Reviews by johanlefourbe

Back in 2015, Steven Spielberg came up with ‘Bridge of Spies’ but even though it was well received, I thought it was rather underwhelming. Only a year later,  he quickly came up with something new but even though Disney had a record-breaking year, they had a flew flops and this movie turned out to be one of them. Still, since it was the last movie directed by Steven Spielberg, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, to be honest, I didn’t care much about the damned thing, even less than ‘Bridge of Spies’. Basically, I thought it was in fact seriously boring. First of all, I have to admit it, I always had a hard time with Roald Dahl’s work and,  except for a few stories he made like ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ or ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, all his tales just really bored me and this movie was not different, I’m afraid. At least, the whole thing looked really neat and Spielberg definitely delivered some State-of-the-Art CGI. Indeed, those giants were quite amazing and Mark Rylance delivered once again a solid performance. To conclude, even though I thought it was seriously tedious, I guess it is still worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you are interested in Steven Spielberg’s work. 

Surprisingly, according to the IMDb ratings, this movie is, the best one delivered by the Coen brothers so far. On the other hand, it does have a huge cult following. Personally, I actually always go back and forth with this movie. Indeed, depending on my mood, I would find it really awesome but, at some other moment, it would be only decent. In fact, I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released and, at the time, I thought it was a step down from ‘Fargo’ but, after a few re-watch, it did grow on me after all. Anyway, there was plenty of stuff to enjoy in this flick, no doubt about it. Indeed, the cast was just awesome (John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid, Peter Stormare, John Turturro, David Thewlis, Sam Elliott) and, like anyone else, I especially loved Jeff Bridges who gave here his best and most legendary performance. Finally, it was probably the funniest movie those guys made so far. To conclude, even though I’m not sure if it was really their best movie, it is still pretty much a major cult-classic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in the Coen brothers’s work. 

[Link removed - login to see]Like anyone else, I was quite surprised that, seemingly out of nowhere, Michael Moore came up with a new directing effort just before the next US elections. Even more surprising, the damned thing turned out to be broadcast on one of my Dutch TV channels just a week later so I was quite eager to check it out. Well, eventually, I had some mixed feelings about the damned thing. First of all, what was the point of this movie? I mean, Donald Trump is probably the most ridiculous candidate the American people ever had and his chances to win are very slim.  Furthermore, even though the subject was quite interesting, as pointed out by some other viewers, it would have worked better if someone else from Trump’s side would have been on stage with Moore to discuss the candidates. Another issue I had is, at this point, Moore has pretty much become a stand-up comedian and while some of his jokes were pretty good, I don’t think he should be the focus but the actual topics should be the main focus, not himself. Still, he made some good points, like pointing out that people shouldn’t vote for Trump because they are pissed off as they will probably soon regret it. I also liked how he displayed that, if Hilary Clinton would win the elections, it would be a great milestone for the Americans to have for the very first time a woman as president. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Michael Moore’s work. 

It is basically another really obscure French movie that almost no one has seen here on Listal. I remember it very well, even though nobody seems to have heard of it here on Listal, there was actually quite some buzz in France before the damned thing came out. Indeed, after 5 long years, Étienne Chatiliez was finally coming back with a new directing effort and since both his previous directing efforts (‘La vie est un long fleuve tranquille’ and ‘Tatie Danielle’) were some big success, the expectations were pretty high concerning this movie. Well, I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released with my girlfriend at the time and she loved the damned thing. Indeed, eventually, it turned out to be another hit for Chatiliez but, to be honest, I actually had a hard time to care about the damned thing. I don’t know, the whole thing was quite popular and everybody seemed to agree that it was really hilarious but, as far as I was concerned, the characters involved were rather moronic and barely amusing. After all these years, maybe I should give it another shot though. Anyway, to conclude, even though this movie didn’t really work for me, I guess it is still worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

It is basically another really obscure French movie that almost no one has seen here on Listal (I was in fact the 3^rd Listal member who rated the damned thing). It has been a while since I saw this flick but I remember it pretty well, I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released. To be honest, I wonder why I actually decided to see this movie when it came out but it turned out to be a decent watch. Indeed, even though Claude Miller might not be the most famous director coming from France, I always had a weak spot for his work. I think that what I like the most about his movies is that Miller always managed to deliver some realistic but still really intriguing characters. In this case, the story itself was sometimes rather far-fetched but I thought that those characters were quite interesting to follow. Concernig Sandrine Kiberlain, she had a pretty good reputation at the time in France but this movie was in fact the only one she made that I really enjoyed. To conclude, even though it was not a masterpiece, I thought it was pretty good and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and maybe I should re-watch it at some point. In fact, I wonder if I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released. Anyway, I have to admit that, before watching this movie, I actually didn’t know who the hell was Jean-Michel Basquiat but there was definitely something quite fascinating about this artist. I was also quite impressed by Jeffrey Wright who gave here a really strong performance and he eventually would become one of the most underrated actors at work nowadays. 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 ‘Before Night Falls’ were not bad at all, the guy would completely blow me away with his 3rd 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.  

Since I kept hearing some pretty good things about this movie, I was quite eager to check it out. Eventually, I wasn’t disappointed. I have to admit it, pretty much everything you get to see was actually rather predictable but it was still a really powerful tale. I also really appreciated the fact the movie didn’t focus on some white man or white woman, which is very often the case when a movie takes place in Africa (see ‘Blood Diamonds’, ‘Shooting Dogs’, ‘Cry Freedom’, ‘The Last King of Scotland’…). Of course, you might argue that one of the most important character was played by a British actor but Idris Elba was just really good here so it worked fine for me. While watching this, I wonder how they came up with this story because the amount of details was really impressive and the whole thing felt really realistic. The other thing that I was thinking about while watching this movie is that, even though the people in such countries have a shortage of anything and, yet, there are still plenty of guns and bullets which is just sad and to see all these young children forced to become some ruthless killers was just downright heartbreaking. To conclude, after the excellent 1^st season of ‘True Detective’, it was another winner for Cary Fukunaga and the damned thing is definitely worth a look. 

Even though this movie had a rather lousy reputation, since I always had a weak spot for Brian De Palma’s work, I still wanted to check it out. Basically, the whole thing was some kind of really misguided book adaptation and it was at the time a major critical and commercial flop. To be honest, I have to admit that I have never read the book itself but it was a massive best-seller and many argued that it was even one of the best books released in the 80’s so there was definitely some great potential with this material. The main issue is that, since it was such a famous book, of course, the studio wanted to make some profit out of it but the problem was that the material was too dark and cynical for a mainstream feature so they tried to compromise but the end-result turned to be terribly underwhelming. Indeed, one of the most important aspect of this story was the fact that the main character was rather unlikable and they tried to tone it down with by casting one of the nicest guys in the business, Tom Hanks, who was was completely mistcast. Anyway, to conclude, even though it wasn’t really awful, it was still pretty 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 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.