Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wonder how I actually ended up watching this flick. The main reason was probably that I kept hearing some really good things about this movie and it seemed to be a really cool cult-classic. Eventually, even though I thought it was a decent watch and I was definitely able to appreciate it, I can’t say it really blew me away though. It’s not that the whole thing really shocked me, not at all, in fact, it was pretty much the whole point of this flick. Honestly, I think I just didn’t care much about these characters and what they were going through. At the end of the day, it all depends where you stand regarding such over-the-top extravagant characters. If you love this kind of characters, you will probably love this movie, otherwise, I’m not sure this movie will be really for you. Anyway, eventually, after this promising directing debut, it would take John Cameron Mitchell 5 years to finally come up with a follow-up which would be the even more controversial ‘Shortbus’ which was equally flawed but still interesting to watch.  To conclude, even though I didn’t really connect with the whole thing, it was still something quite original, only therefore it already deserves some extra credit, and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wonder how I actually ended up watching this flick. Indeed, it really looked lame but, somehow, I still ended up watching the damned thing. Anyway, for once, I have to admit that it turned out to be in fact a rather decent comedy which I really didn’t expect. In fact, by now, I have seen about half of the movie starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and it is by far the best one she has made in my opinion. At the end of the day, it doesn’t mean that this movie was in fact great, it means that, even though I have to admit that she is extremely lovely to look at, her career has been rather underwhelming after all. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, I thought it was a rather effective dark comedy and, above all, Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt were perfectly cast here. Unfortunately, at some point, they decided that the whole thing couldn’t be mean all the way, so they softened up the tone slowly towards the end and, as a result, it all became rather sentimental and boring which was too bad. To conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still think it is actually a decent comedy and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

I wasn’t really expecting much from this flick but since my wife and I have a weak spot for romantic-comedies, I thought we might as well check it out. Eventually, the whole thing pretty much used the same concept as  ‘Alles is Liefde’ which was already a copy of ‘Love Actually’ so the whole thing felt really derivative, that’s for sure. The main issue with this kind of movies (even with ‘Love Actually’ which I always found rather overrated) is that, instead of giving the viewers a fully-fledged story, they give a whole bunch of half-baked little tales. There were still here and there some really solid scenes though. For example, the best scene was easily the one involving Fabian Jansen (obviously playing a character inspired by what Zach Galifianakis did in ‘The Hangover’ franchise) during the most disastrous date you could think of. It was really awesome and quite hilarious but, unfortunately, everything else afterwards involving this guy had nothing to do with this brilliant bit and, completely at random, he meets a woman in a supermarket and falls in love with her. The worst thing about this is that they first convince us that the guy is pretty much a nightmare and, yet, this very cute girl falls for him for no obvious reasons.  And that’s basically how all those love stories were handled. To conclude, even though I have seen worse, I didn’t really care much for this movie and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

To be honest, it has been ages since I have since this movie and maybe I should check it out again at some point. Anyway, I have noticed that it didn’t really get much love but I thought it was actually a fairly decent dark satire. Indeed, even though it was maybe not really amazing, I thought it was quite entertaining and it worked well for me.  Basically, it shows how we try to kid ourselves that we are all fine people, when, in fact, people tend to be rather messed up and this movie tried to play around with this idea. Eventually, it never became really dark  like, for example, ‘The King of Comedy ‘ (such an amazing movie directed by Martin Scorsese that really deserves much more love) . As a result, I have to admit that the whole thing never really did reach its full potential and, with such a neat concept, with a such a great cast, I should have been in fact much better but I still think it was quite entertaining. To conclude, I really have a weak spot for this movie, I believe it is quite underrated and it is definitely worth a look. 

I remember it very well when this movie was released. Indeed, it was a huge box-office success but, to be honest, I didn't appeal to me at all and it was only a year later that I finally saw it in French at a friend's house (eventually, I would watch it again years later in English with my wife and then again in Dutch with my kids). Eventually, I have to admit that it was actually better than I expected. Indeed, it was visually really neat and they did manage to create a really fascinating magical world. Still, there were enough elements that did bother me though. Basically, even though everything about this world and this wizard school was really cool, this plot about the philosopher's stone was seriously underwhelming. On top of that, in my opinion, the 3 young actors portraying the lead characters delivered some really poor performances. Rupert Grint was the least worst of them but Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson were rather pathetic and it would take them several years to finally deliver something decent. Finally, and that was really the main issue with this installment and the following one, the thing that always really bothered about this movie and its sequel was how the tone didn't match at all the mood of the rest of the franchise. Indeed, while most of the movies were pretty dark, this movie was just really childish and I never got the feeling that anything serious was really at stake. To conclude, even though I believe it is rather overrated, I have to admit that it is still a decent blockbuster and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

To be honest, it has been ages since I have seen this movie and I should probably re-watch it at some point. Anyway, even though ‘Platoon’ and ‘Born on the Fourth of July’ were both some massive critical success, it seems that many viewers tend to forget it but Oliver Stone actually made a trilogy about the Vietnam war (as a matter of fact, Stone was even working on a 4rth Vietnam movie called 'Pinkville' which was cancelled at the last minute). For some reason, even though the other movies in this trilogy were critically acclaimed, this one was actually barely noticed when it was released. It's a shame though because, even though it was maybe not a great masterpiece,  it was still a pretty good drama with a very solid performance by the always dependable Tommy Lee Jones. The only issue I can think of is that, especially if you compare it to the two other Vietnam installments, the whole thing was rather unfocused. Still, it is probably one of the most obscure movies made by Oliver Stone but it is probably also one of the most underrated ones he made and it is much better than anything he has released in the last 10 years. 

Even though this movie didn’t get much love when it was released, since I always had a weak spot for Robert Redford, I was still eager to check it out. Basically, 5 years after [Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see], arguably their biggest critical success, Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack were working for the very last time together. Basically, the whole thing felt really similar to ‘Out of Africa’, maybe too much, as it was dealing with a sweeping love story taking place in some exotic location once again involving the always charismatic Redford as the romantic lead. So, I have to admit it, it all felt rather derivative but I still liked the damned thing.  Indeed, I have always been fascinated by poker and to have this legendary  actor play a master poker player in the steamy city of Havana was a real treat. Unfortunately, pretty much everything else in this movie was fairly weak. Indeed, above all, the political angle and the Cuban revolution were rather poorly developed and the movie would have worked better without those. Still, to conclude, even though it was probably not a masterpiece, I thought it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Basically, it was another really obscure movie that I wanted to watch for many years, above all, because it was directed by Brian De Palma. Eventually, I finally managed to watch a (very bad) copy on YouTube and I'm glad I didn’t spend any money to finally see the damned thing. Indeed, basically, it was some kind of weird experimental comedy and it was really terrible, I'm afraid. Apparently, I have discovered afterwards that it was in fact a student project made on a very low budget, which might explain why it looked so cheap, and it was in fact co-directed by DePalma with a bunch of student directors. I mean, it was pretty neat from De Palma that he decided to give those students the opportunity to work with him but it doesn’t  change the fact that the whole thing was just a boring mess. Seriously, there was no plot, no real concept behind it (why it was called 'Home Movies is beyond me) and the characters involved were either obnoxious and/or tedious to watch. The only positive thing I might think of is that Nancy Allen, who was married with De Palma at the time, sure looked lovely back in those days. Anyway, to conclude, the whole thing was just a huge waste of time and I don't think it is worth a look.