Reviews by johanlefourbe

Basically, it is one of those rather obscure French features that almost nobody on Listal has seen apparently. In fact, I actually remember it quite well when this movie was released in France. Indeed,  back then, there was mostly some buzz about it because it was a musical starring Mathieu Demy, the son of Jacques Demy, the guy who had made those 2 really prestigious French musicals:  'Les parapluies de Cherbourg' and 'Les demoiselles de Rochefort'. Well, in my case, the main reason I actually wanted to watch the damned thing was because the always charming Virginie Ledoyen was also involved. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, the basic idea was to make one of those whimsical musicals that made Demy Sr famous but, this time, with a modern setting and dealing with some serious contemporary issues like AIDS. Well, even though this mix was intriguing, it wasn't really convincing as the whole thing keeps switching between some very cheesy and fluffy moments and some other rather dramatic and heavy scenes. To conclude, even though it didn't really work for me, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies. 

I already saw this movie but since it was such a long time ago, I was really eager to check it out again. Well, to be honest, I was rather surprised by how much I struggled to get into the damned thing while I was watching it for the 2nd time. Back then, however, this movie seemed to be the birth of a great new director. The first thing I loved about this flick was the story which I found really fascinating and I really loved the way Clooney approached it. Basically, they didn't really care if it was true, they just took what sounded awesome, removed the dull bits and this mix was just seriously entertaining. The second masterstroke was to give the lead to Sam Rockwell who was just great here and it is really surprising that the guy, even 20 years later, is still so criminally underrated. Eventually, even though it was such a weird messed-up story (in fact, the original screenplay by Charlie Kaufmann was probably even more messed up), Clooney managed to make something so secure and so well balanced which was even more impressive since it was his first movie as a director. So, what bothered me so much when I was rewatching it so many years later? I don’t know, I guess I didn’t really connect with the story this time around. I noticed that, while I was positively surprised to see Julia Roberts playing a more edgy character than she usually does with some fair amount of success, Drew Barrymore was actually rather disappointing. The fact that I never understood why her character would stay for so long with Chuck Barris probably didn’t help. Anyway, to conclude, I guess I will have to watch it again to make up my mind for good but I think it is still underrated and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

It has been a while since I have seen this flick but, if I recall it correctly, I'm pretty sure I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released. To be honest, I actually wonder why I actually chose to see the movie when it was released but it turned out to be a nice surprise eventually. I mean, sure, it was probably nothing really amazing but I thought it was a decent watch. Basically, it follows too closely the old formula of a rich teenager at a crossroad in his life to become reallly remarkable but the characters were fairly well written and the cast was really good (Kieran Culkin, Claire Danes, Jeff Goldblum, Amanda Peet, Ryan Phillippe, Bill Pullman, Susan Sarandon, Rory Culkin). Concerning Burr Steers, it was a really nice directing debut and, eventually, it took him 7 long years to finally come up with something new but, unfortunately, he delivered back to back '17 Again'  and 'Charlie St. Cloud', two really underwhelming Zac Efron vehicles. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, to conclude, even though it is rather forgotten nowadays, I think it was not bad and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Since I kept hearing some really impressive things about this movie (for example, it has been on the IMDb top 250 for a while already), I was really eager to check this flick and I had some rather high expectations. Well, to be be honest, even though I found many things to admire, I can't say it really blew me away though. I mean, it is definitely a gorgeous  stop motion animated feature, probably one of the very best I have ever seen, at least in this area. The main issue I had is that even though the story and the characters involved were decent, they never became really more than that, at least, for me. I mean, at some points, I thought that it was finally going towards the right direction but, eventually, it never happened, that magical moment when you are swept away by a great tale. The strange thing is that it was about Asperger syndrome, a form of autism and Autism is a very dear subject to me. Still, while the makers handled the subject very well, it never really grabbed me. To conclude, even though I didn't completely connect with it, it was still a very good feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Basically, it is another rather obscure French feature that almost nobody on Listal has seen apparently (I was the first member who rated the damned thing). To be honest, it has been a while since I have watched this flick and maybe I should check it out again at some point. Anyway, I have noticed that while André Téchiné is probably one of the most heralded directors in France, he is not very famous abroad which is quite a shame since he has directed some pretty good movies. This one was probably not one of his very best but I thought was a decent watch. The biggest asset was probably Sandrine Bonnaire who was just 20 years old at the time. Back in those days, she just started her career but she was already quite stunning to look at and already one of the most talented French actresses at the time. It’s too bad she never had a major international breakthrough but she definitely had a really strong career in France. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, even though it was probably not a masterpiece,  I thought it was pretty good and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies. 

I already saw this movie but since it was such a long time ago, I was quite eager to check it out again. First of all, the first time I saw this movie, even  though I was already quite familiar with Sergio Leone’s work, I have to admit that I had actually never heard of this movie before. Indeed, this movie was Leone's last Western and it didn't have much impact, especially if you compare it to his numerous classics. In my opinion, even though it was slightly too long and too slow, it was still a solid Western and I especially enjoyed Rod Steiger and James Corbun who were both quite entertaining. Eventually, the only thing really missing in this movie was that, after more than 150 mins, Leone never really make up his mind about what we should think about the concept of revolution and it seemed to be only a mere excuse to blow up some stuff which was rather disappointing. Anyway, after that, it would take Leone more than a decade to finally come up with a new directing effort (the great ‘Once Upon a Time in America’) and it would be his very last movie which was just too bad. Coming back to our main feature, to conclude, even though this movie didn't really blow me away (pun intended), it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Sergio Leone’s work. 

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but since I’m a huge fan of Roman Polanski, I was of course really eager to check this flick. Apparently, Polanski continues with his recent minimalist streak as he has  decided to make something even smaller than ‘Carnage’ which was starring 4 actors. Well, this was basically another adaptation of a play with only 2 actors this time. To be honest, I was first slightly worried. I mean, Vanda, the character played by Emmanuelle Seigner, was just so annoying and, on top of that, I thought that Seigner was barely convincing. Fortunately, as soon as she started auditioning, the whole thing became much more compelling to watch. In fact, he did remind me of ‘Vanya on 42nd Street’, the last movie directed by Louis Malle, in the sense that you had the actors basically doing a play in a theater without any decors or props. The difference, here, is that there were some extra layers as the characters keeping jumping out of character, especially Vanda, to talk about the play, the characters and about themselves in general.  I have to admit that this mix slowly won me over and the end-result was not bad at all. To conclude, even though it was probably not one of the strongest movies delivered by Polanski, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in the Polish master. 

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick so maybe I should give it another try at some point. In fact, I remember actually very well the first time I saw it. Back in those days, I was in college, studying English, and an English exchange student showed us this movie while in class. The guy was really enthusiast, telling that it was a massive classic but, in fact, none of us had heard about if before. Eventually, I had a rather hard time to connect with the whole thing and, frankly, I thought it was slightly disappointing. It is always the tricky thing about watching a movie at school. Indeed, very often, it is just not the right setup to watch a movie, especially if it is something rather deep and/or subtle. Anyway, this movie is apparently regarded as one of the first that captured the counterculture movement of the late 60's which sounds really cool and which should have really appealed to me but, somehow, it didn’t really work for me. I don’t know, I guess it didn’t care much about the mix between realism and fantasy, it felt sometimes really silly to me and something slightly more straightforward might have worked better for me. Anyway, to conclude, even though it didn’t really blow me away, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

My wife has always been a fan of Richard Gere. Personally, even though I have seen most of his movies, I actually find him rather underwhelming. I have basically 2 issues with this guy. First, he usually gives some really wooden and unconvincing performances. Secondly, he usually plays the same rather uninteresting characters. However, from time to time, he does go outside his comfort zone and I have to admit that he then can be actually quite interesting to behold. This movie is a perfect example. Sure, at the end of the day, the plot was nothing really original or groundbreaking but it was definitely awesome to see Gere playing against character and he did a fine job. Apparently, he didn’t get along very well with Andy Garcia but, in spite all this, it became one of Gere’s favorite movies. Anyway, 1990 was quite a year for Richard Gere as he also showed up in ‘Pretty Woman’ so the guy managed to make quite a come-back. It’s just too bad that most of his movies afterwards were rather underwhelming. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I already saw this movie but since it was such a long time ago, I was actually quite eager to check it out again. In fact, I have such weird memories of this movie… Indeed, when I was a teenager, I was really lonely back in those days and I was really dying to have a girlfriend. Somehow, it never happened for many many years and it was only when I was about 14 years old that I finally kissed a girl for the very first time. Anyway, at last, I finally kissed a girl, she was actually a friend of my sister, 4 years older than me, and she was just  gorgeous. I wasn’t really aware of it at the time but I was in fact completely in love and this girl would basically haunt me for many years. Anyway, at some point, even though there was nothing official between us and I thought I would never ever see her again, my sister told me that she wanted to go to the movies with the 3 of us (me, my sister and this girl). It was certainly a weird situation and we ended up watching this flick which was, of course, a sappy romantic feature. Obviously, because of those strange circumstances, my feelings towards this movie are rather messed up, mostly because I was sitting next to a semi-goddess during the whole thing. Anyway, about 25 years later, I decided to finally watch the damned thing again and, to be honest, I was actually positively surprised. Indeed, even though it was still nothing really amazing, it is actually a really solid romantic-comedy. Basically, it is some kind of modern fairy-tale and it was just quite refreshing to see a movie dealing with some actually decent and normal folks for once. On top of that, Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda had some great chemistry together. Unfortunately, on the other hand, Rosie Perez's character was just so awful. I won't blame Rosie Perez because it was obviously the whole point to have the audience hating this woman but it would have been more interesting if she wouldn't have been so nasty. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.