Reviews by johanlefourbe

‘A bout de souffle’ is and will remain one of my favorite movies forever and I have been following Godard ever since his masterpiece really blew me away but, unfortunately, no one of his movies have reached this level of awesomeness, at least not in my opinion. The point is that, pretty soon in his career, his movies started to get pretty cryptic really soon and become harder and harder to follow and, nowadays, except for a few die-hard fans, we all pretty much agree that his work has become some incomprehensible pseudo-intellectual and political mix, a mix I always had a hard time to appreciate. This movie is a pretty good example. Indeed, it has in fact a really good reputation and maybe I should give it a second chance at some point in the future but, to be honest, I really had a hard time to care about the whole thing. Basically, 5 years after ‘A bout de souffle’, Godard was working again with Jean-Paul Belmondo and I was expecting something massive from those two. In fact, I thought that this movie was really similar to his impressive debut but while this great classic was inspiring and mesmerizing, I thought that this follow-up was rather pretentious and just way too cryptic for my taste. To conclude, even though I didn’t like it much, it is still worth a look though, especially if you are interested in Jean-Luc Godard’s work.

Since I had this dvd already for a couple of years, I thought it was really time to watch the damned thing. Honestly, I had no idea what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Hayden Panettiere, I thought I might as well give it a try. Well, first of all, even though Panettiere was displayed prominently on mosf of the promotional material, she wasn't in fact the main character. No, the whole thing was about some American-Asian guy and even though the story and this character had some potential, it was a rather weak feature eventually. First of all, what was all about with this relationship with a 16 year old girl?!? I mean, the movie was clearly about something completely different so why did they choose to add such an awkward romance on top of that? Then, there were also some details that didn't add up. For example, the fact that the guy was supposed to be poor but yet he kept going back and forth between Los Angeles and Shanghai and he even went to New York at some point as if he was taking a bus. The character played by Kelly Hu (I didn't even recognise her) was also poorly developped. How come that she could talk so well English? Above all, she was first introduced as some kind of sophisticated high-class lady, then suddenly she became someone totally different, some kind of poor innocent girl. To conclude, since I'm half-Dutch and half-French, I thought that this theme about the struggle to find your cultural identity was interesting and Ken Leung gave a decent performance but the whole thing was wasted with some poor choices and decisions and it's too bad because this movie actually had some potential.

I remember very well the first time I watched this flick. Back then, I was just about 13-14 years old and my older sister brought this movie on VHS (yeah, that was a long time ago…) at Christmas and, at the time, I think I had never seen anything like this before, a movie with no real plot but purely based on some realistic 3 dimensional characters and about their relationships with each other. Back in those days, Kenneth Branagh was one of the most promising directors around and even though he seemed to get a little bit lost in the 2000’s with some really obscure features, he made a major come-back with ‘Thor’ and he has been making some pretty big blockbusters ever since (‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’, ‘Cinderella’). Coming back to our main feature, I have to admit it, it was nothing really ground-breaking but there was such a delightful cast (Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Imelda Staunton, Phyllida Law) and they all delivered some solid performances. Above all, I thought the whole thing was really funny and quite smart, so refreshing after watching so many moronic comedies. To conclude, I always had a weak spot for this movie and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Kenneth Branagh’s work.

I remember it very well, almost 20 years ago, I saw 'The Draughtsman's contract' and it was one of those very defining moments in my life of movie watcher. I had never seen anything like this before and I thought it was one of the most beautiful and spellbinding thing I had ever seen. Later on, I heard that Peter Greenaway was coming up with a new directing effort so I got really curious and I ended up watching this flick in the movie theater when it was released. Basically, as usual with Greenaway, you get something really surrealistic and , to be honest, I had a rather hard time to connect with the whole thing and it didn’t really swept me away like 'The Draughtsman's contract'. On top of that, I wasn’t really convinced by Ewan McGregor who got his breakthrough the very same year with ‘Trainspotting’. I mean, he wasn’t bad at all but it felt as if the whole character didn’t really belong to this tale. Anyway, it looked quite impressive and there was definitely something rather mesmerizing about the whole thing. To conclude, I was probably too young when I watched it to properly process it but I still liked the damned thing and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Peter Greenaway’s work.

To be honest, even though I did like 'The Hunger Games', I wasn't exactly blown away by this first installment but I was still eager to see how this franchise would evolve. On top of that, everybody seemed to agree that this sequel was an improvement so it was definitely promising. Eventually, it was indeed decent but, honestly, I failed to see how this installment was so much better than the previous one. I mean, sure, this time, they almost doubled the budget and it was really obvious on the screen with some much more ambitious visuals but, aside from this, it remained on the same level, fairly entertaining but not much more than that, I'm afraid. For example, there is one thing that kept bothering me is that they try to sell you the fact that Katniss Everdeen is a strong character but I actually disagree. I mean, in those 2 movies, maybe even more the 2nd time around, she didn't make one single decision on her own and she was constantly a pawn, either for the bad guys or for the good guys. Of course, she argues, she looks pissed off most of the time but it is as far as she can go and I think it shows the limitations of this character and this story in general. Anyway, to conclude, I'm not a huge fan but I have to admit that it was still a solid YA book adaptation and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I remember it very well when I saw this flick. Indeed, I was just a teenager, about 14-15 years old maybe slightly older, and my English teacher gave us this movie to watch and, to be honest, it was a total disaster. Indeed, try to imagine a class full of excited teenagers watching this seminal classic. Within this misguided context, it was hard not to laugh when you have a guy without limbs basically tripping when you have all your buddies around. With such a crowd, we should have rather watched ‘Pulp Fiction, ‘Trainspotting’ or ‘Fight Club’ which are also classics but much easier to relate to when you are around that age. Later on, I kept thinking about this flick and, to be honest, I have always been ashamed by our immature reaction. I think we reacted like that because we simply never saw something like this before. Indeed, we probably had watched dozens and dozens of senseless action flicks where 100s of people got killed for no good reasons without thinking about it for a second but, suddenly, we were suddenly supposed to spend almost 2 hours with a victim who had lost his arms, legs, eyes, ears, mouth and nose and it was something we had no clue how to handle properly. Anyway, it is in fact a great flick, one of the best anti-war features ever made, it has haunted me ever since and it is definitely worth a look.

In the mid-90’s, Jacques Perrin produced the amazing ‘Microsmos’ which was an impressive critical success and it has became since then a deserved cult-classic (if you haven’t seen it, you should absolutely check it out). 5 years later, Perrin came back with another ambitious animal documentary and, this time, he was not only producer but also director. I even had the pleasure to see this movie in the movie theater when it was released in France. Anyway, even though it didn’t turn out to be a unique masterpiece like ‘Microsmos’, it was still pretty awesome to behold and I really liked the damned thing very much. Indeed, this time, we follow migratory birds going through thousands of kilometers during their journey sometimes even from pole to pole. Visually, it was just downright impressive. Indeed, they managed to film right next to the birds and, like ‘Microsmos’, there wasn't any annoying comment which was a real blessing. At the end of the day, the concept was maybe not really ground-breaking but the approach was just perfect and there was something quite poetic about the whole thing. To conclude, even though it might be completely forgotten nowadays, I think it is a very good documentary and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Even though French comedies are sometimes massively successful, I’m not a huge fan of the genre and, for example, I still have to see ‘Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis’ which is, just behind ‘Titanic’, the biggest box-office success ever in France. So, with this in mind, I wasn’t really expecting much from this flick as it seemed to be another typical comedy but, to be honest, I thought it was not bad at all and actually quite entertaining. Back in the 80’s, Francis Veber made a trilogy of highly successful comedies starring Gérard Depardieu and Pierre Richard (‘La chèvre’, ‘Les compères’, ‘Les fugitifs’) and, after all these years, Veber was finally working with Depardieu again. Basically, it is a rather straightforward comedy dealing with our prejudices towards gay people and even though it was nothing deep or groundbreaking, I thought it was actually quite efficient and rather fun to behold. On top of that, beside Gérard Depardieu, there was a pretty neat cast (Daniel Auteuil, Thierry Lhermitte, Michèle Laroque, Jean Rochefort) and they all delivered some decent performances. To conclude, even though it wasn’t really amazing, I thought it was a solid comedy and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.

Basically, it is once again one of these really obscure French movies that almost no one has seen here on listal. No, let me correct this. I’m actually the only one who has seen this movie so far on this website and it must be the 2nd time only that something like this happened to me! To be honest, even though I know it was far from being a huge comedy, I didn’t expect it to be so obscure though. Anyway, back in those days, Benoit Poelvoorde was quite famous in France thanks to some hilarious TV shows he was involved with and, at the end of the 90’s, he was expanding his career to the silver screen. I was quite a fan of Poelvoorde so I tried to catch all his movies and I think I rented this one at the time. Eventually, I have to admit it that this flick was nothing really amazing but I still think it was quite entertaining and actually better than most of the other comedies involving Poelvoorde like ‘Le vélo de Ghislain Lambert’ for example. Indeed, basically, it is a really dry and dark comedy involving some door-to-door salesmen and I thought it was some perfect material for the Belgian actor. To conlcude, even though it is one of the most obscure movies I have ever seen and even though it is not really a masterpiece, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in French comedies.