Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie and I should probably re-watch it at some point. In fact, I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released. Anyway, it must be the most obscure movie directed by Danny Boyle. It was also the last one he did with McGregor and since then, they have never worked together again, at least until ‘T2 Trainspotting’ which would be released 20 years later (Apparently, Ewan McGregor was Danny Boyle's first choice to play the main character for 'The Beach'. However, the studio wanted Leonardo DiCaprio and cast him before Boyle could intervene. While McGregor has blamed the studio, he has reportedly not spoken to Boyle for years.) Anyway, in my opinion, the biggest challenge for this movie was to come after such amazing movies like 'Trainspotting' and 'Shallow Grave'. Indeed, I have to admit hat it never managed to reach this level of awesomness but it was never meant to do so in the first place. It is pretty obvious that, this time, they just wanted to have some fun and Boyle made in the process his most frivolous picture so far which was definitely not a bad thing. In my opinion, it is a light but entertaining feature, visually quite interesting and it’s too bad that it has always been overlooked. 

At first, this movie got some interesting buzz but, after it was released, it turned out to be a critical and commercial flop. Still, even though I didn’t expect much from the damned thing, since there was a pretty cool cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, eventually, it has been a while since I have seen such an underwhelming musical. Indeed, not only it was rather boring and really unoriginal but what bothered me the most was how they handled this material. Basically, I grew up in the 80’s and in the 90’s listening to this music and, in my opinion, the approach they chose for this movie didn’t work at all. Indeed, even though you might think they would try to give some hommage to the music of this time periode, in fact, they gave us some kind of satire which felt rather disrespectful and not entertaining whatsoever. Concerning the characters, even though there was a really nice cast involved, they all played some tedious stereotypes with Tom Cruis being the only exception. Apparently, it was a big challenge for him to get involved in such a musical but, even though his character was borderline ridiculous, Cruise still managed to make him interesting to follow and I wish the movie focused instead on him. Anyway, to conclude, the whole thing was really weak and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie and maybe I should re-watch it at some point.  First of all, the fact that I have not read the book probably allowed me to enjoy this movie more than it might deserve but I always had a weak spot for the damned thing and I believe it is one fo the best erotic thrillers out there. Sure, the story was rather generic and predictable and, at the end of the day, I don’t think that the characters were well developed. Eventually, it doesn’t really matter since the whole thing was more about the mood and, as a result, I thought it was quite spellbinding to be behold. Concerning the lovely Jane March, you might wonder if a movie like this one was the best way to start her career at about 18 years old. Eventually, even though she seemed to have indeed struggled with all the attention she got from this movie, her next project would be actually another erotic thriller called ‘Color of Night’ which turned out to be one of the worst movies ever made and her career was pretty much ruined for good after that. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, to conclude, even though it might not be a masterpiece, I thought  it was actually pretty good and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie and maybe I should re-watch  it at some point. First of all, for Jodie Foster, this movie was a huge milestone. Indeed, even though she had some success as a child actor, she struggled during most of the 80’s and it is finally with this movie that she started to be taken seriously as an adult actor. Eventually, she would even win her 1^st Academy Award and would win another one only a few years later with ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ securing her A list status for good. Concerning the movie itself, it was pretty good and Jodie Foster and Kelly McGillis were both solid but, somehow, the whole thing didn’t completely convince me. Indeed, in my opinion, it was far from being really subtle (in fact, Jodie Foster thought at first that her performance was awfulf and that it would be the end of her career) and, even if the message given was important, it wasn’t enough to make this movie really spellbinding in my opinion. To conclude, even though I don’t think it was really a masterpiece, it was still a solid drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Jodie Foster’s work. 

I already saw this movie, in fact, I even saw it in the movie theater when it was released, but, since it was a while back and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out again. First of all, even though, by now, I have managed to watch most of the movies directed by Mike Leigh, even though I admire his work, I have actually never been a huge fan. On the other hand, I did watch again 'Secrets & Lies' not so long ago and I do have to admit that the damned thing was actually quite brilliant and completely deserves its stellar reputation after all. However, with this movie, it did hit me right away though, even the first time around. The funny thing is that, the damned thing pretty much looked like a typical Mike Leigh feature as it was taking place  in a very grim and realistic social environment in England. In fact, it might be Mike Leigh's bleakest movie so far (On the other hand, 'Naked' might be even more hardcore but I haven't seen it in a very long time). Anyway, even  though the whole thing was quite heartbreaking, it was also spellbinding to watch and I was really fascinated by all these characters. I thought that Timothy Spall was also really strong in this movie but the whole cast did a great job. While rewatching this movie, I was also quite surprised to see some very young James Corden and Sally Hawkins both at the beginning of their respective careers. I was especially amazed by Corden who pretty much gave here his best performance ever. Anyway, to conclude, I really loved the damned thing and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you are interested in Mike Leigh’s work. 

This was already the 3^rd Dutch movie I saw this week and, out of the 3, the one I enjoyed the most. First of all, it was the first directing effort for Mike [Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see]van Diem, 18 long years after [Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see]for which he managed to win the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film. Well, to be honest, even though this new directing effort was a decent watch, I can’t say it really blow me away though and it was definitely a massive step-down compared to ‘Karakter’. I mean, the whole thing definitely had some potential but it was a really tricky thing to make a romantic comedy about 2 suicidal people. If done properly, it could have been really great but van Diem should instead a whimsical approach and I’m afraid it never really worked. It’s like the casting of Jeroen van Koningsbrugge. On one hand, he gave a decent performance but I’m not sure if it was the best idea to make this character some kind of Forrest Gump figure. Still, the concept was really intriguing and, at least, they did try to deliver something original which is something really rare with a Dutch production.  To conclude, even though it didn’t completely work, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Dutch movies.