Reviews by johanlefourbe

When I was a kid, I watched many movies starring Bruce Lee with my father and I thought they were really awesome. Eventually, about 20 years later, I ended up watching one of them (I’m not really sure which one it was) with my step-son and, to be honest, I thought it was rather disappointing. Obviously, Bruce Lee was just amazing, no doubt about it, but everything else (the acting, the dialogues, the story,…) turned out to be rather weak. However, this movie is still really cool, even after all these years. Indeed, even though the story was pretty straightforward and generic, I thought it was really entertaining and the whole concept was just perfect for Bruce Lee. On top of that, this movie was quite a milestone, it introduced the martial-arts genre to the mainstream audience and it has been a major inspiration to countless movies that came afterwards. Unfortunately, even though this movie was a hit, Bruce Lee died three weeks before the film's premiere so he never really enjoyed this massive celebrity status and one can only imagine the great movies he could have made afterwards. Anyway, to conclude, I really loved the damned thing and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Even though I have seen many movies, this must be one of the weirdest ones I have seen. First of all, even though it is easy to say that 5 years after this movie was released, it was pretty obvious that the whole thing was fake and I was rather surprised that Roger Ebert didn’t point it out in his own review. Anyway, while watching the damned thing, you can't help thinking ‘what was the damned point? ‘ At first, I thought that Joaquin Phoenix actually got fed up with the whole acting business and wanted to take a long break from it but, apparently, he came up with this idea because he was amazed that so many people believed that reality TV shows were unscripted which sounded actually less appealing that my own theory. It was also disappointing to find out that some of the people involved, like Ben Stiller or Sean Combs, were also part of the joke. Eventually, the biggest issue I had was that the character created by Phoenix was so obnoxious and cringe-inducing. Still, it was an interesting watch, above all, because Joaquin Phoenix was and still is one of the most gifted actors of his generation and it is pretty impressive to think that he kept playing this character non-stop for 2 years which was quite impressive, even if the end-result was rather mixed to say the least. 

I have to admit it, it has been a while since I saw this one but I will definitely re-watch it as soon I get the opportunity. When talking about Lynch's career, it seems that this movie has been a little bit forgotten. Indeed, if you compare it to the movies more faithful to his directing style such as 'Blue Velvet' or 'Mulholland Dr.', it seems to be like a rather straightforward drama. Indeed, it is rather straightforward but still quite fascinating to watch in my opinion and after directing only 2 movies, David Lynch was already regarded as one of the most promising American directors at work. The best thing in this movie was that even though the story was rather predictable, Lynch preserved his own rather dark directing style and it made the whole thing quite sinister but so spellbinding to watch. Another thing that I appreciated is that, for once, he allowed us to get acquainted with the characters, to get to know them and eventually to care about them. To conclude, even if it might be a really atypical Lynch feature, it is actually pretty awesome and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Basically, it is another of those rather obscure French movies that almost no one has seen on Listal. In fact, I was rather surprised that it was so obscure because it was pretty famous when it was released in France back in those days. Indeed, even though Vanessa Paradis might be known in the rest of world only because she managed to stay 14 years with Johnny Depp and giving him 2 children in the process, in France, she is definitely one of the most famous singers for already 30 years. When she was only 17 years old, she gave her acting debut in ‘Noce Blanche’ which was quite a critical success and many were expecting a bright future in the acting business for Paradis. Surprisingly, it is only 6 years later that she would finally come back with a follow-up but it was definitely worth the wait. I mean, to be honest, it was probably nothing really ground-breaking but it was definitely a solid drama and Vanessa Paradis definitely gave another strong performance. It did help that she was playing with Gérard Depardieu, easily the most important French actor of the last 40 years. To conclude, I thought it was pretty good and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies. 

For some reasons, I actually ended up watching this flick in the movie theater when it was released and I wonder what made me choose this movie at the time. I guess, back in those days, I was watching maybe 3 movies every week in the movie theater so I wasn’t exactly really picky. Anyway, to be honest, even though it was fairly entertaining, somehow, it didn’t really blow me away though. I don’t know, the plot felt slightly too pedestrian and predictable to me. I mean, the culture clash was interesting but it was also cliché-ridden in my opinion. Furthermore, since they were so many children in this family, all of them had their own specific sub-plot and, a a result, instead of one fully-fledged story, they gave us instead a  whole bunch of half-baked little tales. After this movie, Damien O’Donnell  would make ‘Rory O'Shea Was Here’ which was really impressive but, unfortunately, it would be his last full length feature and he hasn’t done much during the following 10 years which is rather surprising considering that he seemed to have some potential. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, even though I thought it was slightly disappointing, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back, I thought I might as well check it out again. I guess back then I didn’t see ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ yet as both movies are actually terribly similar (the fact that the remake also starred a previous James Bomd actor probably didn’t help). Anyway, I have to admit that this movie was actually slightly better than I remembered and it is basically a massive guilty pleasure for me. Indeed, I always had a weak spot for the heist genre and to have the sexy Catherine Zeta-Jones and the charismatic Sean Connery working together was a great idea. Still, it’s pretty obvious  that either Sean Connery was too old or Catherine Zeta-Jones was too young because the 40 years old gap between the two stars was just too big or they should have just removed the romantic angle. Another issue was that the plot was increasingly preposterous. Indeed, the first heist was great and the second heist was fine as well as they displayed how they trained for days to get it done. However, they really dropped the ball with the final heist. Indeed, it was just too far-fetched and borderline ridiculous. Finally, the ending (which was probably the main reason why I dropped my rating the first time around) was really lame and almost completely ruined the whole thing for me. Seriously, why didn’t they simply focus on displaying some amazing heist scenes with some seriously talented and charismatic thieves instead of constantly playing around with some other secret agenda they might have which was, in my opinion, actually seriously tedious? Anyway, to conclude, I might be too be generous with my rating here but I have a weak spot for the genre and I think it is worth a look, at least if you really like the genre. 

Since I always had a weak spot for Hugh Grant, I was quite eager to check this movie. Basically, ever since the massive success of ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, Hugh Grant became a big star and the king of the romantic-comedy. Indeed, most of his following movies would be in this genre and he would be basically always playing the same character but since the guy is so charismatic, it never really bothered me (on the other hand, 20 years later, this gimmick doesn’t really work anymore and the recent ‘The Rewrite’ was terribly underwhelming). Coming back to our main feature, it came out a year after ‘Four Weddings…’ and even though it wasn’t so great, I think it was fairly entertaining. First of all, it has to be one of the cutest titles ever conceived but it was some direct evidence that the whole thing would be rather generic and pedestrian. Still, Grant was pretty much at the top of his game at the time and he had some fine chemistry with the lovely Tara Fitzgerald. To conclude, I thought it was a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.