Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, 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. Well, eventually, even if the damned thing had some potential, it turned out to be rather weak, I’m afraid. The first issue was that, even if the opening scene with these 2 boys becoming best friends after discovering they both love magic tricks was promising, within 5 minutes, it was pretty much ruined by the fact that, as adults, they couldn't stand each other anymore. From this point on, Burt Wonderstone became just so lame and annoying. To make things worse, during the 3rd act, they completely flipped around again this character as he suddenly became aware that he had been a major douchebag for so many years. Basically, his personality kept changing drastically any time it was needed to move on the plot. Concerning the rest of the characters, it was not much better, I’m afraid. For example, it was sad to see the lovely and talented Olivia Wilde playing such a thankless and eventually rather boring character. Concerning Steve Buscemi, Jim Carrey and James Gandolfini, their characters were slightly more interesting and/or fun but they were not developed enough. Eventually, the only one who managed to be entertaining was Alan Arkin. To be honest, Arkin did deliver his usual no-nonsense performance he gives in pretty much all his movies but, in the contrary of the rest of the cast, he did manage to find the right tone. Indeed, he was the only one who seemed to be an actual person and not some kind of annoying heightened caricature. Anyway, to conclude, even if I have seen worse, I didn’t care much about the damned thing and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since I did like ‘The Conjuring’ franchise, I thought I might as well check this spin-off/prequel. Last week, I actually saw ‘Annabelle’, the first spin-off based on ‘The Conjuring’ and, to be honest, I had a really hard time to care about the damned thing. With this in mind, I seriously lowered my expectations with this flick, especially since it didn’t seem to have a stellar reputation. Well, eventually, I thought it was not so bad after all, at least, it was much better than ‘Annabelle’. In my opinion, what mostly worked with this flick was the fact it was from the beginning until the end really creepy. Indeed, this movie had a really nice mood and this nun was a solid bad guy. Furthermore, Father Burke and Sister Irene were both some charismatic characters but, to be honest, even if these 2 characters were interesting, they were actually barely developed at all. I thought it was also a little bit confusing that Sister Irene was played by Taissa Farmiga who is actually Vera Farmiga’s sister. Indeed,  Vera Farmiga had played Lorraine Warren in ‘The Conjuring’ franchise and, since both characters had some visions as a kid in combination with the timeline, it seemed possible that Taissa was playing a younger version of Vera’s character but, obviously, these two characters were eventually not related whatsoever. A bigger issue was that, even though the story was at first pretty straightforward, unfortunately, it became increasingly messy. Seriously, towards the end, they were more and more scenes which barely made any sense. Anyway, to conclude, it is possible that my rating was actually generous here movie but it was actually fairly entertaining and I think it might be worth a look, at least, if you really 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. First to all, I have to admit that I have never read ‘Infinite Jest’ and, to be honest, it felt rather weird to watch a movie about a writer without actually reading the book that started the whole thing (I had a similar experience with ‘Capote’ but I did read ‘In Cold Blood’ eventually). Well, this movie definitely made me feel even more guilty about the fact that I still haven’t read this American classic and, at least, it made me even more eager to read it at some point. Anyway, somehow, for some reason, I really got into this movie. I guess it did work because these guys never really talked about the book after all and focused more on Wallace himself and his new relationship with a journalist who happened to be a writer himself. Eventually, on one hand, you had David Lipsky who was obviously envious of Wallace’s huge success as a writer and, on the other hand, you had Wallace himself who was envious of pretty much everyone else as his success never helped him to become more adjusted to our world. Eventually, it was pretty neat to have such articulate characters talking to each other and I was above all impressed by Jason Segel. I mean, Jesse Eisenberg was not bad at all but he was basically playing another version of a character he had already done so many times before while Segel completely disappeared behind his character and, as a result, he delivered here the best performance of his career. Of course, I have no idea who David Foster Wallace was in real life but Segel made his character so complex, so fully fledged, so human, it was just quite spellbinding to behold. Anyway, to conclude, even thought the whole thing was nothing really ground-breaking, it was still an interesting watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in David Foster Wallace.

Since I did enjoy ‘The Conjuring’ franchise, I thought I might as well check this spin-off/prequel. Well, to be honest, I wasn’t really impressed by the damned thing. The first issue was that, if the Annabelle doll in ‘The Conjuring’ was a nice prop, however, that’s just what it was, a prop and not an actual character, and to build a whole movie (and by now, even a whole franchise) around her was rather misguided in my opinion. Indeed, the evil doll genre is actually seriously limited because there are basically only two ways to tackle this genre. Either, like in ‘Child’s Play’, you go for a living doll which can speak and kill people but the end-result is always pretty much laughable. The second option, which they chose for this movie, is to keep the doll completely inanimate which is definitely a wiser choice. Still, even if the doll remains creepy, there is nothing much thrilling about a doll sitting on a bookshelf through the whole duration of a movie so it still didn’t really work. Another issue was that, while Ed and Lorraine Warren were quite charismatic, John and Mia Form were maybe cute and charming but I’m afraid they were also really bland and boring. Concerning the rest of the movie, well, there were a couple of decent jump scares but the story was just really generic and predictable and the ending was, in my opinion, just way too random. Anyway, to conclude, even if I have seen worse, I thought it was still a rather weak spin-off and I don’t think it is really worth a look, except maybe if you are a really die-hard fan of 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. I have to admit that I had no idea what it was about before watching the damned thing and, eventually, I really had a hard time to get into this story dealing with such a misguided romantic relationship. I mean, to have a young girl discovering her sexuality was fine, that she lost her virginity with a much older guy was still fairly acceptable but with her mother’s boyfriend?!? In fact, ‘misguided’ was not the right word, in my opinion, the whole thing was in fact downright sinister… Of course, Woody Allen might argue differently but, being myself a stepfather with a daughter 14 years younger than me, it was just hard to handle. Furthermore, I was never really able to figure out where the makers stood regarding this matter. I mean, obviously, they never condoned what was going on but the tone was still pretty quirky and whimsical in spite of some really dark material. As a result, the fairly light tone might give the feeling that what the main character went through might not be so bad after all. Still, I have to admit that I was quite impressed by Bel Powley. I had never seen her before but, even though she was obviously much older than her character, she still delivered a strong performance. Indeed, even if the material was rather cringe-inducing, she was always convincing and it was just refreshing to see a believable and relatable teenager. What was also impressive was that even though Powley delivered a realistic and plain looking teenager, she still made her character quite charismatic. Anyway, to conclude, even though the material seriously rubbed me the wrong way, I have to admit that it was not bad and you might want to check it out but only if you can handle such a misguided relationship.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Elle Fanning, I thought I might as well check it out. To be honest, it was just before I started to watch that I discovered that it was actually Max Minghella’s first directing effort. Well, it was pretty obvious that it was his first movie as a director and he will need to put some extra effort with his future directing projects if he ever wants to reach the level of his father, the late Anthony Minghella. I mean, even if the guy tried to make the whole thing look artsy fancy, he never managed to really hide the fact that the story was after all terribly generic and predictable. Another issue was that the whole thing was also rather tone-deaf. Indeed, some bits were pretty gritty but, as the movie moved along, they kept accumulating some very old clichés. Eventually, what was the point? Maybe they tried to be sarcastic or critical about the whole business around the popular singing talent shows but I think that it would be giving this movie too much credit. At least, Elle Fanning delivered another really solid performance, in fact, she pretty much carried the whole thing on her shoulders and, without her, I’m not sure that the damned thing would have been really watchable. Anyway, to conclude, even if I didn’t have some huge expectations, I was rather surprised by how underwhelming this movie turned out to be and I think it might be worth a look but only for die-hard fans of Elle Fanning.

Since his impressive come-back with ‘BlacKkKlansman’, I was quite eager to check Spike Lee’s following directing effort, especially since it was available on Netflix. Well, eventually, it turned out to be a more complex movie than his previous one which was nice but, as a result, I did struggle a bit to get a good grip on the whole thing. I mean, there was so much stuff going on, most of it was pretty good, but I wonder if it wasn’t maybe too much. On the other hand, if it would have been only about some vets going back to Vietnam to find some lost gold, something entertaining but fairly generic, it wouldn’t have been enough. There were also some rather bewildering artistic choices. For example, why did they keep the same actors to play themselves in the Vietnam war scenes instead of hiring some younger actors? Maybe it was to argue that they actually never left Vietnam which was probably the case for Paul? On the other hand, I’m glad they didn’t try to CGI them like they did for ‘The Irishman’. Indeed, even if Scorsese's movie was a critical success, the end-result never looked really convincing and Lee probably saved several millions of dollars this way. Still, the material was quite strong and certainly really topical regarding what’s going on in the world following the death of George Floyd. Finally, even if there were maybe too many characters involved, Paul did stand out and, in my opinion, Delroy Lindo probably gave here the best performance of his career. Anyway, to conclude, even if it wasn’t a complete home-run this time around, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Spike Lee’s work.