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“To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie but since it is considered as one of the worst movies ever, I don’t think I will waste my time by watching it a 2nd time. In fact, even though it might sound surprising, I actually saw the damned thing when it was released in the movie” read more
Notes: Even though I thought it was pretty good, it was nothing really great. The first issue I had is that the whole thing was some obvious Oscar-bait (dramas based on handicap or diseases always score well with the Academy). I was also concerned at first because it started pretty much like 'Dead Poets Society' with the excentric teacher who becomes really popular with the kids and, of course, the conventional director becomes his nemesis... Thankfully, it didn't go that road and instead we got a rather striking love story involving the two leads, one hearing, the other obviously not. There were some very strong stuff here and William Hurt and Marlee Matlin were both really good in this. Still, I was missing something. I mean, the whole thing got stuck really soon because they were both stubborn (he wants her to speak, she doesn't want to...). I mean, at least half of the movie was about this conflict which was rather disappointing. For example, I heard that Hurt and Matlin became an item for a couple years but, apparently, their relationship was really stormy with some substance abuse on both sides. Now, that sounds a little bit more compelling. Finally, like Roger Ebert pointed out, you wonder why there is not one single scene during which William Hurt stopped translating what they say so you could finally experience this peculiar world of silence. Still, in spite of its flaws, it is probably the best movie dealing with this subject.
“Since this movie had a really solid reputation, I was quite eager to check it out. Apparently, this movie was first developed as a sequel to ‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town’ but since Gary Cooper was not available, they changed the name of the main character and they gave this part to James Stewart who ” read more
“To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick but even though it is a rather obscure feature, I thought actually pretty good. Indeed, I always had a weak spot for such movies dealing with the stock brokers and even though it might not be the best movie in this genre, it still worked” read more
“To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie and maybe I should re-watch it some point. Since this movie had a really impressive reputation, I had some rather high expectations but it is often tricky with such old classics. Indeed, they might have been groundbreaking when they we” read more
Notes: I haven't seen this one yet...
“When I first heard about this movie, I actually had some mixed feelings. Indeed, it was dealing with a fascinating story and there was a stellar cast involved (Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt, Marisa Tomei) but Adam McKay in the directing chair? I mean, so far, the guy had on” read more
“Even though this movie seems to be overlooked nowadays, it was actually another critical success for the Coen brothers. Indeed, they even managed to win the Golden Palm at the Cannes film festival. Well, to be honest, even though I thought it was not bad, I actually always had some mixed feelings ” read more
Notes: For many years, Oliver Stone was a struggling director and at the time of production, he thought that this movie was going to be his last chance. However, in 1986, he made two movies which both managed to be, at least critically, successful. Of course, we all remember 'Platoon', crowned with the highest prize, in my opinion the best movie about the Vietnam war and rightfully considered as his magnum opus. However, we tend to forget the other movie he made back then in 1986, a movie so overlooked that it did not have a wide distribution in the United States. Eventually, it was re-released after the success of 'Platoon'. Anyway, it is actually a damned fine picture. Indeed, it is one of those edgy movies that Stone used to make before going soft. The subject was topical with some very good performances, even by James Belushi, usually one of the least interesting actors I have ever seen. James Woods, a really underrated actor, gave one of his typical nervous performances and I think he was really good in this.
“To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this flick but since I have seen every single one movie directed by Kevin Smith, I thought I might check his last movie as well. Well, it turned out to be pretty terrible and I'm not surprised that it is, according to the IMDB ratings, his worst movie so ” read more
“To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie but it has always been a massive guilty pleasure of mine and definitely a childhood favorite. Indeed, when I was a kid, I was a huge fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme and I saw all the movies he made at the beginning of his career. Eventually” read more
“To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie and I should definitely re-watch it at some point. In fact, I even saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released. Anyway, the saddest thing about this movie was that, even though it was maybe not a real masterpiece, it w” read more
Notes: In my opinion, it is pure and simply the best movie about the Vietnam war. It might even be my favorite war movie. I mean, there are some other pretty good movies about the Vietnam war, like ‘Full Metal Jacket’ for example, but this flick is just way better than the rest in my opinion. The making-off was already the stuff of legend. Indeed, the actors spent 2 weeks in a boot camp to get into the right ‘mood’ and Stone made sure that all the details were accurate. Stone, himself a Vietnam veteran, struggled for more than a decade to manage to make this movie but it was eventually a huge financial and critical success. It won the Best Picture Academy award and Oliver Stone’s career was finally launched for good. At the end of the day, it remains a really fascinating and sometimes heartbreaking war tale with some fully fledged characters. Like I said before, after this movie, Oliver Stone’s career was launched and he kept making some impressive pictures but they unfortunately never reached the level of this masterpiece. 
What is it about?
A gangster family epic set in 1919 Birmingham, England and centered on a gang who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps, and their fierce boss Tommy Shelby, who means to move up in the world.
My verdict:
I had some issue to watch 'The Wire' (my brother lend me his complete DVD collection of this TV-show but it turned out that the very first DVD with the first 3 episodes was missing so I ended up ordering again the 1st season on Ebay...). So, while I was figuring out a way to watch 'The Wire', I ended up watching the 1st episode of this TV-show with my wife but, even though I thought it looked pretty cool, she was not really convinced so we moved on right away towards something else. However, when we finally managed to start 'The Wire', she liked it even less so we came back fairly quickly to this TV-show and we have both thoroughly enjoyed it since then.
Will I watch the following seasons?
Yes, I have watched the whole thing by now.
“Right now, according to IMDb, this is the best movie released in 2016 (I'm not sure if it will last but we'll see soon enough) so you can't argue that I did try not to show the best movie possible to my filmclub. It's such a shame that it didn't turn out to be really amazing after all. I mean, I tho” read more
Notes: Right now, according to IMDb, this is the best movie released in 2016 (I'm not sure if it will last but we'll see soon enough) so you can't argue that I did not try to show the best movie possible to my filmclub. It's just a shame that it didn't turn out to be really amazing. I mean, I thought it was visually really neat, Amy Adams gave a solid performance and I really loved the fact that they put the focus on language and the difficulty and the importance to be able to communicate with a possible Alien life form. As a result, it was probably one of the most minimalistic Science-Fiction features I have seen but it wasn't a bad thing, in the contrary. Unfortunately, of course, I'm familiar with this old gimmick of creating an ominous mood and keeping the audience for as long as possible in the dark but, at some point, they have to deliver an explanation and such movies very rarely manage to end up in a satisfactory manner. In this case, it was not bad but I thought that, when this first encounter should have been a worldwide historical event, its impact was reduced to one single human being. What was actually the impact on the rest of the world? In what way was this event something really life changing? Anyway, even though it didn't completely blow me away, it was still a decent SF feature.
Vanity Fair, annual Hollywood issue covers (22 movies items)
“Ever since he came up with the amazing 'The Proposition', all the following directing efforts delivered by John Hillcoat have generated some nice buzz before they were released but, eventually, none of them made much waves after all. This movie was a good example. I mean, it was not bad at all, it w” read more
“I actually already saw this movie but since it was a while back and since I had it on DVD, I thought I might as well check it out again. Well, it might be the most hated movie directed by Michael Bay so far. I mean, it is pretty obvious that Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer went way over their head” read more
