Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I always had a weak spot for Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, I was quite eager to check it out. Eventually, it was basically yet another one of these interesting projects starring Norton which didn’t turn out to be so great after all. I mean, the whole thing definitely had some potential. Indeed, first of all, it was completely shot on location in China and I thought it was quite gorgeous to look at. Then, the directing was decent and, as usual, Edward Norton and Naomi Watts both gave some really performances. Unfortunately, even though Norton was really passionate about this tale (apparently, he had been working on it as far back as 1999), I thought it was rather underwhelming and I had a rather hard time to really care about the characters and what they were going through. In fact, the book written by W. Somerset Maugham was supposedly even bleaker than this adaptation so I wonder what Norton actually saw in this story. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was slightly disappointing, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

By now, I have seen most of the movies starring Jason Statham and, even though I have some respect for the guy and even though he is usually pretty badass, to be honest, most of his movies are actually rather boring. The main issue is that he basically always plays the very same character in all his movies which has become rather tedious in my opinion. Anyway, there has been a few exceptions and this movie was definitely one of them. Indeed, before watching the damned thing, I heard many good things about this flick so I was rather anxious to see it. Eventually, I thought it was really neat. First of all, I knew nothing about the story which probably made the whole story even more spellbinding to watch. Basically, it is a rather straightforward heist feature but the fact it was based on a real story probably help it to stay grounded and, in my opinion, it is easily one of the best movies in this genre. I have noticed that some people compare this to Guy Ritchie's movies (‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ and ‘Snatch’) but I didn't really get this comparison (expect of course for the fact that Jason Statham was involved in all these movies). Anyway, it was definitely a really entertaining movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

After 'El laberinto del fauno', Guillermo del Toro suddenly became hugely popular among the mainstream audience and everybody seemed to be pretty excited to see his following feature, even more than when the first installment was released. Personally, I wasn’t sure about it (I wasn’t exactly blown away by the first installment) and eventually, I was right. I mean, pretty much like the first movie, I have to admit it, it was visually pretty impressive but the story was seriously not really inspiring. Sure, it was interesting and entertaining enough and some of the characters looked pretty bad-ass but I really had a hard time to care about the whole thing. Maybe I was bothered by all the romantic stuff, maybe the whole thing should have been darker, I don’t know. But I guess that's not the point here. Since then, there has been some never ending discussion about a possible 3rd installment but it seems unlikely that it will ever get made. Not only there is apparently some rights issue involved but also Del Toro seems to be one of the busiest directors in the world, even though he manages to make only 1 movie every 5 years. Anyway, even though the whole thing didn’t really convince me, it still looked really gorgeous, and only for this, it is definitely worth a look.

By now, I have seen almost all the films directed by Jim Sheridan (I’m only missing ‘The Field’). Nowadays, we don’t hear much from the guy and ever since he went to direct ‘Get Rich or Die Tryin'’, easily one of the weirdest career choices ever made by any director, his career was never the same afterwards and it has been more than a decade since he has released a critical hit. Eventually, if things don’t improve for him in the near future, he would be forever remembered as the one director who did manage to work no less than 3 times with the great Daniel Day-Lewis. From this trilogy, the movie was probably the least prestigious one but I still really liked it. Sure, the story was nothing really amazing but Daniel Day-Lewis was, as usual, pretty awesome. Indeed, the guy spent a staggering 3 years training as a boxer in preparation for this role and, as long as the movie was focusing on this character, it was quite spellbinding. Anyway, to conclude, even though it was definitely not a masterpiece, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Daniel Day-Lewis’s work.

I thought it would be good but it turned out to be much better than I expected. It is rather funny that when the rumor came out that David Fincher was making a movie about Facebook, many people started to actually trash him (you should have checked the boards on IMDB when they still existed). Indeed, it is pretty obvious that an average director would have made an average flick with this material but Fincher succeeded in making one of the best movies of the year. I mean, I don't even care about Facebook at all, I understand that many people really love it but I really don't care about this website whatsoever. I remember it perfectly, I went to see this movie with my wife in the movie theater and, after just 5 minutes, after the break-up between Jesse Eisenberg and Rooney Mara, I was already hooked. I seriously don't care if Mark Zuckerberg is actually a completely different person in real life, the Mark Zuckerberg they showed in this movie was just fascinating. Basically, the guy was a genius but he didn't look like most of your typical lead characters, physically and mentally. Furthermore, he was a disaster in the way he interacted with other people and this whole combination was just spellbinding to behold. So, the writing was quite impressive, but the directing was just as good and so was the acting as well. To conclude, in my opinion, it was yet another really strong directing effort from David Fincher and it is definitely worth a look.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but I was really eager to check  it out, above all because there was a stellar cast involved. Eventually, even though it was not bad at all, to be honest,  it turned out to be a rather boring costume drama, even if it came from Ivory-Merchant, pretty much the all-star team in the genre. Obviously, the costumes and settings were all beautiful but I really had a hard time to care about this story. Furthermore, even though there was a really neat cast (Uma Thurman, Kate Beckinsale, Anjelica Huston, Nick Nolte), why on Earth didn’t they get an Italian actor to play this Italian character ?!? It was seriously distracting and I think it was a rather poor choice. A part from that, all the actors delivered a decent job, the whole thing looked quite gorgeous but, unfortunately, I always find it difficult to care for the supposedly fascinating romantic intrigues of the aristocracy. To conclude, even though it didn’t really work for me, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you are interested in James Ivory's work.

[Link removed - login to see]Basically, there was a time when I would go to a video game shop (which is now closed) and I would buy there on a regular basis 5 DVDs for 5 euros and, sometimes, since I would be missing 1 DVD, I would pick up pretty much anything at random just to reach 5 movies. Anyway, following this amazing process, I ended up watching some rather obscure movies and this one was definitely one of them. In fact, the main reason I saw the damned thing was because Amanda Seyfried was involved but, eventually, she only had a rather small part. Anyway, something rather weird actually happened with this movie. Indeed, from the start, it all seemed rather hopeless and he whole thing was indeed pretty weak and but then, completely against my expectations, the end actually saved this movie from being a total disaster. It was really surprising since I don’t usually care at all for the usual twist endings at the end of your average thriller but this one actually worked for me. However, even if the ending turned out to be decent, the movie itself was still pretty damned average and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

Since I have always been interested in Spike Lee’s work, I was really eager to check out this movie and it took me many years to finally get my hands on the damned thing. Unfortunately, the whole thing turned out to be a huge disappointment and while everyone seems to believe that the guy has lost his touch many years ago, it was the first time I started to believe that they could be actually right. I mean, sure, the directing was decent and there was a nice cast involved but the concept was so misguided, it was seriously rather cringe-inducing to behold. Indeed, the story was just really preposterous, combining some financial scandal drama/thriller with a comedy/drama about a guy having sex with some lesbians to make them pregnant... I mean, seriously?!? For all these years, Spike Lee has been fighting for the rights of African-Americans in order for them to be fairly represented in the entertainment business and, here, he came up with something borderline homophobic. To conclude, it was a rather weird movie and definitely not in a good way so I cannot possibly recommend it, even if you are like me interested in Spike Lee’s work.