Reviews by johanlefourbe

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.

When was the last time that Jim Carrey had a hit? I guess it was with ‘Yes Man’ which was released almost a decade ago. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, I had already seen the damned thing but since it was a while back, I thought I might as well check it out again. Well, that’s basically a typical comedy on which Jim Carrey has built up his career but I thought it was not bad at all. In fact, to be honest, the concept was actually rather idiotic and, to make things worse, it was really hard to care about the main character. I mean, he had a decent job, a girlfriend who looked like Jennifer Aniston and, yet, he kept complaining all the time. Eventually, what made this movie was worked was Jim Carrey himself. Indeed, with anyone else, it would have been pretty lame but Carrey was just really good here. Seriously, back in those days, the guy was at the top of his game and most of his jokes were just really funny. Eventually, since it was a box-office success, they obviously had to come up with a sequel called ‘Evan Almighty’ but Jim Carrey was smart enough to stay away from the damned thing and it turned out to be a really expensive flop. To conclude, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was a decent comedy and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like Jim Carrey's work.

In 2016, they finally released a 3^rd instalment for this franchise and, even though I expected it to be a massive critical and commercial failure, it was in fact fairly well received and it turned to be even a box-office hit. With this in mind, I will probably give in and watch it with my wife since she was so eager to check the damned thing. Anyway, my lack of enthusiasm towards this movie probably had to do with the fact that this first sequel was just so damned underwhelming. Indeed, even though ‘Bridget Jones's Diary' was maybe not really flawless, it was seriously entertaining and it is definitely a classic rom-com. Obviously, since it was such a success, it was not surprising that they would come up with such a sequel but I never expected it to be so lame. The first mistake they made was to bring the very same trio of actors. Indeed, even though I always had a weak spot for Hugh Grant, there was no real reason to bring back his character. As a result, you got the very same dynamic between these characters, except that it was much weaker this time around. Above all, the biggest problem with this movie is that the whole thing was just so damned idiotic. Anyway, to conclude, I think it was one of the worst sequels I have seen and I don’t think it is worth a look at all. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I always had a weak spot for Drew Barrymore, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, even though Drew Barrymore was incredibly cute back then, I really had a hard time to care about the damned thing. Indeed, in my opinion, I thought it in fact was one of the most basic and boring chick-flick I have ever seen. I mean, seriously, just check this title, it was just so unsubtle and this fake feminist vibe was just so annoying. Anyway, the whole thing was basically some kind of lame version of ‘Thelma & Louise’ which was in fact alrady rather overrated in my opinion. Eventually, I was rather surprised to discover that the damned thing was written by Don Roos. Indeed, I always had a weak spot for Don Roos’s work, especially because he usually delivers some rather sharp and/or edgy stories so it was rather disappointing that he would come up with something so cheesy and boring. Anyway, to conclude, even though I have seen worse, I thought it was pretty weak and I  don’t think it is really worth a look, except maybe if you are a die-hard fan of the genre. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick. Still, I remember it very well, before watching the damned thing, since it was involving such actors like Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman and Bruce Willis, I had some rather high expectations. Eventually, I was actually amazed about how half-baked the whole thing turned out to be. Basically, it was some kind of really weak version of ‘Goodfellas’ taking place in the 30’s. The biggest difference between those 2 movies was that the main character in ‘Goodfellas’, Henry Hill, was really charismatic while Billy Bathgate was just such a wimp. Seriously, it is not very often that you will come across such an uncharismactic lead character. I mean, even though he was the title character, on the poster, the guy was actually hidden behind Dustin Hoffman and his name was not even mentioned. Eventually, even though Nicole Kidman never looked prettier, it’s hard to believe that such a girl would waste her time with this guy. It’s not surprising that Loren Dean’s career went pretty much nowhere after this movie as the guy never really impressed me in any of the movies he showed up afterwards. Anyway, to conclude, the whole thing was really disappointing and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

A couple of weeks ago, I saw ‘Arbitrage’ which turned out to be a pretty good flick and I was above all impressed by Richard Gere who gave in this movie easily one of his best performances. With this in mind, I thought I might as well check this other thriller he made just a year before. Well, this time, I was impressed again but, above all, about how underwhelming the whole thing was. Indeed, while he was great in ‘Arbitrage’, Gere gave here one of his typical wooden performances and the guy was supposed to be some kind of lethal double-agent spy but he just not convincing at all. Concerning Topher Grace, he was not really much better, I’m afraid. On the other hand, they were not helped by a rather idiotic story. First of all, to reveal who really was Cassius almost from the start was actually a mistake and the rest of the movie seemed rather pointless. Furthermore, at the beginning, Gere kept claiming that Cassius was long dead but, then, at some point, he then kept telling virtually everyone that Cassius was really dangerous and nobody thought it was weird. It’s like his killing method. A seasoned killer would never always use the exact killing method, especially such a technique which was so messy and unpractical. Anyway, to conclude, it was pretty weak and I don’t think it is really worth a look.