Reviews by johanlefourbe

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it has a really solid reputation (it has an impressive 7.9 rating on IMDb and it was nominated for 2 Academy Awards), I thought I might as well check it out. On top of that, it was a huge box-office success in France and it turned out to be there the top grossing film released in 2004 so I thought it should be worth a look. Well, to be honest, even though it was a decent watch, I was actually amazed by how generic and predictable the whole thing was.  I mean, I already had a hard time to care for ‘Dead Poets Society’ which is basically the reference in this genre and this movie didn’t really improve this formula, I'm afraid. I mean, sure, the music was nice and Gérard Jugnot played a nice guy as well but, that’s basically the problem, it is all so nice and sweet, it became borderline boring at some point. To conclude, even though I thought that the whole thing was rather disappointing, I have to admit that it was not bad and I guess it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

If you are familiar with Gaspar Noé’s work, then you will know that to watch any of his movies is always a challenge and this movie was maybe his most challenging effort so far. I mean, it was pretty obvious that Noé will come up at some point with a very sexually explicit feature and you might wonder if he will top this in the future. First of all, I want to point out that even though I liked the posters (what can I say? I’m just a big pervert…) but they actually gave the wrong idea. Indeed, there was actually no close-up of a vagina during the whole thing and the threesome was just one event taking place during this relationship so I don’t think these posters were really representative. Anyway, personally, I have always been interested by a mainstream feature with some very explicit or even non-simulated sex and Noé gave it a try here and I think he mostly succeeded. Indeed, most of the sex scenes were well done and usually in a tasteful way and, in the contrary to ‘9 Songs’ which a similar attempt done by Michael Winterbottom, they took the time to develop the characters which was really appreciated. Still, I can’t say it completely worked though. First of all, the damned thing was just too long. I mean, you had here a movie focusing on 2 characters and their relationship which was fine but for more than 2 hours, they didn’t do much, except having a lot of sex and some random conversations so I think they could have easily removed 30 mins. The other problem I had is that the characters were not bad but not really fascinating either. I didn’t help that they didn’t seem to have a regular day job and the main character was basically a real douche-bag, cheating on his girlfriend multiple times and yet displaying also a really annoying jealous behavior. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was a decent watch and I think it is worth a look but you should definitely be aware of its content before watching the damned thing.

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and I should definitely re-watch it at some point. On paper, this sounded like a project with some great potential. Indeed, it was adapted from one of the better books written by Stephen King (I even read the damned thing later on), it was directed by David Cronenberg and the lead character was played by Christopher Walken. And, yet, even though this movie did have indeed a solid reputation, I actually had a hard time to care about the damned thing. It’s not that it was a bad movie as I always enjoyed Cronenberg’s directing style and he created once again a nice mood here. Furthermore, it was really neat to Christopher Walken playing the lead for once and he delivered as usual a solid performance. I don’t know, somehow, the whole thing felt like another silly supernatural tale coming from King and I guess, at the time, I didn’t care much for this genre. Anyway, to conclude, even though I thought it was slightly disappointing, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you want to see a decent adaptation from a Stephen King book. 

Since this movie was the last one directed by Luc Besson that I hadn’t watch yet, I was quite eager to check it out. Eventually, I thought it was not bad at all. To be honest, it may have had to do with the fact that I was seriously disappointed by most of his recent directing efforts (especially ‘The Family’ and ‘Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec’). Still, I loved the concept of this girl using  all her brain capacity, even if it had been done before in ‘Limitless’ for example, and I liked the fact that Besson tried to pull a  ‘2001’ ending on the viewers. Scarlett Johansson was also pretty good in this and you wonder why, at this point, Marvel is still not planning a standalone ‘Black Widow’ film since it seems to be definitely a no-brainer. Still, even though it was a decent watch, there was enough stuff that did bother me. First of all, I thought it was really short, barely 80 mins, and, as a result, everything felt rushed and they could have easily expanded the whole thing to 2 hours to develop this interesting concept. The cryptic introduction which was interesting at first was eventually rather really silly after all. Indeed, why spend so much time with this suitcase if you have such a short running time? Eventually, everything happening in this sequence barely made sense after all. I wish also that they gave us a more charismatic French actor to play the cop going along with Lucy, it could have much more fun. Still, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was fairly entertaining and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Luc Besson’s work. 

When I saw this movie, I was pretty young and back then, I thought it was really neat to see to such big stars like Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt in the same movie and, only therefore, I probably gave the whole thing a few extra points more than it actually deserved. I wasn’t aware that the production on this movie was in fact a huge mess and, as a result, it was rather poorly received when it was released. Indeed, apparently, they couldn’t agree on the script which was changed constantly and, at some point, Brad Pitt even wanted to drop the whole thing but he was contractually obliged to remain on board. Still, in spite of it flaws, the whole thing was still fairly entertaining, above all thanks to the charisma of the 2 big stars involved, even if Brad Pitt was not always really convincing as an Irishman. The saddest thing is that, a year later, Alan J. Pakula would die in a car accident meaning that he would end up a rather solid career with such a hot mess.  Anyway, to conclude, even though I might have been generous with my rating here, I thought it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and maybe I should check it again at some point. Still, I remember it pretty well.  Indeed, I was very young, maybe 14 years old and one of my sister’s best friends brought this movie saying that we should definitely check it out. Well, I had no idea what the damned thing was and I think I wasn’t really mentally prepared for something like this. Indeed, it was probably the weirdest thing I had ever seen at the time and even though I wasn't really shocked, I still had a hard time to get a grip on the whole thing though. The funny thing is that, at the time, I really recognized only Richard Bohringer who was (and still is) a famous French actor but there were in fact plenty of other interesting actors also involved (Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, Tim Roth, Ciarán Hinds). Anyway, after all these years, I still can't make up my mind if this movie was really bold and artistic or something  just rather preposterous and pretentious. Eventually, a couple of years later, I saw ‘The Draughtsman's Contract’ and really loved it so I think it would be interesting to revisit this movie since I’m more aware of Peter Greenaway’s work now. To conclude, even though this movie didn’t really work for me, I still think it is really worth a look, especially if you are interested in experimental movies. 

I’m pretty sure I already saw this movie but it was at least 20 years ago so I was really eager to check it out again. Even though it had a rather lame reputation, I always thought  it was actually a decent pirate movie, at least, as far as I could remember but after re-watching the damned thing, I have to agree, it wasn’t really good after all. I mean, it was visually pretty neat with some nice costumes and some great sets (especially the Neptune looked pretty awesome. It was a full scale ship that did cost almost $10 million). Walter Matthau was also a great choice to play the lead part, even if his English accent was not convincing and even rather cringe-inducing. So, it seems that Polanski had already the most important ingredients at his disposal but he apparently forgot to bring also a decent story. Indeed, even though the introduction was promising, it took the characters just way too long to take over this ship. Indeed, after 1 hour, they finally got this ship but they lost it again and this back-and-forth was just really tedious. They also tried to add a really bombastic soundtrack to make us believe that it was all really exciting but it was anything but subtle and it was also rather annoying. Eventually, this movie would be the only attempt from Polanski to direct a blockbuster so far and the end-result was certainly quite underwhelming. To conclude, even though it was a big pet project for this director (he worked on it for maybe 16 years), it turned out to be his weakest movie but even a weak movie from the Polish master is still work a look in my book. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick. Still, I remember it very well, I had no idea what to expect from the damned thing and I wanted to watch it just mostly because Dustin Hoffman was involved. Basically, it is a rather typical feature dealing with a con and I always had a weak spot for the genre. Of course, the story was really far-fetched but, in this case, it didn’t bother too much since there was a nice néo-noir mood and a fine cast involved (Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz, Dustin Hoffman, Andy Garcia, Paul Giamatti) and I thought it was usually quite entertaining. Concerning Edward Burns, I always thought he was an interesting actor but, unfortunately, it would be one of the last watchable movies he would make and, since then, he has been involved in some really weak productions, apparently, above all to be able to finance his own (really obscure) directing efforts.  In fact, I could say the same thing about Rachel Weisz. I mean, seriously, when was the last time she made something really amazing? Anyway, to conclude, even though it was nothing really great, I thought it was a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.