Reviews by johanlefourbe

Nowadays, I keep watching the movies directed by Ken Loach but even though they are decent, it has been a while since he made something that really impressed me. It’s too bad because, back in the 90’s, I was quite a fan of his work, he directed his best movies and this one was a huge critical success. To be honest, I slightly preferred his previous directing effort, ‘Riff-Raff’ but this flick was still pretty good. Indeed, you have his usual sober and realistic directing style, almost documentary-like, with the usual bleak British social background. The big difference with this movie is that the tale was quite compelling and I really cared for the characters involved which was unfortunately not really the case concerning Loach’s more recent work. To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and maybe I was too young at the time to really appreciate it so maybe I should re-watch it at some point. On top of that, perhaps because I’m not a religious person, I thought it was hard to care for the struggle of a man who goes through so much trouble just for the communion of his daughter. Anyway, to conclude, even though it is nowadays pretty much forgotten, it is actually a pretty good flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

To be honest, it is a little bit difficult to judge this movie after all these years, especially after they really milked this franchise with some rather underwhelming sequels. And yet, we should try not to forget the impact of this first installment when it was released. If I recall it correctly, I actually saw it at the time in the movie theater when I was on holiday in the US. Back in those days, Dreamworks was doing some decent business with their animated features but Pixar was still very much far ahead with their groundbreaking computer animated masterpieces. Well, it all changed with this movie which was a huge box-office success, breaking all the records made by Pixar and it became an instant pop-culture phenomenon. Indeed, the whole thing looked amazing, the concept was, at the time, really refreshing and entertaining and the voice cast was just spot on. And yet, I always thought it actually missed something to become truly amazing like the greatest work by Pixar. Indeed, the only thing that always bothered me with this flick is that, underneath all its cleverness and cheeky humor, it is in fact a rather straightforward and predictable fairy tale and I always find this aspect slightly disappointing. Still, even though it might not be a masterpiece after all, it is a really fun animated flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

P.S: after all these years, I have never noticed it before but Princess Fiona actually really looks like Ellen Pompeo.

It is not very often that a director get the opportunity to launch a whole new genre but that’s what happened with Marcel Carné. It was even more impressive when you take into account that it was Carné’s only 3rd directing effort. I’m pretty sure that the guy didn’t realize at the time that he would pretty create a new genre which would have a huge impact on the French cinema. This new style was called poetic-realism, a style which would become Carné’s trademark and he would keep for a while with ‘Hôtel du Nord’ and ‘Le jour se lève’, some 2 other major French classics. Anyway, with Carné as a director, Jacques Prévert as a writer, Jean Gabin as lead actor, Michèle Morgan as love interest, you can’t do much better than that for that time period. Basically, even though it takes place in a realistic social background (‘realism’), the dialogues and emotions rise above (‘poetic’) and even though it seems that everything was shot on location, it was in fact shot in studios creating some interesting and stylish canvas. This approach would be of course criticized and rejected later by the New Wave. To conclude, even though it is really old, I is still quite fascinating to behold and it is definitely worth a look.

Honestly, it has been a while since I have seen this flick but, if I recall it correctly, I even saw it in the movie theater when it was released. Personnaly, I always thought that Tom DiCillo had an intriguing career. Indeed, he started in the 80’s as a cinematographer for Jim Jarmusch and in 1991, he made his directing debut ‘Johnny Suede’ (which I still need to see) starring an unknown actor at the time called Brad Pitt. Even though this movie got some decent reviews, DiCillo struggled with his follow-up and he got so frutstrated that he then made ‘Living in Oblivion’ concerning the difficult journey to create a low-budget movie. I really loved ‘Living in Oblivion’ and, suddenly, DiCillo came up with 2 other movies quickly after, ‘Box of Moon Light’ and this flick. Apparently, this feature was pretty much a commercial and critical flop and DiCillo’s career never really recovered from the blow but I thought it was actually pretty good. Indeed, it was basically another interesting look on the difficult life of the people involved in the movie business and while not everything did work (the whole ‘real blonde’ fetish was rather underwhelming), I thought it was a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Considering my own background (French mother, Dutch father), it was pretty obvious that I would feel a connection for this man torn apart between two cultures. To be honest, even though I can imagine that Viggo Mortensen was interested for exactly the same reasons by this project, I'm not sure a half-Danish, half-American actor was the best choice to play a Frenchman with Spanish roots living in an Algerian village. Indeed, even though Mortensen did deliver a solid performance, I wasn't really convinced by his French. On top of that, it is always a little bit disappointing that, even though the movie takes place in Africa, the main character is still a 'white' guy who is good-looking, smart, good with kids, heroic, war veteran, so wise that he knows exactly what is best for his Algerian prisoner. So, the whole thing was a little bit flawed on the edges but I still enjoyed the damned thing. Indeed, the directing was solid, displaying some gorgeous landscapes and you could get a pretty good idea of what it must have been like to be living in this country during these insecure and dark ages. To conclude, even though it was not really mind-blowing, I thought it was a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look.

Honestly, I didn't like much 'Dear John' but since I have a weak spot for Lasse Hallstrom's work, I thought I might as well give it a try with this one as well. By now, I have managed to watch almost all the movie adaptations of the books written by Nicholas Sparks (I'm still missing 'A Walk to Remember' and 'The Best of Me'), those movies have pretty much become a brand but, to be honest, except for 'The Notebook' which started this whole fad, I didn't like any of them and this movie was not an exception, I'm afraid. I mean, Hallstrom is a decent director, Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel were both really charismatic (even if Hough's performance was rather weak) but I just had a really hard time to care about this story. Above all, the twists were just cringe-inducing. The first one explaining that she didn't in fact kill her husband was really stupid because, if she was not a killer, why wouldn't she tell her new boyfriend that she left her abusive husband and live with a different name so he can't stalk her? That would have made more sense. I have to admit that the 2nd twist, involving the ghost of the dead wife was really unexpected but it was also terribly random and rather lame. To conclude, I have seen worse but I though it was still pretty damned average and I don't think it is really worth a look, except if you are die-hard fan of the genre.

I already saw this movie but it was a while back so I was really eager to check it again. At the time, when this movie was released, divorces were not something new but there were not as widespread as nowadays (apparently, in most western countries, more than half of the marriages end up in a divorce which is pretty huge). Even so, I don't think this movie has lost any of its impact in the meantime. Indeed, it is quite a strong drama and the fact that I'm older, married with kids (in fact, I'm even going through with 1st divorce right now), resulted that I was even more able to connect with this story. Of course, the way it was developed (the father struggles at first, even loses his job, but eventually, he turns out to be a pretty good single-parent) was rather predictable but it still worked fine because the characters and their emotions were really believable and the actors involved delivered a terrific job. At the time, Dustin Hoffman was pretty much at the top of his game and even though Meryl Streep was just at the beginning of her career, she was already one of the best actresses around and even managed to win her first Academy award in the process. Anyway, to conclude, I think this movie really deserves it stellar reputation and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I have just discovered that, after WWII, Henri-George Clouzot wasn’t allowed to make another movie following the release of ‘Le corbeau’, a movie which was at first critically acclaimed but very quickly criticized for the way it portrayed the French people very negatively. After 4 long years, following a very long fight from his defenders, Clouzot was able to get back to work coming up with this feature which was once again a massive critical and commercial success. Basically, you had most of Clouzot’s trademark here. Indeed, it is a film noir, a detective story, and most of those the characters involved have some rather dubious morality. Ultimately, this movie never reached the level of his greatest movies ‘Les diaboliques’ and ‘Le salaire de la peur’ but since those are two are among the very best French movies ever made so that would be asking a lot. Eventually, after this movie, Clouzot would direct 2 rather obscure features (‘Manon’ and ‘Miquette et sa mère’) but he would make eventually a massive come-back with the really impessive ‘Le salaire de la peur’. To conclude, I really enjoyed this movie a lot and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.

In my opinion, this movie shows how pretty hopeless Megan Fox has become as an actress. I mean, the whole thing was obviously taylor-made for her, I don't think she will ever find something more suitable for her but, even so, I thought she was quite underwhelming here. To be honest, I have to admit that she wasn't really the biggest issue in this movie. In fact, the biggest problem was that the whole thing was in my opinion rather poorly written. Indeed, apparently, it was supposed to be some kind of erotic satiric horror feature but it was a failure in all these departments. Basically, it was never funny, never scary and the whole erotic angle was barely developed. It wasn't really surprising that this flick was written by Diablo Cody who became the latest overhyped writer after winning an Oscar for 'Juno' which was enjoyable but still rather overrated in my book. Coming back to Megan Fox, sure, she should take advantage of her impressive plastic, why not? But at least , she should try to play someone who is not so clueless and/or obnoxious otherwise she will never be taken seriously as an actress. Anyway, to conclude, even though the whole thing had some potential, I thought it was pretty weak and I don't think it is really worth a look.

It has been a while since I have seen this flick and maybe I should re-watch it at some point. Anyway, the main interest here was obviously to see Tom Cruise in his breakthrough performance. Of course, it was thanks to ‘Top Gun’ that he became a major star, a status he still has 30 years later, but it was with this movie that he got his first leading part and, right from the start, the guy was noticed for his charisma and the rest is just history. At the time, this flick received some solid reviews but, to be honest, I didn’t like it much. Indeed, even though many critics thought it was a great satire, I thought it was another typical teen comedy which wants you to believe that it is really raunchy but nothing really shocking happens after all. I don’t know, maybe I was too young at the time and I didn’t get all the subtlety involved. On a sidenote, it has been a while since Tom Cruise starred in a comedy (the last one was ‘Jerry Maguirre’ almost 20 years ago, of course, ‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘Tropic Thunder’ don't count since he wasn’t playing the lead) and maybe he should go back to this genre. Anyway, to conclude, even though I have seen worse, I didn’t really enjoy comedy and I don’t think it is really worth a look, expect maybe if you are a die-hard fan of Tom Cruise.