Reviews by johanlefourbe

Even though I always loved ‘Four Weddings and a funeral’, I’m not a huge fan of Richard Curtis’ work and, for example, I think that ‘Love Actually’ is actually rather overrated. On the other hand, his following directing effort sounded really fun and I was really eager to check it out. Eventually, I thought it was pretty good and I really enjoyed it. Somehow, it reminded me of ‘Pump up the volume’, a rather cheesy film I saw when I was a teenager, starring a young Christian Slater who was still one of the most prosmising young actors at the time. Well, here you have a British version of radio piracy, very loosely based on actual facts and the whole thing was seriously daft. Indeed, to start with, there was a really impressive cast (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Talulah Riley, January Jones, Emma Thompson) and I especially enjoyed Bill Nighy who had the best lines and basically stole the show everytime he was on the screen. Still, to be honest, there was not a real plot whatsoever, the whole thing was just a succession of entertaining but daft scenes and the gimmick of focusing on some naive and innocent young man on board was rather underwhelming. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was nothing really amazing, it was still a really entertaining flick and it is definitely worth a look.

I actually already saw this one but it was a very long time ago, probably when it was released, and since I had it on dvd, I thought I should re-watch it. It seems to be nowadays rather forgotten but I think it is quite a shame since it is actually one of the best movies directed by Ang Lee, arguably one of the best directors of the last 20 years. First of all, there was a stellar cast (Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood, Katie Holmes) and they all delivered some really solid performances. Furthermore, it is very rare to see a movie like this one managing to develop grown-ups AND teenagers and, for once, you get to see the difficulties to connect with your teenage children when you are facing yourself some personal challenges. The first time I watched it, I was about 17 years old and, now, I’m 34, married with children, and the fact that I have been through both life stages made me able to appreciate even more this movie. The only issue I might have is that since there were quite a lot of characters, none of them was really fully developed though. Still, it remains a very strong drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Ang Lee’s work.

It is once again a rather obscure French movie which not much people have seen here in Listal. Basically, the biggest appeal was to see Gérard Depardieu alongside his son, Guillaume Depardieu, playing some fictional father and son. Obviously, you may think that the movie reflected their own relationship but, apparently, the director, Jacob Berger, was above all inspired by his relationship with his own father, John Berger, a famous British writer. Still, you can’t help thinking the Depardieus relationship must have influenced their performances and those performances were really solid. Indeed, Gérard Depardieu is pretty much a French icon nowadays, after more than 40 years at the top, and Guillaume Depardieu, while not as successful as his father, was one of the most interesting French actors of his generation, even though his personal life was more in the spotlights than his movies (he was a notorious drug addict for many years, after a motor accident, he spent a year in the hospital, got more than 15 surgical operations and 8 years later, he had his leg amputated because he could stand the pain anymore and finally, at only 37 years old, he died of pneunomia). Anyway, coming back to our main feature, even though it is nothing really amazing, it remains a decent drama and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since my wife has a weak spot for dance movies, we ended up watching this flick. Eventually, it is a really standard dance motivational feature. To be honest, it is not one of the worse I have seen but it was definitely not one of the best either. Seriously, the whole thing was just terribly basic and the dialogs were rather pathetic. There is one thing that I didn’t get about this flick though. The point is, usually for young actors such as Jessica Alba with ‘Honey’ or even Channing Tatum with ‘Step Up’, a middle-of-the road dance flick like this one is something they do to launch their career, but Mary Elizabeth Winstead decided to do this when her career was already doing alright. Apparently, I think she wanted to show that she could pull it off and, afterwards, I have discovered that she was actually a ballerina when she was a kid and she even went to ballet school in Chicago but she had to drop out because she was too tall. So, it seems pretty obvious that, with this movie, she wanted to show off her skills and she performed all the dance moves displayed in the movie. The issue is that I wasn’t really impressed. I mean, she got some moves, I’ll give you that, but there was nothing there which was really amazing, except for the 2nd audition towards the end. To conclude, I didn’t like this movie much and I don’t think it is worth a look, except maybe if you are a fan of the genre.

One of my previous colleagues had this movie on DVD so that’s how I ended up watching it. Anyway, it is such a weird movie… Personally, I thought its weirdness was actually quite appealing but I can imagine that it was really alienating for some of the audience, above all for the European audience. The first interesting aspect about this flick is that it was visually quite impressive. Along ‘Immortel (ad vitam)’, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow’ and ‘Sin City’, it was one of the very first movies produced completely with blue screens with all backgrounds added later during the post-production. Nowadays, it sounds rather common but, 10 years ago, it was quite revolutionary and it added to the mesmerizing qualities of the movie. Still, like I mentionned before, the whole thing was definitely weird and it was above all because of a terribly murky and obscure plot. In fact, it was so obscure, it was almost impossible to follow the whole thing and I lost track of what was going on a couple of times. Still, even though I might be quite generous with my rating but I still liked it in spite its flaws and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Asian movies.

It is once again a rather obscure French movie which not much people have seen here in Listal. It was directed by Claude Miller, a very good French director who passed away recently and never really reached a great success abroad which is too bad. The first interesting thing about this movie is that it was in fact the last screenplay written by the great François Truffaut but he died before he could direct it and he eventually gave it to Claude Miller. While watching this, you see indeed a lot of similarities with ‘Les quatre cent coups’, Truffaut’s seminal classic, and it makes sense as the original story was supposed to be about a young boy and a young girl, but Truffaut wisely decided to focus on the boy who was eventually wonderfully played by Jean-Pierre Léaut. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, obviously, it never reaches the level of ‘Les quatre cent coups’ (it is one of the best French movies ever made so it would be asking a lot from it) but I thought it was still a decent drama. Above all, it features a solid performance by a very young Charlotte Gainsbourg who has recently become Lars Von Trier’s new muse. To conclude, even though it is nothing really amazing, it remains a pretty good drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.

Not so long ago, I watched ‘Contraband’, also directed by Baltasar Kormakur, and even though I didn’t like it much, it was dealing with a very interesting subject. Here, Kormakur made another feature dealing with another topical subject (illegal organ transplantation) and I enjoyed it more than ‘Contraband’. Indeed, this time, they didn’t try to add some rather far-fetched action scenes, the timeline was not completely messed up and the characters were slightly more developed. I said slightly because the characters seem to be the weakness of Kormakur as, even though he managed to put them in some intriguing and dangerous situations, he doesn’t spend much time focusing on their feelings and thoughts. Concerning the timeline, it was still rather far-fetched though. For example, wasn’t the main character working on a high profile case? At some point, he decides to go to Mexico and it is never mentioned anymore. Furthermore, once again, Kormakur tried to rush the events way too much. I mean, how long is the guy in Mexico? Yet, within a few days, without having any previous local contact, he manages to find who he was looking for, makes a deal, a donor is miraculously found, he brings his daughter down there and, if it was up to the mother, the actual surgery would have actually taken place. Still, in spite of its flaws, most of it was actually rather believable and compelling and I think it is worth a look in spite of its flaws.

It was once again time for our mighty filmclub, and this time again, I didn’t know anything about it, which is the best way to watch a movie. After ’12 years A Slave’, it was yet again a really heartbreaking but powerful story with some solid directing and some impressive acting by some teenagers with no prior acting experience. In fact, it was the directing debut of Diego Quemada-Díez, a Spanish guy, who has worked before mostly as a camera operator. Anyway, even though you have heard the stories, read the news about it, I have even seen a couple of movies about the subject (‘Welcome’, ‘In this World’), it was still really a tough watch. Basically, you follow a group of teenagers going from Guatemala to the USA, without any money, and death and despair awaits them a every corner. Once again, I reached the same conclusion that anti-immigration laws are rather pointless. Indeed, if someone lives in a country without hope for a decent future, they will take all the risks to get somewhere else where they might find some better opportunities. It is inherent to human nature and it will never be stopped. To conclude, even though it is not an easy watch, it is a really strong and actually quite beautiful drama and it is definitely worth a look.

Like many actors before and after her, Diane Keaton decided at some point to direct a movie and this flick was therefore her directing debut. It’s a really obscure feature which barely got noticed when it was released but I did see it back then in the movie theater, if I’m not mistaken. Eventually, even though it was nothing really amazing, I thought it was a nice subtle little drama. At the time, Andie MacDowell was one of the most popular actresses and she was charming as usual.  Another interesting aspect was to see Michael Richards who was in the middle of his run in ‘Seinfeld’ (one of my favorite TV shows) and I’m pretty sure it was the first of his movies I have seen (he didn’t make many movies in fact). Eventually, this movie was pretty good at showing some rather sweet and eccentric characters but it felt to deliver much else. Later on, Keaton would direct ‘Hanging up’ which was not as terrible as the reviews tried to make you believe but it was definitely a step down after this promising debut.  To conclude, even though it is a rather obscure feature, it is actually a decent whimsical drama and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Honestly, I was always had a hard time with this franchise. Indeed, even though the 1st installment was a surprise success at the box-office, I thought it was rather underwhelming even if the concept actually had some potential (as a matter of fact, I preferred ‘The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D’ which was a massive failure and received some even more abysmal reviews). Anyway, at the time, it seemed that Robert Rodriguez  found his new cash-cow and kept making Spy Kids flicks until the audience really got fed up. As a result, this movie was a flop and Rodriguez finally decided to drop the whole thing (he did make another one in 2011 and even though I haven’t see it yet, it seems to be even more pathetic). At least, 6 years before ‘Avatar’, Rodriguez already tried to revive the 3D technology but it seems that it was too early and the audience didn’t care for it at the time (the movie did look pretty ugly indeed). Even Sylvester Stallone playing multiple villains couldn’t save this flick. To conclude, I didn’t like it much and I don’t think it is really worth look, except maybe if you are a fan of this franchise.