Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t really aware about who Liberace was before watching this movie but it was supposed to be the last movie directed by Steven Soderbergh before his retirement (which lasted only 4 years after all) so I was quite eager to check it out.  Eventually, I thought it was not bad at all  and I was above all impressed by Michael Douglas. Indeed, he easily gave one of his best performances and it was really neat to see him playing something else than his usual rich oversexed and arrogant SOB. Eventually, the main problem I had is that I didn’t care much about this story. Since it was the adaptation of the book written by Scott Thorson, it made sense that it was focusing on his relationship with Liberace and that the whole thing was told from his point of view but , while Liberace was quite fascinating, Thorson was not really interesting, I’m afraid. It is like their relationship, were we supposed to be actually shocked that a rich man like Liberace would have a live-in lover like Thorson? Why?!? I mean, there are some many celebrities who have a gorgeous trophy wife who doesn’t work at all and I don’t think there is something really weird about such  relationships, at least, that’s my opinion. Another thing, even though Matt Damon was not bad here, I think he was way too  old to play the part (Indeed, Scott Thorson was only about 17 years old when he met Liberace while Matt Damon was already 42 at the time) and I think an actor half his age would have been more interesting. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was a decent watch, above all thanks to a really good Michael Douglas, and it was definitely worth a look. 

The main reason why I wanted to watch this flick was because it was included in the list ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’. To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of such old Westerns and I believe that at least half of them could or should be removed from this otherwise really awesome list. Anyway, in this genre, I have to admit it, this movie was not bad at all and I definitely had a weak spot for the damned thing. Indeed, I thought it was especially neat to see a Western with a woman playing the lead and, even though Joan Crawford always thought that Mercedes McCambridge was stealing the show in this movie,  I was above all impressed by Crawford after all. Eventually, the biggest issue with this movie (or biggest draw, depending on who you would ask)  is that the story was rather  over-the-top and, in my case, I thought it was rather difficult to take it really seriously. To conclude, even though this movie didn’t completely work for me, I still think it is probably one of the most interesting Westerns they made at the time and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Not to be confused with another movie with the same title made 30 years later starring Charlie Sheen and Kristy Swanson (for some reasons, I always wanted to see this lame movie but it actually never happened).  Anyway, I really had no idea what to expect from this flick but since it was starring Marlon Brando, Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, I was really eager to check it out. First of all, it is rather surprising that a movie with such a cast is not better known and I’m afraid it wasn’t really a good omen. And, indeed, eventually, even though the actors were fine and the mood was interesting, the whole thing never really took off. In my opinion, the main issue was that even though the story was not bad, it was nothing really amazing or, at least, it wasn’t properly developed. Arthur Penn was apparently really disappointed by the end-result and he claimed that he wasn’t allowed to edit the movie himself which pretty much ruined the whole thing according to him. At least, it was pretty neat to see Robert Redford before he became a huge star. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was a decent watch and I think it is worth a look.

After 10 long years, Sean Penn will finally make his come-back as a director with ‘The Last Face’. I have noticed that even though Sean Penn has always been one of the most heralded actors of his generation, he never really got much credit for his work as a director and I think it’s too bad. Anyway, this movie was his 2^nd directing effort and I thought it was a really solid drama. Indeed, the mood was really neat and Jack Nicholson was once again pretty impressive here and  many argued, Sean Penn himself, that he gave one of his best performances. Eventually, I think the whole thing was slightly too dark and melodramatic to be completely amazing but most of it was still fine. 6 years later, Sean Penn would come up with a new directing effort, ‘The Pledge’, also starring Jack Nicholson in the lead, but I thought it was in fact too similar to this movie (on the other hand, Roger Ebert thought  it was amazing so I should probably give it a 2^nd chance at some point). To conclude, even thought it was maybe not a masterpiece, I thought it was a decent watch and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Sean Penn’s work. 

If I recall it correctly it correctly, I actually saw this movie with a buddy of mine and the weird thing was that, at the time, I had actually never heard of Ty Cobb before. I mean, we don’t play baseball in France and even though I have heard about a couple of baseball players (Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson,…) , I don’t know much about their achievement and, in this case, I knew really nothing about the guy but I think it turned out to be a blessing after all. Indeed, a common issue with many biopics is that since we are already so familiar about the concerned artist/sportsman/celebrity, nothing really surprising or interesting really happen throughout the whole thing. Well, in this case, I was like a blank page and I was really intrigued by this guy who was apparently one of the best baseball players that ever lived. Apparently, this movie has been criticized as being vastly inaccurate so it might be interesting to see in the future another movie more faithful to what might have actually happened. 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 like the genre.

As you may have noticed, I’m a very obsessive movie watcher and one of my very first obsessions was/is Robert De Niro. I just love this actor and I have been watching many of this movies during the last 20 years (I have seen 72 of them so far). However, since the beginning of 2000's, he has made a lot of movies but most of them were of a very dubious quality so I’m not as fanatic as I used to be about his work but I still watch some of them from time to time. The funny thing with this movie is, that, if you would compare it to what De Niro made in the past, it was actually rather weak but, if you would compare it to to the recent garbage starring Robert De Niro,  it was actually not bad at all. It was especially pretty neat to see a young James Franco who was personally chosen by De Niro. Apparently, Michael Caton-Jones was actually so unhappy with the final result though that he even said that working on this film was the worst period of his career (I wonder if he made this statement before or after working on ‘Basic Instinct 2’). Anyway, to conclude, even though it was nothing really amazing, I thought it was still a decent watch and I think it is actually worth a look, especially if you are interested in De Niro’s work.