Reviews by johanlefourbe

Even though this movie is now more than 40 years old, it still has a pretty damned good reputation and I was really eager to check it out. Eventually, I wasn’t disappointed and it definitely deserved to win the Best Picture Academy award at the time. Indeed, it is quite a fascinating war feature with a fascinating real figure in the middle. It seemed that Patton was quite a character but you can’t deny that he was a great military strategist and the masterstroke in this movie was to make a multi-layered portrait of this ultimate soldier. Obviously, George C. Scott (who also won the Academy award but refused it because he was against the idea of a competition between actors) was quite brilliant and this performance would be the one he will be forever remembered. The funny thing is that he didn’t believe that he actually did a good job and would, apparently, apologize often to the director Franklin J. Schaffner because he didn’t deliver the goods. Francis Ford Coppola, who was even younger than I am today, was also involved in this classic and would even win his first Academy award as a writer. To conclude, it is classic, a very good war feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Honestly, I never really understood the huge love and hate reactions towards this franchise. In my opinion, it is neither great or awful like everyone is trying to convince you. I mean, it is definitely nothing amazing but I can imagine that some viewers might love it. Personally, I even think that the first installment was not bad at all but from the first sequel, it became an endless and rather tedious soap-opera around this love triangle. Anyway, with this 4rth installment, it was slightly better but not much more, I’m afraid. I mean, at least, something happened, Bella and Edward finally had sex! Even though, in theory, it might seem possible that a vampire fall in love, it seems rather odd that he would want to have sex at all. Anyway, even though they get in bed, it hardly seems enjoyable, even if Bella tries very hard to convince Edward that she really had a great time (usually, it is the other way around). It doesn’t really matter because she quickly became pregnant and it gets pretty damned creepy (and that’s why you shouldn’t have sex, teenagers, it is not fine at all and you are sure to go through a very painful pregnancy and your baby will probably be an awful monster). Basically, it is a rather odd soap-opera with some rather unsettling ideas about sex and whatnot so I didn’t really enjoy it much but if you love the genre, you will probably eat this up.

Michelle Rodriguez is nowadays the main choice to play the tough female sidekick in some blockbusters but many forgot that she actually started with a lead part in this forgotten little indie gem. Indeed, back then ,it was heralded at the Sundance film festival and ended up winning the Grand Jury Prize. At the time, Rodriguez had no acting experience and beat up more than 300 other girls at her first audition to win this part. Anyway, it was pretty obvious that she was born to play such parts (too bad she has been ever since typecasted in similar parts) and, this time, a character was a little bit more developped than her usual one-dimensional tough girls. Of couse, I have to admit it, the whole thing was not really original and fairly predictable but there was still something really compelling about this character. Concerning the director Karyn Kusama, she became a hot item after releasing this movie and, after that, she made some more commercial projects but they were rather underwhelming and both flopped at the box-office (‘Jennifer's Body’, ‘ Æon Flux’) . To conclude, even though it is pretty much forgotten nowadays, it is actually pretty good and it is definitely worth a look.

Pretty much every decade, they come up with a new version of this classic story and when I heard that Paul W.S. Anderson was behind it, I was even more skeptical. To beginning with, the intro was seriously tedious and I thought the whole thing would really bore me but, fortunately, it got better after that. Above all, Anderson managed to get a really massive cast (Matthew Macfadyen, Milla Jovovich, Luke Evans, Ray Stevenson, Til Schweiger, Orlando Bloom, Logan Lerman, Mads Mikkelsen, Christoph Waltz, Juno Temple) and it pretty much redeemed the whole thing for me. You could argue that there was quite an overkill in the bad-guy department (Milady de Winter, the Duke of Buckingham, Rochefort, Richelieu) but the actors involved really had some fun with their characters, even though I wasn’t really convinced by Milla Jovovich. Still, I have to admit it, all these fancy action scenes with slow-motion and CGI were rather underwhelming after a while and, honestly, the makers really didn’t anything really interesting to this tale which has been told so many times already. To conclude, I think my rating might be really generous here but I guess this movie is still worth a look though, if only for the cast and above all if you are a fan of the genre.

Obviously, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but, somehow, I still ended up watching it. I wonder if I watched it at the time with my step-daughter. The point is that this movie was obviously made for a target audience (the young girls between 10-14 years old) and the rest of us wouldn’t or shouldn’t care for it. Anyway, it was highly inspired by ‘Roman Holiday’, a classic which already didn’t really blow me away, but this movie never comes nearby the level of this timeless romantic tale. I mean, Julia Stiles and Luke Mably did their best but there was no way they could compete with the huge charisma of Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. Above all, there was a terrible lack of ambition from the makers, they just followed the formula without adding anything remotely edgy or interesting and I really had a hard time to care for the whole thing. Still, I always had a weak spot for Julia Stiles, back then she was one of the most in-demand actress of the time and it’s too bad we don’t hear much from her anylonger. To conclude, it is a rather weak romantic-comedy and I don’t think it is really worth a look, expect maybe if you are a fan of the genre.

Back in the 80’s, Lawrence Kasdan was really on fire. Not only he wrote some of the biggest box-office successes of the time (‘Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back’, ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, ‘Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi’) , he managed also to launch a very successful directing career as well. Unfortunately, later on, his movies were honestly not that good and it has been at least 20 years since he has written or directed something really worthwhile. Anyway, this movie was his second directing effort and, even though it is nowadays pretty much forgotten, it was really critically heralded when it was released. Indeed, there was quite an impressive cast (Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Meg Tilly) and they all delivered some solid performances which were probably the most attractive aspect of this flick. There was even Kevin Costner who was unknown at the time but his scenes were cut eventually. Personally, I enjoyed above all William Hurt who was one of the best actors at work in the 80’s. Such a shame his career didn’t keep up later on as he is definitely one of the most underrated actors at work nowadays. Anyway, I think it is a really good drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I don’t know why exactly but, somehow, I was rather eager to re-watch this flick. Cameron Diaz has tried a couple of times to become the Queen of the R rated comedy but this movie displays why she has never really succeeded. I mean, the material was pretty good, there was a really nice cast (Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, Selma Blair, Thomas Jane, Jason Bateman, Parker Posey) and there was some really good jokes but, still, the whole thing didn’t really work out. First of all, some of the jokes just lasted for way too long. For example, in the ladies room, when they start to feel Christina Applegate’s boobs, it was really good, but they should have moved on right away instead of having all these women going for her breasts. Same thing about ‘you’re penis is huge’ turning into the rather underwhelming ‘Penis song’. The other mistake they made was to mix the R rated stuff with a romantic-comedy. Indeed, it watered down the edgy characters and it became something rather sappy and disappointing. Basically, you start up with some women with a different attitude towards men and love relationships and end up with one of the most conventional conclusion you could possible imagine. To conclude, even though the whole thing actually had some potential, it remains a rather weak comedy and it is not really worth a look.

Ever since I saw ‘Butterfly Kiss’, I have been a fan of Michael Winterbottom and I have been following his work closely. However, since the guy is apparently a workaholic, he is quite over-productive, making an average of one movie every year. The positive thing is that you don’t have to wait very long for his following work to come out but the negative thing is that many of his movies are rather half-baked. I mean, so far I have seen 12 of his movies and none of them was bad but, to be honest, you can feel that if he had spent more time on his movies, they would have been better. This movie is a fine example. Indeed, even though it is basically a failure, it remains a very interesting failure nonetheless. Indeed, Winterbottom managed to create a fascinating futuristic world, albeit not really original, but there was still a spellbinding mood. Furthermore, Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton gave some really solid performances so you had all the ingredients to make a very good SF feature. Unfortunately, half-way through, the whole thing really lost some steam and it seemed that Winterbottom didn’t really know where to go with these intriguing characters. To conclude, even though I think it is another failure in Winterbottom ‘s spotty filmography, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Back then in the 90’s, Costner decided to make his directing debut with ‘Dances with the Wolves’ which turned out to be pretty successful and it was even won the Best Picture Academy Award (which is pretty shocking when you think that ‘Goodfellas’ was also nominated. I wasn’t exactly blown away by his directing debut but, at least, it was miles better than his following directing effort, ‘The Postman’ and after that, most of us though that Kevin Costner’s directing career was pretty much over. However, 6 years later, he came along for another attempt at the directing game and guess what? It was actually pretty good and I would go even further and say that it was better than ‘Dances…’. Indeed, this time, he managed to make a compelling Western, albeit less epic, but with some more balanced characters and a better tone alltogether. I have to admit it, it wasn’t really original and it shouldn’t be remembered as a masterpiece in this genre but Costner did a good work here and I was entertained throughout the whole damned thing. To conclude, even though this movie is nowadays pretty much forgotten, it is actually pretty good and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a pretty good cast, I thought I might as well give it a try. Well, honestly, I didn’t like this movie, I thought it was a really chore to watch and I was really surprised to find out that Roger Ebert actually really enjoyed this movie. I mean, it did look good (probably too good when you are actually dealing with the Great Depression, hobbos and what not) and the actors did what they could with the material but I really had a hard time with this mix of childiness and heavy topics such as people losing their homes, their jobs and many other things. The point is how can you make a kids flick about the Great Depression? I don’t think it is impossible and Roberto Begnini with ‘La vita e bella’ or anything involving Charles Chaplin showed us that you can make something light from something actually rather depressing. Here, every dramatic aspect was toned down by something whimsical happening on the side and, at the end, you get a really moralistic message that it wasn’t so bad after all and it even actually made them stronger. To conclude, even though it wasn’t really a bad movie, I thought it was rather misguided and I don’t think it is really worth a look.