Reviews by johanlefourbe

Since it was the last movie directed by Clint Eastwood that I hadn't seen yet, of course, I was really eager to check it out. It is easily his most obscure directing effort and it was not easy to find (eventually, I found a DVD in Amazon coming all the way from Italy). To be honest, it wasn't really good. I mean, it was something really different than his usual work and it was the very first movie he made in which he wasn't starring. It was also the only movie he made with a female main character and pretty much like other masters such as Stanley Kubrick who never made a flick with a woman in the lead (even 'Lolita' doesn't count) and Martin Scorsese who only made one ('Boxcar Bertha' also very obscure), he had some trouble to make her more than just a sexual object. Eventually, I really hard a hard time to care about this Breezy girl who was really invasive, childish and rather annoying. Not surprisingly, William Holden's character worked better. Anyway, at the end of the day, the whole thing was pretty much some old man sleazy fantasy of having a sexual relationship with a very young woman. I mean, it is pretty notorious that Clint Eastwood is/was really a womanizer, having 7 children with 5 different women and his (ex)-wife was 35 younger than him. Still, even though it was really flawed, I can't completely discard the whole thing. Back in those days, it took some guts to make something so uncommercial, making a romance which was something new to him. The directing was also pretty shabby in the first 15 minutes but got better and William Holden was definitely not bad at all. To conclude, even though it is obviously a weaker effort, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Clint Eastwood's work.

Francis Ford Coppola completely ruled the 70's. He made 4 movies, 'Apocalypse Now', 'The Godfather: Part II', 'The Conversation', 'The Godfather', they were all critically acclaimed and at least 3 of them are arguably some of the finest movies ever made. So, he ruled the 70's but it was as much a blessing as it was a curse. I mean, basically, for each movie he made afterwards, the audience was expecting another 'Godfather' or another 'Apocalypse now'. Well, it never happened and with each new release directed by him, his reputation continued to diminish and, nowadays, he is pretty much considered a has-been. Personally, I think it's a shame because he has actually made some decent flicks which are terribly overlooked and this movie is a perfect example. Indeed, it is probably one of his most obscure movies and even though it is a little too generic, I thought it was a pretty good war drama. Even though it deals with the Vietnam war, all the action takes place in the US which was an interesting move. I thought also that James Caan (reunited with Coppola 15 years after ‘The Godfather’) gave a pretty good performance. To conclude, even though it is nothing really mind-blowing, it is actually a pretty good drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Coppola’s work.

Since I kept hearing good things about this flick, I was really eager to check it out and I had some pretty high expectations. Honestly, I thought it was slightly disappointing. I mean, it was visually appealing and I thought that the cast (Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luena, Maribel Verdu) all gave some solid performances but I seriously failed to see what was so amazing about this story. Pretty much like ‘Children of men’, another universally heralded movie directed by Cuaron, I didn’t really connect with the story. I mean, it was not bad at all, it was even quite intriguing but I thought it never really took off. Basically, it is supposed to be a steamy affair but I really had a hard time to care about the characters. I mean, good for them, they managed to explore their sex life but I didn’t think it was really that compelling. I don’t know, maybe I wasn’t in the right mood and I might re-watch it in the future to make up my mind for good. I mean, don’t misunderstand me, I actually liked the damned thing, it’s just that I didn’t get why it was so highly regarded. To conclude, even though I thought it was slightly underwhelming, it is still a pretty good flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Alfonso Cuaron’s work.

First of all, it is interesting to point out that the original title literal translation is not ‘the Dinner game’ or ‘Dinner of Schmucks’ but in fact ‘The Dinner of Cunts’. I always found it pretty nice that the French were never too skirmish to put a naked lady of some really foul language on their movie posters. Anyway, when I lived in France, this movie was a huge success when it was released. Personally, except for the rather subversive title, I didn't care much about the whole thing as it looked really stupid and it took me a while to finally watch it. If I'm not mistaken, the first time I eventually saw it, I was completely stoned out of my mind so I wasn't really able to judge it. Eventually, I saw it a second time around and I thought it was actually not bad at all. I mean, don't misunderstand me, it was far from being a masterpiece whatsoever but I have to admit it , it was indeed pretty funny. It is above all thanks to the late Jacques Villeret that it did work. Indeed, all the other characters were rather spineless and uninteresting but he managed to make his character stupid but somehow also friendly and above all constantly hilarious. Later on, they would make an American remake called ‘Dinner of Schmucks’ but even though they cast Steve Carell as the new ‘cunt’, it was really underwhelming. To conclude, even though I don’t think it was really great at all, this original version was still a solid comedy and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.

I wasn't expecting much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Bruce Willis, I thought I should check it out anyway. Surprisingly, even though Willis is shown prominently on all the promotional material, he has actually a rather small part and the lead was played by Curtis '55 Cent' Jackson who seems to be still struggling as an actor. Coming back to Bruce Willis, it is rather odd, with his megastar status, that he pops up more and more often in such underwhelming direct-to-DVD features. Anyway, it was just a very weak action flick which was thankfully really short (not even 80 minutes). Even though it was really short, they managed to throw in an impressive amount of characters, a technique used, I suppose, to hide the overall weakness of the script. If the main character played by 50 Cent would have been an heartless SOB, it could have been a little bit more interesting, some dark and immoral tale but, since it wasn't the case, I didn't care whatsoever for the story or the characters involved. To conclude, I think I'm being really generous with my rating here, it is a really weak action flick and it is not really worth a look, even if you are diehard fan of Bruce Willis.

I have always been a huge fan of those clay-animated features by Aardman so I was really eager to check this flick. For once, they dropped the clay and opted for the first time for CGI (the 2nd and last one so far was ‘Arthur Christmas’). Apparently, they made this choice because there were too many water scenes which would be too difficult to handle with clay. However, even though the expectations were pretty high, it was eventually a flop when it was released. Personally, I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. I mean, I thought it looked really good, which was something you should expect from Aardman but the story and the characters were not really amazing. There was definitely some funny bits and the bad guy was really cool (I also liked ‘Le Frog’) but I thought that the main character was pretty underwhelming, especially if you compare him to the awesome and charismatic Wallace and Gromit. There was also some overkill visually. I don’t know, maybe I should give it another shot and watch in English this time (the first time, I watched it in Dutch with the kids). Still, to conclude, even though it was slightly disappointing, it remains a decent animated flick 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 I have a weak spot for Sylvester Stallone and Rutger Hauer, I thought I should give it a try. Eventually, even though it was not bad, it was still not really convincing either. Basically, it is an awkward mix between the 70s' gritty thrillers and the 80's buddy cop action flicks and even though this mix was intriguing, it didn't work very well. As a result, you get an endless set-up and since the movie was rather short (just above 90 minutes), the 2nd half felt really rushed. Still, I liked the grim look of the whole thing, the dialogs were pretty rough and Stallone and Hauer were both really charismatic. Back in those days, Stallone was still trying to make it as a legit actor, even though except for his 'Rocky' movies, all his other movies were flops and, for Hauer, it was his first American production and, basically, this movie became basically the blue-print of what he would do for the rest of his career (the psycho bad-guy). To conclude, even though it is nothing really amazing, it was not bad after all and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

There was something really appealing about this flick. I mean, it was a dark thriller dealing with snuff movies, directed by Joel Schumacher, starring Nicolas Cage and Joaquin Phoenix. It really seemed that they have gathered all the necessary ingredients to make a decent flick. Unfortunately, the whole thing was pretty disappointing. Seriously, I gave this movie a fair shot and even watched it twice but both times, I thought it was actually rather underwhelming. The main issue I had is that it is basically a thriller which pretends to be dark and gloomy but, at the end of the day, it remains a rather glossy Hollywood flick. I mean, it is not really a bad movie at all. Nicolas Cage was still a very good actor back then (don’t talk to me about his recent work…) and Joaquin Phoenix in a rather thankless role managed as always to make something quite intriguing. The most annoying thing is that you feel that there was some potential here but they didn’t dare go all the way with this sensitive subject. As a matter of fact, Andrew Kevin Walker (who also wrote ‘Seven’) wrote the screenplay, and apparently, the whole thing was way darker but the studio asked him to lighten up the tone. Eventually, Walker walked out and disowned this flick. To conclude, even though it is far from being awful, it still remain an average and disappointing thriller and it is not really worth a look, even if you like the genre.

Honestly, I didn't know what this flick was about beforehand and I didn't know what to expect. It is something I actually really enjoy, to watch a movie without knowing nothing about it. In my opinion, especially when you watch a thriller, it makes it much more exciting. Of course, there is the risk that you will end up watching some garbage but it is a risk I'm always glad to take. Unfortunately, this flick was still pretty weak. Basically, it managed to hold my attention for about 30 minutes but, after that, it was pretty abysmal. Indeed, it is one of these very convoluted thrillers with some repetitive annoying twists and I really had a hard time to care about the whole thing. If I'm not mistaken, they were maybe 5 different characters with a shady background and instead of leaving a mysterious fog around them, their back story was a little bit developed but not enough to make it interesting and too much to not become really underwhelming. I was reminded of 'Memento' which is a perfect example of carefully developing all the characters by giving ONLY the information you need in order to enjoy the story. Here, it is the complete opposite, they keep throwing at you some random information just to make the whole thing more 'exciting' but it had the opposite effect. So, most of this movie was actually garbage but there were here and there some good ideas and there is definitely something intriguing about agoraphobia. Anyway, to conclude, I think I was rather generous with my rating here, it is a pretty weak thriller and it is not really worth a look, even if you like the genre.