Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t really dying to see yet another adaptation of the famous Jane Austen book but, since I have a weak spot for Anya Taylor-Joy and since this movie was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I still don’t think it is a really strong story (on the other hand, I have to admit that I don’t remember much the version starring Gwyneth Paltrow which I saw ages ago, except that it didn’t really impress me back then). Indeed, even though Emma Woodhouse and Knightley are separately fairly entertaining on their own, I’m afraid their little romance was just too predictable and it was in fact barely entertaining. And, yet, with this adaptation, I think they made the most of this story though. First of all, the damned thing was visually really impressive and I’m not surprised that Autumn de Wilde used to be a photographer before making this movie. Indeed, all the production design and costumes were quite exquisite. Furthermore, the cast was pretty good, especially Anya Taylor-Joy who, once again, really impressed me. Indeed, I think it was rather tricky since Emma Woodhouse can’t be super smart but she can not be really dumb either, and she has to be sharp and direct but she can’t be completely vain, insensitive or mean either. However, Taylor-Joy really nailed it though and she delivered in the process a fully-fledged and complex character and I think it’s even more remarkable when you think that the material was basically a rather fluffy romance at the end of the 18th century in England. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t really blow me away, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Recently, I have been focusing on older movies and since this one seemed to have a decent reputation and since it was available on YouTube, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, it turned out to be a really poetic short, that’s for sure, and, yet, it was still missing something to really blow me away though. To be honest, I have to admit that I actually had a very bad day when I watched it so I might have to check it again under better circumstances. On the other hand, there was also the fact that I recently watched several vintage shorts which were so much more abstract and wild than this one, as a result, it did seem slightly to be too straightforward, even if it was quite beautiful to look at. I mean, Nadia Sibirskaïa was a really intriguing and charismatic woman and these landscapes were striking as well but half of the duration was only about switching between her and these images which was rather repetitive and, to be honest, not really satisfying. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in such experimental vintage features. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but my girlfriend wanted to see something romantic and in Dutch and, since this movie was available on Netflix, I thought we might as well check it out. Well, I usually don’t care much for most Dutch movies and even less for their usually really lame romantic-comedies but I have to admit that I really like this one. Indeed, the characters were very well written and I was really impressed by Hanna van Vliet who was just so charismatic and, yet, still completely relatable which is a really tricky balance to achieve. I also did appreciate how they take their time to show this vibrant community of gay people living in Amsterdam showing that gays are just regular folks, they just want to be left alone and enjoy life like everyone else. And yet, somehow, I think the damned thing still missed something to be really great though. Basically, the main idea was that the main character had some major issue to articulate her thoughts and feelings which was well handled but I'm afraid this approach did drag the down the pace of the whole thing. Indeed, if the whole issue was that the girl has some trouble to speak her mind, well, it was actually pretty thing narratively speaking, even if it was quite realistic. Still, it was easily one of the best Dutch movies I have seen in quite some time and I think we will also check the TV-series it was based on, just to spend more time with this intriguing young woman and to see what happen to her before. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t manage to be a masterpiece, I really enjoyed the damned thing and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

As usual, I didn’t know anything about this movie before watching it but my other film club members made it pretty clear that it would heavy. Well, within 5 mins, I understood that it will be pretty rough and, indeed, at the end, we were all fairly traumatized about what we just saw. As far as I was concerned, it felt like a horror feature, the big difference was that it was based on something real which made all these images even more hard to swallow. Eventually, it was a strong reminder how we seem to live in some kind of parallel world where we worry about the costs of our groceries and about where we are going to spend our next fancy holidays when, not so far away, some really desperate immigrants are going through hell dreaming of a better life for themselves and very often for their very young kids. Something which was not handled in this movie was the fact that, if they ever managed to reach their destination (many won’t), they will be despised and very poorly treated by the local population which made me feel such a great shame. They did spend some time however to show how awful the job was for the military working at the border and it was a great way to show that, even if someone gets in direct contact with these refuges, they pretty much feel instantly different about them which shows, that deep down, we are all human. But they didn’t stop here, they also spent some time with some activists, just a handful of them, who tried to make a difference but I think the way this group was depicted was less effective. Indeed, it seemed that none of them had a daily job or some family to take care of and that they all could simply drop off everything to help these poor souls which seemed less realistic than the rest of this movie. Anyway, to conclude, I’m still shaken up by the damned thing, I still think it is definitely worth a look but you should expect to feel really depressed afterwards. 

A few weeks ago, I already saw ‘Die Büchse der Pandora’ and since Louise Brooks really blew me away at the time, I was quite eager to see this other movie she also made in 1929. It’s only afterwards that I discovered that both movies had the same director (G. W. Pabst). It’s interesting because I think that the two movies had a completely different vibe. I do think that ‘Pandora’ had a stronger story and a stronger character for Brooks but ‘Diary’ was however narratively less disjointed. Still, even though both movies were entertaining, I think that they were rather messy though. For example, in this case, it took me forever to figure out that Frieda was not Thymian’s mother but actually her aunt. It was also rather bewildering that Meinert was not fired and kicked out from their house when they found out that he was actually the father of Thymian’s newborn child. Finally, there was also the fact that the Count Osdorff killed himself after being married for maybe 10 mins with the main character. However, this movie will not be remembered for its story or its directing, it will be remembered because of Louise Brooks. Indeed, her performance was once again so intriguing and, after Maria Falconetti, she must be hands down the best silent movie actress I have ever seen. The interesting thing is that she did look exactly the same as she did in ‘Die Büchse der Pandora’ but, expect that they both did end up in the prostitution, the two character were so different though. Above all, in both cases, Brooks was quite spellbinding to behold. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still pretty good and it is definitely worth a look, if only to see Louise Brooks shine one more time. 

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, after playing Clark Kent’s parents in a few movies, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane had the opportunity to portray another couple here and they had once again so much chemistry together. Eventually, they were definitely the biggest asset in this movie but, to be honest, I don’t think the concept really worked though or, at least, the approach they chose to handle this story didn’t work. Indeed, their situation was sad, they had lost their son and they basically lost also their grand-son but these things just happen in life. Sure, her ex-daughter-in-law probably made a mistake to marry with Donnie Weboy but she was a grown-up woman, it was her choice and I don’t think that her ex-in-laws had any business interfering or, even worse, hatching up a plan to retrieve their grand-son. Eventually, the only way it could have worked was if they would have gone for something more ambiguous, more subtle. Unfortunately, instead, they kept hammering the fact that they were seemingly the best grand-parents in the world and that they were doing the ‘right thing’ which was never convincing, at least, not to me. Of course, from the moment they started to chase Donnie Weboy and his family, I wondered immediately if it would all end up in some bloodbath because that’s how Hollywood movies work. However, at some point, after a violent confrontation with the Weboy’s with a really dramatic conclusion, it seemed for a minute that they finally started to understand how foolish and misguided their whole plan was from the very beginning and, if it would have been the conclusion, it would have been a darker but solid ending. Unfortunately, they obviously couldn’t let it go (pun intended) and ended up in some massive carnage which was so predictable and obviously rather disappointing. Anyway, to conclude, even if the story never really worked for me, I have do admit that it was still worth a look but only because Lane and Costner were such a charming couple together.

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it did sound intriguing, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, it turned out to be a fascinating story with some very strong characters. On top of that, who would have expected that Wonder Woman came from such a complex background? I had also no idea that the Wonder Woman comic-books were at first so kinky and subversive and it made the character so much more intriguing than she actually was, at least to me. In fact, it was apparently a known fact that William Moulton Marston did indeed live with 2 different women and had children with both of them but there was no record that they actually engaged in some kind of threesome like it was displayed in this movie. However, I think it made these 2 women and the whole agreement between the 3 of them even more intriguing. The main issue I had was probably the lack of context. I mean, to start this kind of relationship(s) today would be definitely challenging but they did it back in the 20’s until the end of the 40’s. Unfortunately, you never get a good idea of how bold and groundbreaking this choice actually was and, instead, they went for some romantic approach which was maybe easy to swallow but I think it did shortchange these characters and how complex they were on a psychological level. Furthermore, they spend too much time on this threesome and not enough on the creation of Wonder Woman as it came late during the 3rd act and I wish they did spend more time on this as well. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was maybe not a masterpiece, it was still pretty good though and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in this genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but, since it was starring Bruce Willis, I thought I might as well check it out. Unfortunately, from all these awful direct-to-VOD garbage Willis has done towards the end of his career, it was probably one of the worst I have seen so far, I’m afraid. Seriously, pretty much nothing worked with the damned thing and my mind was wandering off every 2 mins but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t miss anything important. It was probably the cheapest and weakest story I have seen so far in this genre. I mean, it started with a really pathetic shoot-out, then the bad guys escaped to some farm and one cop (who didn’t have a cellphone to call for back-up for some reason) chased them and, well, it was pretty much it. Indeed, the whole thing was basically some kind of really pathetic cat-and-mouse game between these thugs and this cop who was helped out by a local ‘farmer’ (possibly the least convincing farmer I have ever seen). Another issue was how terrible the cast was this time around, even worse than usual. It was also pretty weird that the 3 ladies involved all had some really botched plastic surgery which was so distracting, probably even more than their abysmal acting abilities. It was even more bewildering to discover afterwards that one of these ladies was actually Donna D'Errico who was barely recognizable (and, frankly, rather ugly) with all this misguided plastic surgery done on her face. Concerning Bruce Willis, well, it is actually difficult to judge his work because you can be sure that the guy was already struggling with aphasia at the time. Basically, even though he seemed to have more screen time than usual, he was barely acting at all and looked confused most of the time which was actually rather heartbreaking to see. Anyway, to conclude, the damned thing was a big waste of time and you should definitely avoid it. 

Recently, I have been focusing on older movies and since this one seemed to have a decent reputation and since it was available on YouTube, I thought I might as well check it out. I have to admit that I had never heard of Ralph Steiner before but he was back then apparently a pioneer in experimental movies in the US. Eventually, this movie was actually his directorial debut and it would have quite an impact when it was released. Anyway, how much you will enjoy this movie will depend a lot on how much you like such abstract features. Well, I have always had a weak spot for the genre and, as far as I was concerned, the whole thing was quite beautiful and even rather mesmerizing to behold. At first, he gave us some rather basic shots of running water, which might seem too ordinary, but it actually worked for me and I think there was something rather soothing about these images. However, it became increasingly abstract and, at some point, what you were looking at was something really different than just water and the effect was quite otherworldly. Anyway, to conclude, the damned thing turned out to be quite fascinating and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in such experimental features.