Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and maybe I should check it out again at some point. Well, even though this movie seems to have a decent reputation, I always had some mixed feelings about the damned thing. First of all, I’m afraid it came too late. Indeed,  apparently, De Palma was trying to make this movie as far back as 1969 and the whole thing would have had much more impact if it would have been released at least 10 years before. And of course, it didn’t help that it came after so many classics about the Vietnam war such as ‘Platoon’ or ‘Full Metal Jacket’ or even ‘Born on the Fourth of July’ which was released the very same year.  Furthermore, even though it was nice to see Michael J. Fox in something completely different, I really hard a hard time to take Marty McFly seriously in such a gritty war feature, especially since he had to face Sean Penn who was already at the top of his game at the time. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Brian De Palma’s work.

P.S.: I completely forgot it but the 2nd end-credits scene did set Mordo as the villain for the next movie and, yet, they eventually went into a complete different direction with the sequel after all.

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and I should definitely re-watch it at some point. Still, I remember very well when I saw the damned thing. Indeed, I had invited a friend of mine who was also a major movie buff and we ended watching up some movies literally through the whole night. We started at 21:00 in the evening and ended on 06:00 the next day so it was definitely my biggest binge-watching night ever. Anyway, at the time, he suggested we should check this movie and I’m glad he did. Basically, even though Brian De Palma might have become famous with ‘Scarface’, it is actually with this kind of steamy thrillers that the guy basically built up his career. Apparently, the whole thing was apparently dismissed by the critics when it was released but I thought it was actually really entertaining. I mean, sure, the story was rather preposterous but I just loved the mood and I think that there was something quite spellbinding about this average guy turning into some kind of Peeping Tom. Obviously, the whole thing was remisnicent of ‘Rear Window’ and some other movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock but it didn’t bother me whatsoever, in the contrary. To conclude, even though it wasn’t really flawless, I really have a weak spot for the damned thing and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Brian De Palma’s work. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick. Still, I remember quite well when I saw the damned thing. Indeed, since I always had a weak spot for Ridley Scott’s work, I was quite eager to check it out but I have to admit that I had some rather low expectations towards the damned thing.  Eventually, maybe it was because it didn’t expect much but even though it is probably one of the more obscure movies delivered by Scott, I actually enjoyed the damned thing. I mean, like most of the other movies coming from this director, there was absolutely no substance about it whatsoever but I thought it was very well made and it was also simply quite entertaining. Above all, I really enjoyed the mood they created and even though this movie actually didn’t have much else to offer, it was apparently enough for me. Anyway, it is definitely another feature I should re-watch at some point to make up my mind for good about the damned thing. To conclude, even though it is pretty much forgotten nowadays, I thought it was a decent thriller and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Ridley Scott’s work. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and I should definitely re-watch it at some point. First of all, even though I’m quite knowleadgle about movies, I have to admit that I have still some work to do with Michelangelo Antonioni since I have seen only 5 of his movies. To make things even worse, 3 of them are among his worst work (‘Eros’, ‘Al di là delle nuvole’, ‘Zabriskie Point’). The weird thing is that I have actually always been interested by this director and this interest all came from this movie. Indeed, I thought it was just fascinating. Basically, it is like watching a very entertaining thriller but directed by a true artist and not your average Hollywood director. Indeed, the big difference between this masterpiece and your average thriller is that it doesn’t waste your time with some boring action scenes or some cheap theatrics, instead, you focus mostly on the psychological turmoil experienced by the main character and it was just spellbinding. Also, the fact that not everything was spoon-fed to the viewers was greatly appreciated. To conclude, I really loved the damned thing, it is easily one of my favorite thrillers and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Michelangelo Antonioni’s work.         

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and maybe I should re-watch it at some point. I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released. Anyway, the tricky thing about this movie is that I had no idea who the hell was Reinaldo Arenas before watching the damned thing. On top of that, Arenas was a poet and this Art is probably the most difficult to bring up into a movie, in the contrary to music or painting. Still, Javier Bardem was really impressive and this movie would launch his international career resulting in an Academy Award for his part in ‘No Country for Old Men’. Concerning Julian Schnabel, who was himself a major artist in the 80’s , it seems that he had decided to make only biopics focusing on other artists like this one. Eventually, even though this movie and ‘Basquiat’ were not bad at all, the guy would completely blow me away with his following directing effort, ‘Le scaphandre et le papillon’ , which is easily one of the best movies ever made. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, even though I don’t think it was really a masterpiece, I thought it was a decent watch and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.       

I remember the first time I noticed Eddie Redmayne. It was in ‘Savage Grace’ which did turn out to be a seriously unpleasant movie but Redmayne was really good in this flick. Flashforward 7 years later and the guy has become  an Academy Award winner with ‘The Theory of Everything’. Since then, the guy has become a hot commodity and, a year later, he showed up in this other high profile project.  Well, even though it looked really good, even though both Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander gave some solid performances, the whole thing never really convinced me though. It probably had to with the fact that this project was rather shameless on 2 points. First of all, I didn’t like how it surfed on the current hype towards the transgender topic. Indeed, it is pretty easy to look back at this tale so many years later and pretend we are all tolerant regarding this matter. The other major issue with this movie is that even though it was sold as a true story, in fact, most of it was completely fictional and had nothing to do with what really happened to Einar and Gerda Wegener. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it is worth a look though but the whole thing definitely had some potential to be much better than this. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick so maybe I should give it a 2^nd chance at some point. Still, I remember quite well when I saw it, I wasn’t really sure what to expect but since it was directed by Clint Eastwood, I thought it would be at least a decent watch. Well, eventually, it turned out to be pretty weak, I’m afraid. Basically, before producing arguably some of his best directing efforts, Clint Eastwood ended a string of disappointing flicks with one of his worst movies. I have to admit it, it wasn’t really awful but it was definitely average and pretty tedious to watch. Basically, it is one of the last movies he directed in which he portrayed the main character (‘Gran Torino’ would be the last one) and the last time he played someone involved in law enforcement. Seriously, it was like watching a grand-daddy version of Dirty Harry and it wasn’t a pretty sight, I’m afraid. Furthermore, I really had a hard time to care about the story which was really pedestrian with the usual annoying twist at the end. To conclude, it was a really weak thriller and one of the most forgettable features delivered by this great director.