Reviews by johanlefourbe

I’m a huge fan of the list ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’. In fact, it is thanks to this list that I discovered this website. However, there are one thing that bothers me with this list is the lack of recent movies, especially when you see some older and rather obscure movies that could be easily removed. This flick is a perfect example. Anyway, even though Maurice Pialat is not really well known in Listal, he was (and still is actually) a very highly regarded director in France. Honestly, I haven't seen many movies directed by Pialat but considering his reputation, I was really eager to watch this flick which was starring Gérard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert who are both two of the best French actors for already the last 3 decades. Well, they were both really impressive. The story was dealing with one of those rather convoluted and messed up relationship that you only get to see in French movies. In my opinion, the plot was rather far-fetched and even  depressing but thanks to the tremendous work of the actors involved, it was still a nice watch. To conclude, it may not be one of Pialat's best work but I still enjoyed it and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.

I already saw this movie but since I just brought a brand new awesome TV, I thought I might as well re-watch it. Back then, the first time around, to be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this flick. Indeed, I thought that 'Iron man 2' was rather disappointing and ‘Thor’ and 'Captain America' didn’t turn out to be bad but they were still nothing amazing. In fact, this whole Avengers thing seemed to be some kind of misguided marketing stunt. Boy, I was wrong.... Indeed, it turned out to be one of the best super-hero flicks I have ever seen. Basically, there was an impressive cast, there were some really cool action scenes but it fortunately went beyond this. Eventually, you really have to give some credits to Joss Whedon who managed to put all those puzzle pieces together. Indeed, it was rather impressive to see how each character got enough screen time without getting too much attention. The story was also entertaining enough, there were some hilarious one-liners throughout the whole thing and the interaction between all those super-heroes was really neat. To be honest, I have to admit that is not as impressive as it used to be when you watch it again 10 years later and I guess it has to do with the fact that, since then, we have seen so many huge bombastic MCU installments involving so many more characters. Anyway, it was still a really fun flick though, I had a great time watching this and it has been a while since I had so much fun watching a blockbuster. It was also the proof that Marvel's gamble, to create a Cinematic Universe linking all kinds of characters together, was going to be a huge game changer at the box-office and this formula would be (so far, unsuccessfully) copied by virtually all the major movie studios in the following years. To conclude, it was a very nice surprise, I really enjoyed it and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Lasse Hallstrom, I thought I should check it out anyway. Eventually, I thought it was a rather weak and sappy romantic flick. I mean, the directing was decent, Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried were both quite charming and they were both doing their best but the whole thing was just a borefest... Everything they said, everything they did was just so plot driven. Furthermore, there was also a subplot involving autism which was rather poorly developed. Indeed, it is a dear subject to me (as a matter of fact, my step-son is autistic) and if you are going to tackle this difficult subject, you either have to do a good job or just drop the whole thing and, in this case, it wasn't really convincing, I'm afraid. For example, if his dad was autist, how did he get some income? How did he get this house and all those coins which must be worth a fortune? I was really surprised to discover that Nicholas Sparks's son is actually afflicted with Asperger's Syndrome and I would have expected in this case a better approach on this subject. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was a well made romantic drama, it was still rather tedious and it is not really worth a look, except maybe if you are fan of this genre.

To be honest, I thought it was quite difficult to judge this movie... Indeed, basically, it was a B feature movie and I guess you either love those movies or you don't. Well, I'm not a huge fan. In this case, the first half awkwardly combined some humor and horror with some elements of ‘Alien’, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ and any random zombie flick. The issue was that the damned thing was neither really scary or funny. However, I have to admit that it got better during the second half. Indeed, Michael Rooker got uglier and uglier, his new 'wife' was really monstruous and when the worms got free, the whole thing got quite gruesome. Still, they kept throwing some stupid oneliners throughout the whole thing and it really got on my nerves. Furthermore, the various attempts to be funny never really worked. So, I didn't really enjoy it but, again, I'm not fan of B movies in the first place so I'm not sure if  I was the right audience (my step-son for example thought it was actually pretty neat). To conclude, if you like this kind of B movies involving monsters and stuff, it is definitely worth a look otherwise you'd better watch something else.

Nowadays, I have Netflix and Popcorn and not only I have since then an endless selection of movies to choose from but, as a result, I have become slightly more picky regarding the movies I watch. Before, I used to watch pretty much anything as long as it was starring one or two actors I was interested in and, as a result, I would sometimes end up watching some really obscure features. This movie was a perfect example. Indeed, even though I had never heard of this movie before, since there was a nice cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Unfortunately, it turned out to be another uninteresting, unoriginal and rather short road-movie. It's just too bad because the 3 actresses involved (Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Joan Allen) are all some really strong actress and they deserved a better story than this one. Indeed, the whole thing was just poorly written and while those three women were rather interesting, the rest of the characters were just really stereorypical and annoying (like the hitchiker and the step-daugther, for example). The movie just went through the motion and didn't deliver anything any new or interesting concerning this genre so I was rather bored during the whole thing. To conclude, it was not really bad but it was still pretty damned average and I don’t think it is really worth a look.