Omar Sy and Laurent Lafitte. Indeed, even though the plot was terribly generic and tedious, their characters were actually surprisingly well written. Above all, Sy and Lafitte were just hilarious, their timing and dialogues were very often pretty much pitch-perfect. Coming back on the plot, it was actually not a bad idea to deal with the far-right ideas going strong in such villages in France, a huge threat there but also in all Western Europe nowadays. Unfortunately, it was completely undone by this seriously tedious far-fetched conspiracy. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it still turned out to be a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, at least, if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but, since it was starring Antonio Banderas and Ben Kingsley, I thought I might as well check it out anyway. Well, from all the cheap action flicks that Banderas has been making recently, I have to admit that it wasn’t the worst of the bunch. Indeed, the concept (a security guard with no weapon has to defend himself inside a shopping mall against an army of heavily-armed thugs) actually had some potential. However, don’t be fooled, the damned thing was still pretty weak though but, with such a generic title, it was rather expected. First of all, I have nothing against Antonio Banderas, he has some acting skills, but I thought he was rather miscast here as some kind of Jason Bourne-like lethal killing machine. At least, with Stallone, Schwarzenegger or even Van Damme, even if they were definitely not the best actors in the world, they were really badass which was never the case with Banderas, in this movie but also through his whole career. To compensate this, they gave him here a whole bunch of unknown actors who were even less charismatic than he was. The most hilarious one was probably Liam McIntyre who was some kind of cheap version of John Cena except that they would have replaced his muscles with some hilarious sideburns. I was also rather surprised that his character was not appalled when they started to loot and seriously destroy his precious mall but, I guess, right from the start, the guy maybe understood that his life was actually more precious. Concerning the rest of the movie, well, it looked really cheap and none of the action scenes were memorable whatsoever. Anyway, to conclude, even if the damned thing was rather harmless, it was still a waste of time, for myself and all the people involved, and you should probably avoid it. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, even if it was maybe nothing really groundbreaking, I thought it was still a really solid hijacking thriller. Indeed, I always had a weak spot for minimalist features and the idea of having 99% of the action taking place in the cockpit with this pilot worked really well. The whole thing also had a really raw and realistic feeling, even if I know absolutely nothing about piloting a plane. Finally, it had been a while since I saw Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing the lead and he delivered here another really solid performance. You might argue that they pushed it too far by having him being in a relationship with one of the stewardess but I don’t think it was so unlikely. In this line of work, I don’t think it’s uncommon that a pilot would be with a stewardess and that they might end up in the same plane. It was also a nice touch to develop a little bit Vedat, the youngest of the terrorists. Sure, his behavior was seriously erratic but I think it made sense considering the circumstances. You also got a good feeling of how completely lost he was and I actually felt sorry for him which was well done from the makers. Basically, he was a sad kid who tried to find some purpose in his life and unfortunately he chose the most messed-up path you could think of. In my opinion, with our privileged background, it is really difficult, almost even impossible, to comprehend how you could end up in such a situation. Eventually, the only mistake they made, in my opinion, was to have this young terrorist helping land this jet airliner. Sure, it was spectacular but it was the only moment when it became too far-fetched for my taste. Anyway, to conclude, it turned out to be a decent thriller and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Right from the start, I thought the concept was rather half-baked and, to make things worse, it was also so poorly developed. It seemed that they started with this idea, then wrote only 1 or 2 drafts and thought it was probably just fine. Well, it wasn’t, I’m afraid. First of all, let’s go back to the original concept, can you imagine if they would swap this black woman played by one of the sweetest actress at work nowadays with some creepy white guy? Yeah, it would have been even more cringe-inducing. But, sure, a weird misguided idea could have been interesting if the makers actually knew what to do with it. I mean, you wonder what could be the deal with Sue Ann but, when it was revealed, it was just so underwhelming. Seriously, even Freddy Krueger had a more satisfying backstory. Eventually, we learned nothing about her at all, the only thing they gave us was her acting weird and unhinged through the whole duration. At least, it was nice to see Octavia Spencer playing the lead for once and she was pretty good but it shows how talented she is to make something out of this really half-baked material. Concerning the other characters, it was even worse though. Indeed, I don’t think I remember any of their names and I saw this movie only yesterday. Unfortunately, none of the actors involved had  Spencer’s talent to make something out of their totally half-baked characters. Eventually, the conclusion here is that you basically shouldn’t trust anybody in this world because, who knows, the nice little lady or dude that helped you out buying some alcohol might be actually some major psycho. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of Octavia Spencer’s efforts, the damned thing was pretty weak and you should probably avoid it. 

I wasn’t really eager to see this movie but my daughter wanted to see it for her birthday. For the record, it was actually her 19th birthday but, nowadays, she very rarely watches movies or goes to the movie theater and this kind of movies is one of the only genres which seem to still interest her. Anyway, to be honest, it is rather tricky to judge these live-action remakes from Disney. Indeed, on one hand, like all these other similar movies, it does feel really unnecessary but, on the other hand, it was another big box-office success for Disney so, in this case, should we really blame them? Furthermore, the original version, even though it might not be one of Disney’s masterpieces, is still one of their most original productions, above all, one of their very few attempts to deliver something else and I have to admit that they managed to keep a similar vibe with this remake. Furthermore, Stitch was very well made, visually speaking, and it was a good move to remove most of the other aliens involved in this story, otherwise, we would be watching another CGI animated feature (on the other hand, wasn’t it already the case with the live-action remake of ‘The Lion King’?). Concerning Maia Kealoha, she wasn’t bad but, to be honest, she didn’t really impress me either. Still, she had a pretty good chemistry with Sydney Agudong. Above all, the messiness of these 3 characters (Lilo, Stitch and Nani), the edginess and darkness of their situation was such an interesting contrast with the usual fairytale cheesiness that you get in your classic Disney productions. Still, they always made sure that you are watching a Disney family feature so they never took enough risks to make it really remarkable (which was also the case with the original version). Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I have to admit that it was still a decent movie but you should probably watch instead the original animated version though. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since I have a weak spot for Brit Marling and since it was available on Disney+, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, even though this movie seems to have a solid reputation, it completely rubbed me the wrong way and, to be honest, I didn’t like it at all. First of all, even though the poster was quite beautiful, for the movie itself, they went for this godawful camcorder esthetics that the movie look not 10 years old but 20 years old. Nowadays, we watch all movies in high HD resolution so it was just jarring to see something so ugly. Even more problematic was the story though. Seriously, the whole concept of the young innocent woman wiping out a family and then getting acquainted with the sole survivor, even having a romantic relationship with him, while of course withholding her true identity, was just seriously generic, predictable and, above all, rather tedious. There was also the issue that, even though William Mapother is a solid actor, to be honest, he is not really charismatic and the way the movie was directed probably didn’t help. On the other hand, Brit Marling is such a luminous gorgeous woman, even if she puts on a hoodie and some overall, and I don’t think that they had much chemistry together. Of course, I shouldn’t forget to mention that while this completely unlikely and tacky romance was taking place, there was actually a new planet showing up in the sky, a planet which happened to be an exact copy of our planet Earth. Sure, I understand that there was supposed to be some kind of deep philosophical meaning about all this and I guess I didn’t get it. As far as I was concerned, the whole Earth 2 thing was added just to give some extra layer to a really average romantic story dealing with hidden identity and massive trauma. By the way, I don’t think it ever happened to me before, to have an actor or actress on a pedestal like Brit Marling and, after watching only two of her movies  (this one and ‘The East’ which was also disappointing), I’m wondering now if she was actually any good after all. Anyway, to conclude, I really didn’t care much about the damned thing and I actually don’t think it is really worth a look. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was starring Chloë Grace Moretz and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, once again, I knew nothing about the story before watching this movie but, even though the story itself was quite interesting, the movie itself was not really impressive, I’m afraid. First of all, even though Moretz did give a solid performance, I was wondering if she might not have been too young to play a reporter at the New York Post. However, I discovered afterwards that Susannah Cahalan was only 24 years old when she had to face this disease. There is no doubt that Thomas Mann was miscast though. Indeed, she seemed way out of his league and they had no chemistry whatsoever. The fact that his character didn’t check on his girlfriend seemingly for days probably didn’t help either. However, the main issue was that the movie itself was rather poorly made. I mean, when it all started to get pretty bad, she kept on going to her work, didn’t get to a doctor, didn’t contact her parents for way too long. What the movie also completely failed to display was that it all took place during a single month while it seemed to take much longer. And, yet, it was still interesting though. I thought it was also intriguing that they constantly rejected a psychiatric ward admission since her behavior was obviously psychotic. On the other hand, since her health in general was deteriorating at such a rapid pace, it was probably not a psychiatric issue. It did remind me of what I went through with my ex-wife. Indeed, she had always been plagued by chronicle diseases and, at some point, it became really bad. So, of course, we went to the hospital, the doctors did check on her and I will never forget the first time they said ‘ Yes, we think we know what she has but, unfortunately, we can’t really cure it’ . And, this happened time and time again. In this case, some kind of ‘magical’ doctor showed up, figured it out very quickly and saved her (which was, by the way, not how it happened in the book apparently). In real life, even though doctors know a lot, they still don’t know everything and there are so many rare or complex diseases that still can’t be cured. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was nothing really amazing, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since there was a decent cast involved and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. It was another movie I watched while I didn’t know anything about the story which remains one of my favorite way to watch movies, even if it might seem odd. Especially in this case as it turned out to be quite fascinating. Unfortunately, even though the material itself was quite strong, I’m afraid the movie itself was not great though. First of all, there was the back-and-forth in time. Sure, it made sense narratively speaking to tell the story of Martin as an adult and showing some flashbacks of his youth with Dovidl but it is still a rather worthless gimmick and, even in this case, it didn’t mean that this approach was really satisfying. However, a bigger issue was how they rather poorly handled the material and especially Martin and Dovidl. Basically, it was a story about traumatic loss and how 2 completely different individuals handled this trauma. To make Martin the main character was, again, narratively speaking a logical choice but they completely failed to make him interesting enough. Indeed, they reduced him to a rather talentless boring guy who seemed jealous of his (adopted) brother (the way they told at the end that his wife actually slept with Dovidl was especially humiliating and completely unnecessary). With Dovidl, it wasn’t much better. Indeed, they constantly reduced him to a selfish egocentric genius because he seemingly chose to drop also his surrogate British family after already losing his biological Polish family. Why the guy did leave them suddenly and why didn’t he reach out to them to all these years, that was the obsessive argument made by this movie. However, like I said before, the whole point of this tale was the traumatic experience they both had, explaining their weird erratic behavior, and this movie completely failed to show that. The only moment when you could finally feel it was when they played this magnificent violent music, some of the most beautiful violin music I have ever heard. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still an interesting story and I think it is worth a look. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it seemed to have a decent reputation and since it was starring Michael Caine, I was quite eager to check it out. By the way, I actually saw first the remake starring Sylvester Stallone but it was more than a decade ago and I don’t remember anything about it though, except that it wasn’t really good at all (the intro was awesome though). Well, first of all, I actually saw the original classic on the BBC and, to be honest, I have to admit that I did struggle with the dialogues (apparently, I was not the only one since this movie was re-dubbed for the US market as they thought the accent of some of the gangsters was just too heavy). Fortunately, the story turned out to be simple enough but it’s just too bad I couldn’t really follow what they were saying. Anyway, while watching this movie, I wondered if this movie might have been an inspiration for ‘John Wick’. Indeed, if you would replace all these super repetitive and rather boring actions scenes from ‘John Wick’ and replaced them with an actual story and some actual dialogues, I would probably enjoy more this franchise and I’m pretty sure it would be actually quite similar to this British classic. Anyway, there is no doubt that Caine was awesome as he delivered here one of his most iconic performances. Indeed, Carter was such a badass but also a really believable gangster. That was the other nice thing about this movie, how gritty, grim and realistic it all felt. Indeed, Mike Hodges went for a documentary-like approach and it made this movie quite fascinating to behold. And to think that it was his directorial debut made the whole thing even more impressive. To be honest, it was still missing something to become really amazing but a re-watch with some subtitles might help me to make up my mind about the damned thing. Anyway, to conclude, it is a really solid classic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.