Reviews by johanlefourbe

I have always been interested in Paul Verhoeven's work and since I have been living in the Netherlands, I had easy access to his older work, his Dutch movies. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of this one but it was pretty neat to see Paul Verhoeven directing a costume drama for a change (at least, you have to admit he is rather versatile). It was Verhoeven follow-up feature after his breaktrough masterpiece 'Turks fruit' and he worked again with the same actors, Rutger Hauer and Monique van de Ven. Honestly, I thought it was pretty obvious that Paul Verhoeven was not really comfortable with the material. Furthermore, he experienced huge pressure to come up with a worthy follow-up for his critically and commercially successful 'Turks fruit' and he clashed repeatedly with producer Rob Houwer over the screenplay and didn't get the budget to make the film on the epic scale he had intended. He has even been quoted as saying that if he could ever redo one of his movies, it would be this one. So, as usual with Verhoeven, the whole thing is pretty sleazy but I still think it is a well made drama, I really enjoyed it and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Verhoeven's work.

I wasn't expecting much from this flick but even though I'm not a huge fan of Spielberg, I must admit that his work is always worth a look. Furthermore, my wife is a huge fan of horses (we even used to have 3 of them in the past...) so it was a must see for us. Basically, it was a decent WWI feature but nothing really mind-blowing. I mean, it was visually really impressive but I wouldn't expect less from Spielberg. I also really enjoyed the way they managed to make the horse shows his feelings and communicate with the other characters. I mean, it never felt phony but rather genuine. Still, even though it was pretty uplifting, I thought the story was rather pedestrian. I mean, it was not bad at all but many events were really far-fetched, especially the ending and, to be honest, I never really cared about the whole thing. Furthermore, even though the events took place during the hell of one of the worst wars, there was still some room for a happy ending and some fluffy sentimentality but that's unfortunately a trademark inherent to Steven Spielberg's work. To conclude, in spite of its flaws, it remains a very well made war feature and I still think it is still worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

A movie starring Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington should be worth a look, right? No, I'm not talking about 'American Gangster' which was definitely a pretty good flick, I'm talking about that other movie they made together more than 10 years before. Back then, Russell Crowe didn't breakthrough yet and it will take him 2 more years, thanks to 'L.A. Confidential', to become a household name. Anyway, it is jsut some pretty average stuff here. Indeed, they tried to mix some Science-Fiction with some action stuff but the end-result was pretty disappointing. Denzel Washington delivers his usual performance and was allright but not really interesting and Russell Crowe was actually not bad at all as the bad guy and it would be interesting to see him play such a part in a better movie. In my opinion, the important thing when you are dealing with SF is that even though you may use your fantasy, it still has to make sense somehow. Unfortunately, this time, the whole thing was pretty idiotic and rather laughable. Without Russell Crowe, I'm afraid it would have been even worse. To conclude, even though it was nice to see those guys together, it still remains a very average flick and it is not really worth a look, I'm afraid.

If I remember correctly, I saw this one when it was released in the theaters. I know it was pretty obscure but not that much actually. Anyway, with this kind of movies (a real Hip-Hop artist portrays a guy who aspires to become a Hip-Hop artist), there is always a risk that the whole thing won’t work or that it won’t be taken seriously arguing that there is no actual acting since the actor in question is actually portraying himself. In this case, it never crossed my mind. Indeed, Saul Williams gave a very heartfelt performance and I thought he was very convincing. There were also some pretty amazing rap-poetry battles not only by Saul Williams but also by Sonja Sohn. Furthermore, the directing was also pretty solid. Above all, I thought the grim tone and look really fit the subject and it was also appreciated that they didn’t provide any simple answer at the end. I mean, that’s one of the biggest issues with this genre, is that, coming from the gutter, the main character usually ends up with a record contract and becomes a huge star. Even though it does happen sometimes, most of those aspiring artists remain in the gutter and I think that makes a much more compelling story. To conclude, I thought it was a very good movie, probably the best in this genre, and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Hip-Hop.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this movie but since it won the best picture Academy award, I thought I should give it a try. It is only the 3rd movie directed by Fred Zinnemann that I had the pleasure to watch (following 'The Day of the Jackal’ and ‘The Nun's Story’) and I’m more and more impressed every time by his work. I mean, those 3 movies were completely different but they all displayed some fascinating stories, some very solid acting and some expert directing. This time around, I was above all impressed by the dialogues. Indeed, it was basically a play adaptation and even though it was about 2 hours long, nothing much actually really happened but there was a lot of talking, that’s for sure. Eventually, it’s a pity that I saw this on the BBC without subtitles and I’m afraid I honestly missed 50% of it which prevented me to enjoy the whole thing even more. Still, it was all very good. I mean, nowadays I’m always surprised about how dumbed down the movies are and after watching Zinnemann’s feature, it was even more obvious. Indeed, in this movie, all the characters were so articulate, everything they said made complete sense and instead of getting some loud explosions, or some fancy CGI robots, you get instead an amazing battle of wits. Not only the dialogues were impressive but the acting was also quite amazing. As a matter of fact, it took me several minutes to actually recognize the great Orson Welles. Too bad his character died fairly quickly but I was equally impressed by Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw and (a very young) John Hurt. To conclude, it is an inspiring feature dealing with morals, religion and politics, I really liked it and it is definitely worth a look.

Even though I’m not a huge fan of musicals, since it is a huge classic, I was still interested in this flick. The directing by veteran George Cukor (‘A Star Is Born’, ‘Born Yesterday’, ‘Adam's Rib’, ‘The Philadelphia Story’) was solid and Audrey Hepburn was also really charming and gave a decent performance even though she wasn’t even nominated at the Academy awards at the time. Hepburn was back then at the top of her popularity and she reprised the role which was originally played by Julie Andrews on Broadway. Eventually, it was a tremendous success and eventually won 8 Academy awards and since then, it has became one of the most beloved musicals ever made. Eventually, personally, I thought it was pretty good but nothing really mind-blowing though. I mean, it is a very well made musical, with some pretty good songs but like most of the musicals, I thought the story was actually pretty weak. I know it is inherent to the genre but I don’t believe it is necessary that musicals should have such fluffy storylines. Still, it remains an enjoyable flick, absolutely. Anyway, to conclude, it is a pretty good classic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Since I have been living in the Netherlands, I have always been interested in Dutch movies and since this movie won the Golden Calf of the best Dutch movie of the year, I was really eager to check it out. Well, to be honest, I thought it was rather disappointing. Basically, like many Golden Calf winners, I actually wondered why they picked up this movie. I mean, even though a few of those winners were really outstanding (‘Zwartboek’, ‘Paradise Now’, ‘Simon’, ‘De Tweeling’,…), many of them are just some terribly boring family features or some really obscure flicks that almost nobody has seen. This movie falls in the last category. I read somewhere on the internet that someone compared the directing to the Dardennes brother style and I thought it was indeed pretty accurate. The acting was also pretty good but, still, I didn’t really like this movie. I mean, it was just so terribly boring… Like the Dardennes brothers, they used an intimate and natural approach to the directing, shooting the characters very closely, almost right in their face but the big difference with the Dardennes work, is that the characters were really not interesting, especially the secondary characters. In this case, since I didn’t care about the story and the characters involved, it was really hard to get into this flick. Still, even though it is a really tedious watch, it remains a well made movie and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Dutch movie.

Since I’m still a huge fan of Robert de Niro, I still wanted to check this flick, even though I had some rather low expectations. Eventually, I found it rather difficult to judge this movie. Indeed, half of it was pretty neat and entertaining but the other half was just pure garbage. I mean, the concept was actually pretty awesome and I loved the idea of a human being who could use all his brain. Furthermore, I thought that Bradley Cooper was well cast and he delivered a solid performance. It was also visually pretty neat but I thought also that it was a lot of camouflage to hide the fact that they didn’t really know how to visually display this concept. Still, like I said before, there was also tons of garbage. To start with, Abbie Cornish was terribly underused and I’d rather not talk about Robert de Niro… Such a legendary actor showing up for such an uninteresting part… I mean, any actor could have done this job and it was just yet another disappointing title to his already disappointing (recent) resume. Furthermore, I thought there were some huge plot holes. For example, at some point, it was made clear that the drug was lethal and the main character was supposed to die soon. So, he wisely decided to stop and his girlfriend was supporting him. But then, 5 minutes later, he was back on the drugs and everything was fine and, at the end, he was having diner with his girlfriend and everything is peachy?!? It is obvious that the makers at the end couldn’t make up their mind about this drug. Was it bad? Was it lethal? or ws it actually really awesome? Eventually, the biggest issue, in my opinion, is that, in spite of its title, this movie was actually terribly limited when you consider the scope. Basically, when the main character becomes the smartest man on Earth, he decides to become a Wall Street yuppie?!? Couldn’t they come up with something more inspiring than this? Still, it remains a pretty cool concept and I was entertained more or less through the whole thing and I still think it is worth a look but don’t expect anything amazing though.

Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of musicals but I do love movies and I’m open to all genres so I still watch one of those from time to time. I thought this one was not bad but it is definitely not one of the best I have seen though. It was directed by Richard Attenborough and you may wonder, after reaching such critical acclaim with ‘Gandhi’, if this follow up was not some kind of step back in his career. At least, you can’t argue that the guy was trying something different. It was also fun to see Michael Douglas to doing something else than his usual fare. And what about the movie itself ? Personally, I thought the dancing and the singing were pretty good but the story was not spellbinding enough to really hold my attention. I know, it is something inherent to the genre but the few musicals that I really enjoyed (‘West Side Story’, ‘Cabaret, ‘Sweeney Todd’,…) had an entertaining story and I think it is a key element to make a musical truelly enjoyable and not just really only about the dancing and the songs. Still, it remains a decent musical and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.