Reviews by johanlefourbe

Thomas McCarthy, another actor turned director, seems to belong to the kind of directors who makes some movies which are very well reviewed but which don’t get much an audience, at least, that’s how I see it. This time, he made another indie drama starring the always dependable Paul Giamatti and even though it was pretty good, it was still not quite remarkable which is pretty much the same feeling I got from ‘The Visitor’. However, there is one thing I really enjoy in McCarthy’s work and it is the way he manages to create some really compelling characters. In this case, the main character is not a really a bad person, he is just a guy who happens to be a in a tight spot, gets an opportunity and makes a decision. Obviously, what he does is morally questionable but that’s how human beings work, we see an opportunity, we seize it and afterwards we convince us somehow that it was not so bad after all. To make things more interesting, they threw in a lost teenager and that was once again a very interesting character, maybe too nice to be true but still. Somehow, they decided to mix this family drama with a rather generic sport formula and while it was fairly entertaining, it was still really pedestrian and predictable. It didn’t help either that the sport in question was wrestling which must be one of the dullest sports I have ever seen. Still, in spite of its flaws, it remains a decent drama and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Since I really loved ‘Hunger’ and ’12 Years a Slave’, obviously, I had to watch the movie Steve McQueen directed in between and, indeed, I was really eager to check it out. Once again, McQueen really impressed me and it is not very often that you come across a director who managed to deliver so much quality with just 3 movies. I simply can’t wait to see what he will do next. The only thing I’m worried is that the whole dreariness of his tales might become a gimmick at some point if he keeps throwing at us such dark and relentless dramas. Anyway, this time, he gave us a rather painful portrait of a man driven by his obsession and how his life constantly revolves around this obsession and nothing else. Since I’m a rather obsessive person (the most obvious would be my compulsive movie watching with more than 5000 movies watched and around 3800 reviews written on this website), it was rather confronting and I could definitely relate with him in the way that, even though his constant search for sex gives him a purpose, it also makes him emotionless and completely unable to connect or socialize with other human beings. At least, junkies or alcoholists usually have an active (albeit sick) social life but the main character here choses not to have such a social life, probaby because of the shame he constantly feels. Once again, Michael Fassbender who is obviously one of the greatest actors of his generation gave a fearless performance and it is really astonishing that he wasn’t even nominated at the Academy awards. To conclude, as usual with McQueen, it was a rather tough watch but it is still a riveting drama and it is definitely worth a look.

Not so long ago, I have seen the original version and, honestly, I wasn’t really impressed. I mean, sure, it was a solid romantic-comedy, Audrey Hebpburn was really charming and I was above all impressed by Humphrey Bogart who I didn’t expect to be so good with such material (apparently, Bogart didn’t get along at all with Holden and Hepburn). Still, in my opinion, the story was nothing really amazing. Anyway, 40 years later, Sydney Pollack decided to remake this flick, this time, with Harrison Ford, Greg Kinnear and Julia Ormond. To be fair, it wasn’t the worst remake I have seen, even though it was one of the few financial flops starring Harrison Ford (4 years later, he would make another movie with Sydney Pollack, ‘Random Hearts’, and it would be a real failure, critically and financially). Indeed, the actors did a decent job but the plot was still rather underwhelming and, if it did work back in the 50’s, the whole concept felt rather dated in the 90’s. Back then, there was a couple of years during which Julia Ormond seemed to be the next best thing but it didn’t last very long, I’m afraid. To conclude, in spite of its flaws, it remains a decent romantic-comedy and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

When I first heard about this movie, I was really eager to check it out. Indeed, after 6 long years, Luc Besson was finally back in the directing chair and, up to that point, he was probably the most ambitious French director at work. Since it is a really obscure flick, in France but even more abroad, it took me eventually almost 10 years to finally find a 2nd hand dvd while I was on holiday in France. Anyway, was it really worth the wait? Not really, I’m afraid. I mean, like all the movies directed by Besson, it was quite gorgeous to look at with some really nice black-and-white cinematography but, once again as usual with Besson’s work, the story was terribly weak. Not only the plot was some rather underwhelming modern fairy tale but the characters were rather shallow and borderline unlikeable. At least, both leads, Jamel Debbouze and Rie Rasmussen were quite charismatic but they both deserved a better story than the one provided here. The fact that Rie Rasmussen had a really thick accent didn’t help either. To conclude, even though the whole thing was rather pretentious and disappointing, it still remained a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Luc Besson’s work.

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back, I thought I might as well check it out again. To be honest, I wasn’t really impressed the first time around I watched the damned thing. Indeed, there is a huge market for Dutch movies for kids, in my opinion, mostly young kids can’t watch foreign movies because, in the Netherlands, they don’t dub movies in Dutch so as long as they can’t read fast enough, children can watch only Dutch productions. So, many of these are usually quite successful but most of the time I find them really average. This one is probably considered the very best one in the Netherlands, it was a huge success at the box-office and even won the Golden Calf of the Best Dutch movie of the year. With this in mind, I had some really high expectations but, honestly, I thought the whole thing was rather underwhelming. However, since it is classic, I thought I should give it a second chance and, after all these years, I was finally able to really appreciate it. Sure, the whole thing still looked really cheap and the plot remains rather silly but I have to admit that it was actually fairly entertaining. Above all, it is one of the rare movies were the talking animals are actually quite hilarious and not a useless and terribly annoying gimmick. Furthermore, even if Theo Massen’s character still remain a terribly whimpy guy with no backbone whatsoever, Carice van Houten (in her breakthrough, at least, in the Netherlands) was just really charming and completely nailed this performance. Anyway, to conclude, even if I still believe that such Dutch family features are usually terribly tedious, this movie might be one of the rare exceptions. Indeed, it actually works and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you want to see something with your kids.

On one hand, I was quite eager to check this flick because it seems to have a pretty good reputation. On the other hand, with its running time of 270 minutes (it is officially the longest American film ever made), it was a rather daunting prospect. So, indeed, it is very long but I thought it went by pretty smoothly and it was definitely an interesting watch. Basically, the main goal of this production was accuracy and authenticity and since the battle of Gettysburg must be one of the best documented battles that ever took place, they made sure they had all the details right. In my opinion, the movie was divided in three type of scenes : the set-ups before attacking, the attacks themselves and some random conversations between the soldiers. It was a nice touch that they didn’t develop the background of the soldiers or got them involved in some annoying romance à la Pearl Harbor. On the downside, I noticed that it only focused on the officers, usually the generals, and they didn’t spend anytime with the common soldiers which was too bad in my opinion. Furthermore, the score was rather annoying and just way too repetitive for my taste. To conclude, even though it might not be a masterpiece, they will never be a better movie about this battle and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested by the subject.

At some point, like most of the actors, Tom Hanks felt compelled to become a director and this flick was his directing debut which is nowadays pretty much forgotten. Basically, it was rather too light to become really remarkable but I think it was a rather smart choice from Tom Hanks to choose a simple story to make sure he didn’t mess it up as a first time director. Indeed, it is a rather standard story about a band which suddenly becomes famous overnight and it was fairly generic but still quite entertaining. A great pleasure for me was to see Liv Tyler (in her 4th movie) and Charlize Theron (in her 2nd movie) when they were both very young and not so famous. Eventually, 15 years later, Tom Hanks would finally come up with a 2nd directing effort, ‘Larry Crowne’, another movie which was barely noticed when it was released even though it was starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, but, honestly, even though I thought that his directing debut was fairly enjoyable, I thought this follow-up was terribly underwhelming. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, even though it is nothing really amazing, I thought it was a decent flick and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I already saw this movie but, since it was a while back and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out again. Personally, I always had a rather hard time with John Hugues. Indeed, by now, I have seen almost all his directing efforts and none of his movies really impressed me. However, there was one notable exception and it is this flick which was indeed quite amazing. First of all, it was the first movie directed by Hughes that I saw so maybe I wasn’t fed up yet with his directing style. Above all, I thought it was the only movie he made for which I thoroughly enjoyed the tone. Indeed, usually, I think the plots he develops are utterly childish and hardly entertaining. This time, even though there were some funny moments, there were also some rather grim scenes and the balance between these moods was very well done. On top of that, the characters, who are usually terribly underwhelming in his work, were very well written, quite complex and rather fascinating to behold. It has always been said that John Hughes was great at creating some compelling portrayals of teenagers but I rather disagree. In my opinion, his teenagers are usually some underwhelming walking clichés but, in this movie, I have to admit it, he got it right though and gave the right amount of self-righteousness, arrogance and lack of self-esteem and confidence. Well, after all these years, even though it has been criticized that it didn't age well, I actually don't agree and, in my opinion, it is still one of the best movies about teenagers. The only issue might be the lack of minority representation since all these kids were White and straight but I guess John Hugues wanted to write about the people he actually knew something about. Anyway, to conclude, I thought it was a really good flick, it deserves its reputation and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Since I always had a weak spot for Phillip Noyce’s work, I was really eager to check this flick. Eventually, it turned out to be his best movie I have seen so far. Indeed, I thought it was quite a fascinating tale, beautifully directed by Noyce with some top-notch performances provided by those children. Indeed, like every other country, Australia also has a terrible legacy in the way they treated the Aboriginals and this movie gives a rather heartbreaking sample. Obviously, how they handled those kids, trying to brainwash them, was quite shocking but it is even more revolting when you realize that the Australian authorities went on with these policies as far as the end of the 60’s. Pretty much like the segregation in the USA, it always amazes me to learn it just stopped only a couple of decades ago. Only therefore it is already a really important movie in my opinion but it was also a really beautiful movie to look at and those girls who didn’t have any acting experience were quite impressive as well. To conclude, even though this movie is pretty much forgotten nowadays, it is actually a really good historical drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Australian history

I remember it very well, when this movie was released, I was still living in France and I was really eager to check it out. Somhow, it took me almost 20 years to watch it but it was definitely worth the wait. Indeed, I thought it was a really solid court drama and it follows my theory that prisons shouldn’t be only about punishing the inmates, instead, we should be more preoccupied by their rehabiliation. The funny thing is that this inhumane treatment in Alcatraz was regarded as a form of rehabiliation but it was actually completely the opposite. The other thing I enjoyed was to see good old Christian Slater when he was still one of the most promising actors around. Nowadays, pretty much like Val Kilmer, there is not much left from those good promises. Still, there were a couple of things that prevented this movie from becoming truly remarkable. First of all, even though they tell you as usual that it was based on a true story, the whole thing is actually fairly innacurate but the thing that really bothered me was how the storyline was built up. Indeed, ’12 angry men’ is by far the best movie in this genre because they slowly make you understand what’s going on. Here, right from the start, they show you all the dirty details about what’s going on in Alcatraz, about the fact that Henry Young was eventually a victime so there is not much room to think and the only thing left for the viewer is waiting that all the characters involved share your feelings when we should organically make up our mind on our own. Still, even though it was nothing really amazing, I thought it was a good court drama and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.