Reviews by johanlefourbe

Since this movie was recently added to the book ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’, I was really eager to check it out. To be honest, I’m pretty sure that it will be one of these movies that they add every year but which end up being removed directly the year after or at least very soon. Anyway, I have to admit that it is not very often that you get to see a horror movie with so many layers. Indeed, there was first the fact that Iran, after the Islamic revolution, drastically changed and, since then, if someone would speak too loud about their opinion in this country, they could get into some real trouble, like the main character in this movie. As a result, many people would rather stay at home because they could then create their own free world with their own specific set of rules. Still, the fear that someone could show up and report you to the authority was always present. On the other hand, since the outside world was so threatening, by spending so much time inside, their home actually became some kind of a prison as well. Another layer was also the huge impact of the Iran-Irak war which was, according to the movie, the longest conventional war taking place in the 20^th century. So, there was also this neverending fear of being attacked or bombed for years. So, it was definitely an intriguing context for a horror flick and, yet, the whole thing still didn’t completely convince me though. Basically, the main problem I had was that, sure,  the horror stuff was not bad, in fact, it was even visually pretty neat, but it was also terribly generic. Seriously, from the moment the little girl tells her mother that she saw some djinn, it became just so predictable and nothing really surprising ever happened afterwards. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t completely blow me away, it was a still a really original horror flick and it is definitely worth a look. 

Since I really loved ‘De jurk’, I was really eager to check Alex van Warmerdam[Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see]directing effort. Well, unfortunately, even though it was a decent watch, it still turned out to be his movie which had the least impact on me so far. As usual, there was no real plot but some rather weird and absurd tale which can be rather tiresome to watch but, this time around, the whole thing was even more minimalist then usual with only one location and only 3 characters involved. To make things worse, I didn’t really care much for these characters and, while some of van Warmerdam’s movies can be quite hilarious, the whole thing was not so much fun, even if some scenes still made me chuckle. At least, it was really nice that Alex van Warmerdam and his wife, [Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see], were playing the leads for once. On top of that, Annet Malherbe was just really good in this movie and she has definitely become one of my favorite Dutch actress. To conclude, even though the whole thing didn’t really blow me away, I still enjoyed this movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Alex van Warmerdam’s work. 

[Link removed - login to see]Since this movie was well received when it was released, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, to be honest, I was surprised by how much I didn’t care for this movie after all. First of all, I have to admit that I haven’t seen yet [Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see]but it was hardly a high point in [Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see]’s and Laurence Olivier’s respective careers. With this in mind, since it was a rather weak movie, I didn’t see why I should care about its making-of. On top of that, I never could understand what was the fuss about Marilyn Monroe and this movie made it only worse. Sure, she was extremely sexy but she was apparently also a rather weak actress who was constantly hours late and who could barely remember her lines. I mean, if they would have been shooting a masterpiece but they were shooting a very light romantic-comedy so there was no reason to be fussing around like this the whole time. And, yet, at the end, everybody agreed that she was still amazing after all and I guess I would have to watch ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’ but I have my doubts. Finally, even though Michelle Williams was praised for her performance and even though she wasn’t bad, I never had the feeling that I was actually watching Marylin Monroe. Anyway, to conclude, even though the damned thing didn’t really work for me, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look but I can't say I was really impressed.

To be honest, since I was slightly disappointed by ‘Pusher II’, I actually lowered my expectations for this 3^rd and last installment. On top of that, even though the DVD was brand-new, it seemed to be actually defect and, as a result, my DVD player was buzzing like a god-damned helicopter through the whole duration. I spent maybe 30 mins trying to fix this but I came to the conclusion that the DVD was just no good. So, it wasn’t really the best circumstances to watch the damned thing but, fortunately, the movie was actually pretty good. First of all, what I liked the most about this trilogy was that it didn’t focus on one character but instead move on from one character to another through the whole trilogy. This 2^nd sequel focused thus on Milo who was easily one of the most charismatic guys introduced in these movies. Eventually, the main issue with this flick was probably the fact that I followed too much the structure of its predecessors.  Indeed, even though Milo  didn’t seem to be such a huge f*ck-up like Frank and Tony, eventually, he still ended up getting involved in some rather messed up drug deal, trying in the process to figure out how he will come out of this situation unharmed. Furthermore, I’m not sure if it was really a good idea to have Milo trying to stay clean. Anyway, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Obviously, I wasn’t expecting much from this movie but since I have seen most of the movies directed by Roland Emmerich, I was still eager to check it out. Well, first of all, the whole thing was just seriously misguided. I mean, I have to admit it, ‘Independence Day’ was actually not bad but, contrary to ‘Jurassic Park’ or ‘Star Wars’, it never became such a classic that people would be eager to watch a sequel 20 years later and, of course, the damned thing turned out to be a flop. To make things worse, if ‘Independence Day’ was a silly but harmless Science-Fiction feature,  this sequel was however just a boring mess. First of all, even though it seemed to be a no-brainer, they eventually didn’t manage to get Will Smith on board and, instead, they gave us a seriously uncharismatic and boring actor to play his son. So, the biggest star from the previous installment wouldn’t show up but, somehow, they thought it would be a great idea to bring back a whole bunch of really minor characters from ‘Independence Day’. Seriously, during the whole thing, I was scratching my head wondering who the hell were some of this people and why would they come back for this new installment.  Of course, they also added some new characters who were all equally underwhelming and boring to follow and, as a result, they would constantly jump between all these characters, each with their own tedious sub-plot, resulting in a massive mess. Sure, it was visually decent enough but pretty much nothing else really worked with this movie. Anyway, to conclude, from the start, this sequel was a  bad idea and the end-result was even worse than I expected so I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

Recently, I have been discovering Alex van Warmerdan’s movies. So far, I had seen 4 of them but, even though I enjoyed all of them, there was always something missing to really blow me away. With this in mind, since this movie had a much lower rating than his previous movies, I had lower my expectations but, eventually, it turned out to be the best movie I have seen from this director so far. First of all, I always thought that van Warmerdan’s movies were quite funny but this one was just so hilarious and I’m pretty sure it is the most hilarious Dutch movie I have ever seen. Seriously, the first 20 minutes were just so funny, it was pretty much pitch-perfect. As usual with this director, the dialogues were pretty neat but, here, they were even better and pretty much always spot on. Concerning the story, sure, it was pretty random but I thought it worked really well. Basically, it was some kind of hyperlink feature with many small stories linked to some completely random dress but I thought it was much more enjoyable than the other abstract tales usually delivered by the Dutch director. To conclude, I always admired Alex van Warmerdan’s work, this time, the guy really blew me away and this movie is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Dutch movies.