Reviews by johanlefourbe

I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Jennifer Garner and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, it turned out to be one of these movies arguing that raising kids has become such an impossible task nowadays and, to be honest, I always have a hard time to relate with such movies. The fact that I got 3 very easy children to raise doesn’t help I guess. Anyway, in my opinion, raising children is not really about when you should say ‘No’ and when you should say ‘Yes’, it’s actually more about building trust between you and your child. So, you can see I didn’t care much for the whole set-up but, at least, it was nice that it was dealing with a bilingual family, even if they did actually very little with this aspect after all. Still, I have to admit that there was something pretty neat to see these kids calling all the shots for one single day. However, for some reasons, they completely derailed the whole thing during the 3^rd act by sending the parents to jail for some rather dubious reasons. Finally, the tone was just so feather light. Indeed, the parents were nice, the kids were nice, there was barely a conflict even at the beginning of the movie and I get that it was probably done on purpose but it would have been more interesting if the characters would have been slightly more complex. Anyway, to conclude, even if I have to admit that this movie was rather harmless, I didn’t really care much about the damned thing and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. I remember that it had been a huge flop when it was released but, in fact, I think it actually had some potential. Unfortunately, even though the material was utterly depressing but still really topical, they went for an upbeat inspiring tone which was rather misguided. Furthermore, this movie clearly suffered from the ‘Dead Poets Society’ syndrome. Indeed, such movies, instead of actually focusing on the noble cause which was supposedly what the movie was supposed to be about, actually prefers to focus on the main characters and their outgoing personality. In ‘Dead Poets Society’, you got plenty of rousing speeches from John Keating but actually very little poetry. In this case, they spent much of the duration showing how brave and resourceful these two women were and also showing their respective home situations but, eventually, they spend very little time explaining what was actually really wrong at their school and how they were going to fix this. Concerning the cast, I think that Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis gave some solid performances, even if their characters were rather poorly written. Gyllenhaal was basically playing some kind of variation of Erin Brockovich and it was probably not a great idea to have her character starting a relationship with one of the teachers. Concerning Davis, the focus on her private life was also a big mistake. Indeed, if you might wonder why Jamie Fitzpatrick didn’t help her kid instead of fighting her battles against the school system, at least, you could argue that she didn’t have the necessary bagage to properly help her out herself. With Nona Alberts, it was a different story though. Indeed, sure, her kid was struggling at school but, come on, his mother was a freaking teacher so she could basically tutor him 1-to-1 for about one hour everyday which is a luxury that most of the kids going to this damned school didn’t have. Anyway, to conclude, even if the damned thing didn’t really work, it was still dealing with a very important subject and, only therefore, I think it is actually worth a look. 

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this movie but since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. I have to admit that, since I’m a stepdad myself, I did feel a connection with the material and, as a result, I probably gave the damned thing some extra points that it might not actually really deserve. Still, I think they got some aspects right. Basically, being a dad (biological or not), as displayed in this movie, consists mostly of simply being always around and take care of millions of things without showing to your kids that it might be a massive burden. Well, as long as the movie was focusing on this, it was actually working fairly well and it could have been a nice surprise if they actually scaled down the absurd competition between the 2 dads. Of course, the conflict between the two men was basically the whole point of this movie but, to be honest, I didn’t care much for it. I mean, it was pretty neat that Mark Wahlberg was playing his character as being really cool, with some swag and much more wit than I expected and Will Ferrell was playing his usual moron with a heart of gold but it did work with this material. However, I think it would have been more entertaining if they would have chosen a more down-to-earth approach instead of turning Wahlberg’s character into a semi-psycho. Anyway, to conclude, even if I probably give this movie too much credit, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. On top of that, I just loved this poster which was actually one of the main reasons I wanted to watch the damned thing. Unfortunately, even though it had the potential to be a solid modern Hitchcockian thriller, I wasn't really impressed after all. The problem with such thrillers is that no current director has the same skills as Alfred Hitchcock did, especially not someone like Paul Feig. On top of that, Feig was even more ambitious as he tried to mix his thriller with a comedy but, to be honest, this mix never really worked. Indeed, as a result, you got some massive switch in tones which were rather jarring. To make things worse, the whole plot of a woman faking her own death to then come back to blame her husband had already been done pretty much verbatim in ‘Gone Girl’ only a few years ago. Finally, what was the deal with this vlog? I mean, sure, this way, they could show that it was a movie really linked to a specific period of time and it was also a way to show how lonely the main character actually was. However, in my opinion, it would have been more efficient to have her having an average job and trying to juggle everything between her kid, her job and her investigation regarding her lost friend. Still, the whole thing had a nice dark edge and Anna Kendrick was pretty much born to play such square losers who happen to be actually quite resourceful after all. I think it would have worked better if they had tone down the jokes, amplify the dark side of these two women and maybe drop the terribly bland Henry Golding. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I have to admit that I’m not exactly a huge fan of The Notorious B.I.G. but since this new documentary was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, the beginning was pretty much a mess. Maybe they wanted to show how unique and intimate the footage would be but I was hardly impressed. Fortunately, the whole thing did settle down at some point when they started to go chronologically from the very beginning of his life. Indeed, it was pretty neat to discover that the guy was actually half Jamaican and that he spent actually every summer when he was a kid in Jamaica. Even more interesting was to see how much involved he was involved in crack dealing before his breakthrough as a hip-hop singer. I also did appreciate the fact that they didn’t spend too much time on his beef with Tupac as enough has been said about the matter during the last 25 years. Basically, in my opinion, it was some kind of really misguided PR stunt which completely got out of hands at some point. So, the whole thing was not bad at all but, even without being a Notorious B.I.G. expert, I didn’t feel I heard anything really new. It didn’t help that at least half of the duration was about his friends and relatives talking about how talented the guy was. Anyway, to conclude, even if the damned thing was not really ground-breaking, it was still a decent watch though and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Hip-Hop. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Rosamund Pike, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, it turned out to be an interesting story but, beside being a solid history lesson, to be honest, it never really managed to engage me emotionally. For example, even though Ruth Williams did seem to have the best intentions and she did seem to really love her husband, it didn’t help that she spent much of the duration being cloistered in her house, waiting that everything go sorted out without much input from her. For her husband, it was not really much better, I’m afraid. Indeed, even though the guy gave a couple of rousing speeches, he didn’t seem to have so much power after all since Botswana, at the time called ‘Bechuanaland’, was actually a British Protectorate which means the country was protected but also controlled by the British government. And, yet, somehow, he managed to get the independence for his country and he managed to turn it into a Democracy which was quite remarkable. Without mentioning the fact that, through his impulse, Botswana went from being one of the poorest countries in the world to become one of the top 4 richest African countries. Another interesting fact was how much influence South Africa still had at the time, in spite the fact that their Apartheid politic was supposedly considered as ‘outrageous’ by all the Western countries. As you may have noticed, I didn’t even mention yet the fact that Seretse Khama did marry a white British woman when pretty much everyone, in Great Britain and in his own country, were against it. Indeed, while this marriage was the main focus of this movie, I’m not sure if it was really the most interesting thing this man actually achieved. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still an interesting historical drama and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Of course, I wasn’t expecting much from the damned thing but I have to admit that I was still curious to see the end-result. To be honest, it is rather difficult to judge this movie. I mean, sure, it was pretty much a disaster but, in fact, it wasn’t even supposed to be released. Indeed, the production on this movie was a huge mess and they had to stop shooting several times because of some financial problems. At some point, David O. Russell completely walked away and since then has completely disavowed the damned thing. And, yet, after so many years in production hell, against all expectations, the producers still managed to release the damned thing but the end-result was certainly rather bewildering. Basically, it was some kind of mix of a political satire with a romantic comedy but this mix never worked. It’s not that the jokes were not really funny, it was above all the fact that they were, well, pretty weird and not in a positive way. For example, at some point, Howard Birdwell runs away, something he often does when he gets cornered (which might be one of the few things that were genuinely funny), somehow, he went to some random workshop involving a fire and some shaman and, to make the whole thing even more strange, you got to see James Marsden’s character helping out with whatever he was supposed to do during this ritual/workshop. If you think that what I just wrote was borderline incomprehensible, well, it figures because this scene didn’t make much sense. Concerning David O. Russell, he was quite struggling at the time but he did manage to finally make his come-back in 2010 with ’The Fighter’. Anyway, to conclude, you might wonder if it was really worth releasing the damned thing after all but it is certainly not worth a look, that's for sure.

For some reason, I honestly don’t really remember why, it was a movie I wanted to watch for quite some time. Well, it turned out to be a charming little romantic comedy, no more but no less than that either. To be honest, you might wonder how and why a US actress like Piper Perabo did end up in such a British production but, still, she had such a nice chemistry with Lena Headey and this chemistry was what mostly made this movie worked. Headey was probably more convincing than Perabo but there is no denying that they were both quite lovely to look at. I also did appreciate the fact that Rachel’s husband was actually a really nice guy which made the whole thing slightly more complex and therefore more interesting than your average rom-com. Concerning the jokes, to honest, it was rather hit-and-miss but even though it was always fairly entertaining, it was never really hilarious but I guess it was never what the makers were aiming for. Eventually, even though there was nothing really wrong with the damned thing, I’m afraid it was still too light for my taste. I mean, Rachel did end up in a terrible situation, without mentioning the fact that, for the first time in her life, she was falling in love with a woman which must be, at the very least, very confusing so the material was actually pretty dark. Of course, you could blame Piper Perabo for not having the right acting chops for playing something so complex but I don’t think that it was what was expected from her since the tone always remained feather-light. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was nothing really ground-breaking, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Since I really loved ‘Moonlight’, I was really eager to watch Barry Jenkins’s directing follow-up, especially since it also had received some stellar reviews. Well, maybe my expectations were too high but, even though I really did appreciate the whole thing, to be honest, I never really impressed me though. I mean, I have to admit that it was a beautiful pure and innocent love story and, after already triggering my interest in ‘The Old Guard’, KiKi Layne might turn out to be one of the most interesting actresses of her generation. This movie also displayed how the black people have been deprived of their dignity for centuries in the USA. Basically, even if they play by the rules, they will still get a shitty education, they will still get a job with the lowest wage possible, they will still struggle to find some decent accommodation and, after all this, hanging above them, there is also the constant fear that they could be arrested at any moment for some crime they didn’t commit just because they might fit the ‘profile’. The scene around the big argument with Fonny’s family was also some metaphor on how the Black community is unfortunately often tearing itself apart under such cruel circumstances when they should be supporting each other but it’s always easy to judge when you are watching such complex issues comfortably from your sofa with your fat*ss flatscreen. So, the whole thing was really well made and the cast was strong but, even though the material was not bad at all, I didn’t have the feeling that they were covering some new ground, which was for example the case with ‘Moonlight’. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t really blow me away, it was still a really solid romantic drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.