Reviews by johanlefourbe

Of course, I already saw this movie many times but since it was a while back, I was quite eager to check it out again. In fact, when it was released, I must have been 14 or 15 years old and I saw it three times in the theatre, the 1st time in French and then twice in English. As a matter of fact, I have a rather nice anecdote about this. Indeed, it was the 1st time I saw an original version with subtitles and I was completely blown away by Bruce Willis's real voice. When I was just a kid, I used to watch 'Die Hard' with my dad and, in the French dub, they gave him this very specific high tuned squeaky voice. Suddenly, I was confronted with his real voice which was, of course, really deep and masculine. At that point, I realized that dubbed movies were actually really crappy and I'm so glad I live nowadays in the Netherlands were only animated features and children movies are dubbed. So, as far as I'm concerned, that was the first impact I got from this movie but, of course, it went way beyond that. For example, the whole hyperlink thing and the way the story was not chronologically told was just completely amazing. Of course, it wasn't the first time that those tricks were used but, back then, it was the first time I saw something like that and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one. The point is that Tarantino managed to make an Artsy flick without making it dreary and, for once, you could watch something which was smartly built up and also having a great time watching it. What else should I add ? The music was great (one of the best selling soundtracks ever), the dialogues were awesome, the cast was awesome (with a major come-back for John Travolta) and the whole thing was just so damned entertaining to watch. To be honest, I sometimes struggled with Tarantino’s most recent work but this movie is still an impressive masterpiece and a must-see for any decent movie lover.

We often talk about how many actors managed to make some impressive come-backs in their career but, very often, we tend to forget that for some directors, the path was also pretty hazardous and David O. Russell is one perfect example. Indeed, after helming 3 movies, he was hailed as the next best thing. Unfortunately, even though Russell was definitely a talented director, he also had some issues and he got the reputation of being quite impossible to work with. As a result, Russell managed to make only one movie between 1999 and 2010, the barely seen ‘I Heart Huckabees’. Even though this movie barely got noticed when it was released, I was still eager to check it out but what a weird movie... Seriously, it must be one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen. It was basically some kind of surrealist comedy and David O. Russell himself referred to it as his ‘midlife crisis movie’. I thought it was not bad at all and there was a really impressive  cast involved (Jason Schwartzman, Isabelle Huppert, Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts, Saïd Taghmaoui, Jonah Hill, Isla Fisher, Talia Shire and even Shania Twain). Seriously, if you think that Mark Wahlberg can't act, you should really check this movie. To conclude, even though it is probably an acquire taste, it was a nice daft comedy and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in David O. Russell’s work.

Even though this movie had a rather lame reputation, I really loved the idea of making a blockbuster feature set in the prehistoric era so I still wanted to check it out. Eventually, since I had some rather low expectations, I thought it would be total crap and, indeed, it was nothing great,  but, in my opinion, it wasn't so bad after all. I mean, I have to admit it, Steven Strait was one of the weakest lead actors I have ever seen (it is hardly surprising that his career never took off after this movie flopped) and the story was really too similar to 'Apocalypto' but, still, I don’t think this movie was a total failure. I mean, it is not very often that you get to see a blockbuster dealing with the prehistoric era and the whole thing was visually pretty impressive. So, this movie really had some potential and I think it could have been great. Unfortunately, Roland Emmerich didn’t try at all to deliver a convincing or even entertaining tale so the end-result was still rather disappointing. To conclude, I have to admit, it is and remains an average summer blockbuster but I don’think it was as awful as everyone seems to think.

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and I should definitely re-watch it at some point. Anyway, I really loved the damned thing. Indeed, after all those American Pie clones and other weak and underwhelming high-school comedies, we might forgot how it was to be in our late teens. Those movies may be entertaining (most aren't though) but they are always completely unrealistic. In my opinion, ‘Ghost World’ was a massive wake up call and send me right back in the reality which was pretty awesome. Back then, Thora Birch, who was playing the lead here, was quite popular, especially following ‘American Beauty’, but this movie would be her last interesting movie and she has pretty much disappeared since then. On the other hand, it was one of the 1^st high-profile projects for Scarlett Johansson and, even though she was there only as a supporting character, she would have eventually a much more impressive career than Birch after all. Anyway, the 2 girls gave some really solid performances and they had a great chemistry together. Later on, my sister would give me the comic-book as a gift, it also became of the my favorites and this movie was definitely really faithful to the original comic-book. Anyway, I really loved the damned thing and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.        

I already saw this movie (In fact, I’m pretty sure I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released), but since it was such a long time ago, I was quite eager to check it out again. Marc Foster was, in my opinion, one of the most interesting directors back then and, if I recall it correctly, it was in fact the first movie I have seen directed by him. Unfortunately, ever since  ‘Quantum of Solace’ turned out to be arguably the weakest James Bond flick starring Daniel Craig, I’m afraid his career took a nosedive and it has been while since he has done something impressive which is too bad because, before that, his track-record was actually pretty much flawless. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, even though it doesn’t seem to have such a great reputation nowadays, I thought it was a strong story with some solid directing and some top-notch acting. In fact, after all these years, was it perhaps the only very good performance by Halle Berry? I mean, I do believe that she was and still is one of the most beautiful actresses in the world but, except for this movie, for which she was the first and still only African-American woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, she hasn’t done anything really impressive, I’m afraid. Finally, I shouldn’t forget to mention Billy Bob Thornton who maybe didn’t win an Academy Award at the time but the guy still did deliver one of his best performances here. Anyway, to conclude, in my opinion, it was and still is a fascinating tale about two broken souls falling in love with each other and it think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.