Reviews by johanlefourbe

I can’t believe it took me about 20 years to finally see another movie directed by Jacques Tati. To be honest, at the time, I actually didn’t care much for ‘Jour de fête’ but maybe it was because I had such huge expectations. Anyway, with this 2^nd attempt, even though I did like it and even though it’s supposed to be be Tati’s best directing effort, I thought it was pretty good but still nothing really mind-blowing. I mean, sure, the whole thing was really sweet and clever but it was never really interesting or seriously entertaining.  It is pretty obvious that Tati was some kind of French version of Charles Chaplin but the big difference was that Chaplin put so much poetry, drama in his stories and his characters, even if they were completely silent, were so much more developed than here.  Indeed,  Tati never really allows you to care about Hulot or the different characters involved and, as a result, I had a hard time to really care about what they were going through. Still, in contrary to ‘Jour de fête’ which I saw when I was a teenager, I was able to appreciate the tone delivered by Tati and the damned thing was also a great time capsule showing how it must have been to go on holiday in France back in the 50’s. Finally, it was pretty neat to see that this character was an obvious inspiration for Rowan Atkinson when he created his Mr. Bean. To conclude, even if it didn’t really dazzle me away, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Not to be confused with ‘Howl's Moving Castle’, another movie directed Hayao Miyazaki, to be honest, even if I was really eager to check this movie, I still struggled to get into the damned thing. I mean, you have to agree that the beginning was pretty much a huge mess during which most of the main protagonists were displayed without any introduction whatsoever during some rather chaotic action scene. My guess is that, since the whole thing already had a running time of 120 mins, they had to rush things somehow so they skipped a more standard introduction. As usual with Miyazaki, the main character was once again one of his typical pure and innocent girls but I always find them rather boring. At least, Pazu was slightly more interesting and entertaining. And yet, I have to admit that the damned thing slowly won me over somehow. First of all, even though it is now 30 years old, the animation was quite impressive, especially during the action scenes which were just so amazing to look at. There was also something quite mesmerizing about this mysterious floating island and the ending was quite powerful. To conclude, even though it was eventually too chaotic and messy for my taste, it was still pretty good and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you are interested in Hayao Miyazaki’s work. 

I already saw this movie but since it was maybe 20 years go and since I had it on DVD, I was really eager to check it out again. Well, eventually, even though it turned out to be pretty good, I still didn't completely blow me away though. Eventually, the biggest problem was that the damned thing was too short in my opinion. Indeed, it could have easily lasted 3 hours and, then, they would have had enough time to properly introduce the story and the characters involved. As a result, the introduction was seriously rushed and you barely got the time to understand who was involved and what was their agenda. Indeed, within 10 minutes, you get introduced to such various groups like the British army, the French army, various Indian tribes fighting for one side or another, some colonials eager to fight for England, some not,... And, of course, it was rather hard to believe that a British lady from the upper-class would fall in love with a rough white man raised by the indians and, the other way around, you wonder why this free-spirited fellow would ever care for her. But, I guess that was the whole point of this tale as it was probably the most romantic Western I have ever seen and, in spite of a rather weak start, the rest worked actually really well. Indeed, back in those days, Michael Mann certainly knew how to direct a movie and it was visually quite impressive. On top of that, as usual, Daniel Day-Lewis was completely mesmerizing to behold and, even if the love story didn't really make much sense, he was just so convincing. Anyway, to conclude, even though it wasn't really a masterpiece, it was still pretty good and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.