Reviews by johanlefourbe

Recently, I just finished to read ‘Les liaisons dangereuses’ and, even though it was a tough read, I really enjoyed the damned thing so I thought it was a nice opportunity to re-watch this movie since I hadn’t see it for so many years. Indeed, first, there was a book, then there was a play and, finally, there was this movie and, something rather exceptional happened here as all these versions turned out to be some huge critical success. Personally, I always find it rather difficult to care for costume dramas as they usually focus on the so-called difficult love life of the aristocracy. However, in this case, those characters were so morally depraved, it made them just really fascinating to behold. The other fascinating thing about this movie is that even though it deals with some promiscuous characters, the whole thing was more about how they mentally manipulate people to get whatever they want than actually getting in bed with them. In fact, the book was much more erotic but that wasn’t a big issue. The other interesting thing about this tale is that it was released just a few years before the French Revolution and it gives a glimpse on how the French aristocracy, the ruling class at the time, had become really decadent and they would eventually have to pay the highest price for their arrogance and their depravity. To conclude, almost 30 years later, it is still a spellbinding movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Since this movie had a really solid reputation, I was quite eager to check it out. Apparently, this movie was first developed as a sequel to ‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town’ but since Gary Cooper was not available, they changed the name of the main character and they gave this part to James Stewart who gave here a star-making performance.  Indeed, I thought that Stewart was actually more convincing than Cooper to play the pure and innocent Jefferson Smith and you have to give some credit to Stewart who gave a really strong performance here. I also liked the fact that Capra didn’t take any gloves to show how corrupted the politicians were in Washington at the time and, in fact, you could say that the situation didn’t change much 80 years later. I was also impressed by Jean Arthur who was not only lovely but she managed to give a character who was a strong and smart woman . Still, this movie gave a strange mix between the realism and cynicism displayed by the political world and the idealism and sentimatility displayed by Jefferson Smith and this mix was rather difficult to swallow. It’s like the ending during which, Smith basically highjacks  the Senate until they would listen to him and the worst thing is that it actually worked as Capra still managed to squeeze a happy-ending which was rushed within the last minutes. That’s when the movie felt the most cheesy and outdated in my opinion. Still,  even though I wasn’t really a huge fan, it was a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick but even though it is a rather obscure feature, I thought actually pretty good. Indeed, I always had a weak spot for such movies dealing with the stock brokers and even though it might not be the best movie in this genre, it still worked fine for me. Above all, I thought it was really realistic and they gave a rather gloomy view on the financial world which is pretty much rotten. In fact, you could say that this movie was some kind of modern version of ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’, in fact [Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see]had a very nice cameo giving a very similar speech like the one given by Alec Baldwin in this classic. It is also interesting to note that even though the cast included such actors like Ben Affleck and Vin Diesel, the lead character was actually played Giovanni Ribisi in one of the very few movies in which he didn’t play a supporting character but I thought that Ribisi was not bad at all in this movie. To conclude, even though it was not a masterpiece whatsoever, I thought it was a decent watch 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 some point. Since this movie had a really impressive reputation, I had some rather high expectations but it is often tricky with such old classics. Indeed,  they might have been groundbreaking when they were released but it is not always the case when you watch them decades later. Well, there was nothing to worry about this movie as it was pretty damned entertaining. Indeed, back then, it was quite a controversial feature but, even 50 years later, it is still very dynamic and terribly effective. The other thing I really liked with this movie is that they took a famous story but, instead of trying to be as factual as possible, they gave it a very modern twist and focused instead on providing a strong tale. Furthermore, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were some great choices to play these famous characters and they had some really nice chemistry together. Concerning Warren Beatty, even though he would become a major actor in 70’s, this movie was the only one in which he would really impress me. Anyway, to conclude, I think it really deserves its reputation, it is a classic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.  

When I first heard about this movie, I actually had some mixed feelings. Indeed, it was dealing with a fascinating story and there was a stellar cast involved (Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt, Marisa Tomei) but Adam McKay in the directing chair? I mean, so far, the guy had only directed some raunchy comedies starring Will Ferrell. Eventually, it turned out to be a critical hit and many thought it might even win the Academy Award for the Best Picture but it eventually lost against ‘Spotlight’. So, with all this in mind, I was quite eager to check the damned thing but, after all, it turned out to be a decent watch but I can’t say it really blew me away. First of all, I’m glad I saw before  ‘Inside Job’ and ‘Margin Call’ as it made it much easier for me to follow all these financial terms but, on the other hand, as a result, I had already saw 2 great movies about this subject and, in my opinion, this 3^rd picture wasn’t really an improvement. Basically, the only thing they really did was adding a flashy directing style but even this was already done a few years back in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ and, of course, McKay is no Scorsese. Finally, even though the 4 characters were quite interesting, we hardly spend enough time with any of them to really get have a connection with these guys. Still, pretty much like with ‘Spotlight’, even though I think it is rather overrated, it was still dealing with a spellbinding story, it was also quite entertaining and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this flick but since I have seen every single one movie directed by Kevin Smith, I thought I might check his last movie as well. Well,  it turned out to be pretty terrible and I'm not surprised that it is, according to the IMDB ratings, his worst movie so far. I mean, I already had a hard time to care for 'Tusk' but this was even weaker. It's too bad because the beginning with these 2 bored teenage girls working in a convenient store, pretty much like in 'Clerks',  was actually quite promising. Indeed, real life BFFs Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp had some nice chemistry together. Above all, Johnny Depp's daughter was seriously charismatic and I'm really curious to see what she will do in the future. Unfortunately, pretty much everything else was just some garbage. Seriously, it is rather difficult to understand what Kevin Smith is getting at with his Canadian horror trilogy. Indeed, it seems that it was conceived mostly to please the fans of his podcast but I'm not sure that the rest of the world really cares. Anyway, the concept in ‘Tusk’ was rather difficult to swallow but, here, this whole idea of these Nazi sausages was just so stupid. To conclude, except for a few good ideas, the whole thing was rather worthless and I don’t think it is worth a look, except maybe if you are a die-hard fan of Kevin Smiths’s work. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie but it has always been a massive guilty pleasure of mine and definitely a childhood favorite. Indeed, when I was a kid, I was a huge fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme and I saw all the movies he made at the beginning of his career. Eventually, at around 14 years old, I started to get interested in some other kind of movies and I discovered that his movies were not so great after all. Among his 'classics', in my opinion, this movie was by far his best even if it was basically a typical Van Damme vehicle with a rather generic and predictable plot. Still, I always liked this kind of stories when a martial artist has to go to some shaddy tournament and fight all kind of seemingly unbeatable bad guys. Of course, it was rather ridiculous that they tried to sell it as a true story but I though it was a fun flick and Van Damme really kicked some ass here. To conclude, even though it might not be a masterpiece, I really have a weak spot for the damned thing 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 I should definitely re-watch it at some point. In fact, I even saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released. Anyway, the saddest thing about this movie was that, even though it was maybe not a real masterpiece, it was still one of the most promising directing debuts I have seen and it is a real shame that Vincent Gallo would pretty much ruin his directing career with his dreadful follow-up, ‘The Brown Bunny’ (I have to admit it, I still haven’t watched it after all these years but I’m really not optimistic). The other sad thing about this movie is that Christina Ricci would never look better but, even though she looked really  lovely back in those day, she would keep losing weight during the following years and I always thought it was a rather misguided choice from her side. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, it was basically a really gloomy and sad indie drama and even thoug it was nothing really amazing,  I thought there was still something quite spellbinding about the damned thing. To conclude, 20 years later, after Gallo seemed to have wasted all his great potential, it is rather sad to look back at this movie but I still really enjoyed the damned thing and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.