Reviews by johanlefourbe

First of all, I'm not a big fan of those old Westerns but, on the other hand, I haven’t seen many of them so maybe I just missed the better ones. Anyway, I’m not sure if this one is actually a classic but it definitely had a prestigious director (John Ford) and 2 great actors (John Wayne and Henry Fonda) so I thought I might as well check it out. To be honest, I have never really understood the appeal of John Wayne but, I have to admit it, I have seen only a handful of his movies so far. On the other hand, even though I have seen just as many movies starring Henry Fonda, right from the start, I always thought he was quite fascinating and he was pretty good in this movie. It was also rather funny to see Shirley Temple all grown-up and, even though at 20 years old, she was still quite charming but, apparently, she never managed to be really successful as an adult. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, I thought it was rather well made and fairly entertaining but, to be honest, I forgot most of it the very next day. To conclude, even though it wasn’t really a masterpiece, it is still worth a look, especially if you like this genre.

Since this movie is quite a classic, I was really eager to check it out and I had some rather high expectations. To be honest, I thought it would be better than this but still, it remains a damned good picture nonetheless. There was an impressive cast (John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Rod Steiger, Bourvil, Robert Wagner, Paul Anka) and even though there were some critics that many of those actors were actually too old to portray their characters (For example, at 54 years old, John Wayne was actually twice older than Col. Benjamin Vandervoort actually was) , they were all pretty good and the story was interesting enough. I don’t know, 40 years later, Steven Spielberg made ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and even though I think this movie was vastly overrated, I have to admit that its introduction, its depiction of the D day, was just unforgettable and it was probably one of the most impressive scenes I ever saw and, compared to this, ‘The Longest Day’ is a solid feature but not as mind-blowing as this sequence. To conclude, I still think it is a fine WWII feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

This was so bad... Beforehand, I had some very low expectations but since I have a weak spot for Shannyn Sossamon, I thought I should give it a try anyway. Eventually, the movie was a complete waste of time... First of all, Shannyn Sossamon has a very small part so you shouldn't watch it just for her. It was also sad to see Carrie Fisher showing up in such a bad movie. I mean, I don't think she was/is a great actress but she definitely didn't deserve this.... Concerning Steven Strait, if you have never heard of the guy before, that's not really surprising, I have seen the 4 first movies he made ('10,000 BC', 'The Covenant', 'Undiscovered', 'Sky High') and they were all pretty bad. Ok, the guy looks charming but, honestly, he is at best an average actor and I'm being nice here. Concerning Pell James, that's another story. You have probably never heard of her either but she is actually a rather talented actress. I mean, the same year, she showed up in 'The King', she was pretty impressive in this movie and it is so depressing to seeing her showing up afterwards in such a bad flick... Basically, it is one of those unoriginal and uninspired flick dealing with with a struggling musician. In its genre, it's probably one of the worst I have seen. Just avoid it...

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but, somehow, I still ended up watching the damned thing. I don’t know if you have noticed but I’m clearly obsessed about my movie watching and, sometimes, I end up watching some really obscure features just because there is 1 or 2 actors I like that are involved. In this case, I think I watched this flick just because there was Jada Pinkett Smith in it. Eventually, I thought she was indeed pretty good, she pretty much stole the show every time she was one the screen but everything else was just pretty lame. By the way, I have noticed something weird about this flick. Indeed, in some posters and some of the stills, you see Keenen Ivory Wayans with his hair completely shaven and a big earring and on some other posters and stills, his hair is back and the earring is gone. Did he actually change his appearance during the movie? I don’t think so but, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter, the whole thing was just really underwhelming. Anyway, to conclude, even though I have seen worse, I don’t think it is really worth a look and you should pretty much avoid it.

To be honest, I had never heard of this flick before but since it was starring Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney, I thought I should give it a try anyway. First of all, eventually, it was a rather obscure feature, there were lots of good things in this movie. Indeed, the directing was solid and, above all, the actors involved gave some very good performances but unfortunately the story didn't work out so well. I don't know exactly what was the issue with the plot but even though it was definitely interesting, it was still missing something to be really remarkable. Maybe it was because I have seen too many similar stories before, anyway, at the end, I didn't really care much about the characters involved and what they were going through. It's too bad because it really had some potential but it was just not spellbinding enough. On a funny side-note, it was actually the first I actually saw Deborra-Lee Furness, the much older wife of Hugh Jackman. No offence, but it was rather difficult to picture her with such a hunk. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it remains a solid drama and it think it is definitely worth look, especially if you like the genre.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this flick. Indeed, when it was released, it was a huge commercial and critical flop and it was even considered as one of the worst movies released in 2005. With this in mind, I thought it would be completely terrible but, even though it was indeed really average, it could have been much worse and there were in fact a few good things. Maybe that’s because it was actually a really cool story and, so, as the end-results was just so underwhelming, that’s why people got so pissed off about it. On top of it, the production company went went bankrupt during post-production, so, they managed to get only $30 million to work, instead of the $80 million they were supposed to get and, as a result, the visual effects looked pretty terrible. Anyway, there were some elements of the story which were actually quite interesting (this whole butterfly effect theory remains really fascinating) and the cast was actually pretty decent (Edward Burns, Ben Kingsley, Catherine McCormack) . At the end of the day, it is a typical Hyams effort with some potential but still a terrible half-baked end-product. To conclude, I wouldn't recommend it but it was not a complete failure in my opinion.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this movie but since I have a weak spot for Mira Sorvino, I thought I might as well check it out. I thought the whole thing looked really lame but since I heard some good things about this movie, I was rather curious about the damned thing. Eventually, it is not very often that I came across such a film for which I didn’t see the appeal at all. I mean, sure, I have seen my share of bad movies but this one was supposed to be decent but, in my opinion, it was just really average and very forgettable. Basically, the main issue was that both main characters were pretty irritating and, therefore, I thought it was really difficult to care about those girls and what they were going through. I guess it was all supposed to be quirky and all but the whole thing just got on my nerves. Apparently, during the production, Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino both made fun of the fact that they respectively had a degree from Vassar College and Harvard University but I find it rather sad that such supposedly smart women would find the need to play such vapid girls. Anyway, to conclude, I just really didn’t connect at all with this flick and I don’t think it is worth a look.

Since I’m a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock, of course, I was really eager to check this flick and I had some really high expectations. Eventually, it didn’t turn out to be one of my favorite movies from this great master. Indeed, to be honest, I do think that the concept was a little bit limited preventing this movie from being truly great but it was still pretty awesome and it completely deserves its stellar reputation. Nowadays, one thing that really bores me is that, in thriller or horror movies, they spend so much time trying to rationalize the most preposterous things (the best example I can think of is ‘The Ring’ remake starring Naomi Watts). The greatness of Hitchcock, in this movie, was to skip all this boring stuff and to only focus on what was really important which is basically ‘how do people would react with such circumstances?’. As a result, you get such a spellbinding ominous mood and this awesome effect would have been completely ruined if they would have given any kind of explanation about what the hell was actually going on. To conclude, I really loved the damned thing, it is a great classic and it is pretty much a must-see, especially if you are interested in Alfred Hitchcock’s work.

Once again, it was another really obscure feature that barely anyone here on Listal has seen so far (I was only the 2nd Listal member who has rated the damned thing). To be honest, I had no idea what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for William Hurt, I thought I might as well give it a try. Concerning Hurt, I always wonder what actually happened to the guy. I mean, throughout the 80’s, he was easily one of the most heralded actors but it all stopped somehow at the beginning of the 90’s. As a result, he usually shows up nowadays in such really obscure features like this one. To be honest, I thought it was not bad, William Hurt was pretty good in this movie but the story was not really great, I’m afraid. I think it’s too bad because it had some potential. Concerning Molly Parker, she was quite charming as usual and I think she had some pretty good chemistry with William Hurt. To conclude, even though it was nothing really amazing, I thought it was still a decent watch, thanks to the actors involved, and I think it is worth a look.

If I recall it correctly, my wife made me watched this flick. Indeed, I think it was her boss at the time who really loved the damned thing so he lent her this film on DVD. In all fairness, I have to admit that this movie was a big international success and it was even nominated for the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film (it eventually lost to the much superior ‘Mar adentro’) , so, it seemed to be pretty good. Eventually, I really liked the cast who gave some solid performances, especially Michael Nyqvist who is definitely an actor to follow, but, unfortunately, I thought that the story was really pedestrian and full of cliches. Seriously, how many times have you see this gimmick before? The stranger comes into town. He hates it and the locals think he is weird. But then, they start to get along fine and at the end, they all love each other but of course, there is some drama in between... I think I must have seen this at least 100 times before and, to be honest, even though I have to admit that it was well made, I thought the whole thing was rather boring. To conclude, it’s too bad because it had some potential but it is still worth a look but there are some way better Scandinavian movies out there.