Reviews by johanlefourbe

Ever since I saw ‘Butterfly Kiss’, I always thought that Michael Winterbottom was a very interesting director and I try to catch his flicks everytime I get the opportunity. However, like some other directors like Steven Soderbergh for example, I’m afraid that Winterbottom has been a victim of his own ambition. Indeed, since his directing début in 1995, the guy has already directed 19 movies! A consequence of this is that some of his movies while still interesting felt rather half-baked and/or rushed in production. This flick is a very good example. In fact, the plot was actually really sad and even quite heartbreaking, the directing was solid and the performances were all decent and very effective. Unfortunately, the movie was rather short and they spent way too much time walking in those small streets of Genoa and, as a consequence, none of the characters (except maybe the youngest daughter) were developed enough. As result, it was quite frustrating. It's too bad since the material was really interesting and I think it could have been actually a really solid drama. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was a rather flawed and frustrating picture, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Michael Winterbottom's work.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from the damned thing but since I have a weak spot for Jim Carrey, I thought I might as well give it a try. Well, first of all, when you're a planning to watch a movie with such a title, you should'nt expect a huge philosophical masterpiece but some big piece of 80's cheese cake. But still, I have to admit that I actually really enjoyed the opening scene with those 2 horny aliens in their spaceship. Indeed, the damned thing was really refreshing and just plain funny. But then they went for some over-the-top and ugly looking scenes of the LA population and those scenes didn't work really well in my opinion. Even worse, there were some musical scenes popping out of nowhere and those scenes were just terrible and bored me to death. Furthermore, another mistake they made was that the aliens couldn't speak. I mean, it was funny for 5 minutes, but after a while, you wish you could hear what they were thinking. To conclude, even though the concept had some potiental, I didn't really enjoyed this flick after all and, eventutally, it is not really worth a look, except if you want to see Jim Carrey before he became famous.

I wasn't expecting much from the damned thing but since I have a weak spot for Jennifer Anniston and Aaron Eckhart, I thought I might check it out. Well, to be honest, the damned thing turned out to be even worse than I expected. I mean, Aaron Eckhart is a really solid actor and one of the most underrated actors right now and he did his best here. Concerning Jennifer Anniston, I have absolutely nothing against her, she seems to be quite charming and I'm pretty sure that deep inside, there is actually a talented actress hidden somewhere but she just keeps playing those thankless and totally boring characters over and over again so I lost hope with her a while ago. Furthermore, the whole thing could have been actually a rather powerful drama but they kept providing some obnoxious and useless comedy scenes every five minutes. So, there was this rather awkward back and forth between romantic-drama and romantic-comedy and it was just so annoying and it didn't work whatsoever. In fact, this movie reminded me of the Tom Cruise subplot in 'Magnolia'. Indeed, imagine if they had added some romantic-comedy bits in this terrific story. To conclude, I have seen worse movies but it was still really average and I don’t think it is worth a look.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this flick but since I’m a big fan of Clint Eastwood, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, basically, just after he reached fame with the dollar trilogy, Clint Eastwod starred in this flick which would be his first collaboration with Don Siegel. To be honest, when you think about it for a moment, the story was in fact nothing really amazing. I mean, it was about Coogan going to New York and spending the rest of the movie tracking down some guy, that's it. I still enjoyed the damned thing, above all thanks to Clint Eastwood's performance. Indeed, as usual, the guy was just completely charismatic and even though his character seemed rather out of place, he always seemed to have everything under control, even though a couple of times, the odds didn't really look good for him. After this, Siegel and Eastwood will make a few more movies (including 'Dirty Harry') and you can see that right from the start that they worked really well together. To conclude, even though it was nothing really ground-breaking, it was still a nice watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in watching some good old movie starring the great Clint Eastwood.