Reviews by johanlefourbe

I already saw this movie, in fact, I’m pretty sure I saw it in the movie theater when it was released. Anyway, it was years ago and I was quite eager to check it out again. Well, basically, it is one of these rather obscure French movies that almost no one has seen here on listal. On top of that, Nicole Garcia is not really a major French director, even in France she is not regarded as a great director, but, somehow, I have managed to watch half of her directing efforts and I must admit that I have a weak spot for her work. Anyway, for her 3rd movie, she was working with Catherine Deneuve and the end-result was once again quite interesting. To be honest, I have to admit that I didn't remember much about the damned thing and, after rewatching it, it turned out that it wasn't an easy movie after all. I mean, I really liked the tone, the mood and most of the characters involved but the story was told in such a convoluted way. I mean, on one hand, it did make the whole thing probably more intriguing than if it would have been told in a more straightforward way. However, on the other hand, it was sometimes borderline incomprehensible and rather frustrating to watch. At least, it was very nice to have the great Catherine Deneuve to play the lead and she was really at the top of her game here. The rest of the cast was also really neat (Jean-Pierre Bacri, Jacques Dutronc, Emmanulle Seigner) even if I'm still not sure how some of these characters actually did fit into this story. Anyway, to conclude, I think I'm being slightly generous with my rating here but, I thought it was a decent feature and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Dwayne Johnson and Susan Sarandon, I thought I might as well check it out. Eventually, I was at first rather positively surprised by the introduction. Indeed, everyone seems to agree that the kid made a stupid mistake by accepting the package and opening it but I don’t agree. I mean, at no point, he has said that he wanted to help his (supposedly) best friend to sell the dope and, yet, the guy sent the package anyway. Then, picture yourself as a teenager who has no real knowledge about the drug trafficking laws, would you really think of refusing the package? I mean, sure, after watching this movie, in his situation, I would definitely not accept it but, before, I’m pretty sure I would have done the same thing : sign for it and open the damned thing. So, the introduction was really strong and I was really wondering where the whole thing might go. Obviously, what happens next was rather preposterous (not only the father played by Dwayne Johnson with no police experience whatsoever becomes an improvised undercover agent but after only one delivery, he already gets in contact with a major player in the cartel) and there was way too much cowboy stuff at some point. And yet, I thought that the whole thing was most of the time quite compelling because even though the action was sometimes bordeline ridiculous, the motivations of most the characters really made sense and I think the whole thing is actually worth a look.

Basically, it is once again one of these really obscure French movies that almost no one has seen here on listal (indeed, not even 10 listal members have seen it so far). Anyway, I remember this movie pretty well, I even saw it in the movie theater when it was released. At the time, Cédric Klapisch just had his biggest box-office success, ‘Un air de famille’, but, for this follow-up, he decided to go for something more experimental, probably his most ambitious project so far. Indeed, he tried to make a SF feature but it was something more sentimental and poetic than your usual SF movie with the usual impressive special effects and futuristic gadget. Eventually, it was barely seen at the time and it didn’t get much love but I thought it was not that bad. Indeed, Kaplisch was working again with Romain Duris, his muse, and the guy was completely watchable as usual. Ok, I’ll admit that the whole story was a little bit half-baked and Klapisch didn’t completely convince me with his vision of the future but, somehow, I still liked the damned thing. To conclude, even though it is a really obscure flick, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.

‘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.