Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, it has been a while since I have this flick and maybe I should re-watch it in the future. The point is that, even though it received some really good reviews, probably some of the best received by a Woody Allen feature, I’m afraid I was a little bit too young at the time to really appreciate it. Indeed, even though I thought it was a decent watch, I had a hard time to connect with this flick and I can’t say I was really blown away by the whole thing. The issue I might have is that Woody Allen was being nostalgic and reflective towards a time period totally alien to me. Indeed, back then in the 40’s, especially in the USA, there was no television and the main source of entertainment was the radio. I can imagine that if someone would make a movie about the influence of the television during the 80’s, I might be more able to connect with it but, here, it never really grabbed me. Sure, it was nice and cute but it was never really spellbinding, at least, not to me. To conclude, even though I thought it was slightly disappointing, it is still a decent feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Woody Allen’s work.

To be honest, I’m not really huge on Isabelle Adjani but I have to admit to that I have seen not even half of her movies and probably not the best ones. Even so, I can’t deny her massive impact on French cinema, she is pretty much an icon at the same level of Catherine Deneuve managing to win a record 5 Césars for the Best actress through her career. For this movie, she got her 4th César and the movie itself was quite a critical success when it was released in France. Honestly, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and maybe I was too young to really appreciate it. I mean, I thought it was pretty good, the directing by Patrice Chéreau was solid, the stellar cast was quite impressive (Isabelle Adjani, Daniel Auteuil, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Vincent Perez, Dominique Blanc, Pascal Greggory, Asia Argento, Thomas Kretschmann, Jean-Claude Brialy, Barbet Schroeder, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Grégoire Colin) and, yet, I wasn’t really blown away by the whole thing maybe because of the rather sluggish tempo. Still, to conclude, even though I wasn’t really a huge fan, it remains solid costume drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.

If I recall it correctly, I actually saw this movie in the movie theater when it was released. Back then, I was just a kid, I was watching mostly action flicks at the time and I just thought that it would be pretty neat to see a movie starring Bruce Lee’s son and, like anyone else, I had no idea that his promising career would suddenly stop just a couple of years later. Back then, it was already obvious that Brandon Lee was quite charismatic and even though he didn’t reach the level of his illustrious father in the matial-arts department, the guy definitely had some skills. Of course, I have to admit it, the plot was nothing really amazing, it was basically a rather typical and pedestrian plot that you can find in most of your average action flicks. Apparently, at some point, Brandon Lee wanted to have John Woo directing this picture which would have been his first US production but the producers were not interestedd and went for someone less inspiring. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was nothing really amazing, I think it is still a decent martial-arts feature and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

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.