raraavis-2

OK, the settings are beautiful, the women are attractive, the dresses very good... and that's about it. The film is totally unreal, it's impossible to believe the characters are French: their attitudes, their movements, their expressions, are totally Anglo-Saxon. The film is unbelievable at all times, there is an excessive use of music (a Hollywood trademark), the acting is wooden... This film is as close to 19th century Paris as a Las Vegas reproduction is close to Venice. For example, the main character - Bel Ami - sports trendy stubble, something that would have got him thrown out of any respectable house at the time.

I found myself yawning and wondering how long until the film ended. And my wife fell asleep for a short while And - let me add - we're both film buffs.

If only the French had made this movie... as it is, my instinctive dislike of Hollywood movies was more than justified by this one. A waste of time, except - as I said before - for the visual enjoyment provided by Uma Thurman and Ricci.

Late Bloomers sounds like a good idea: a film about growing old, treated with humor. A director with a well-known name – Gavras – and actors such as Isabella Rossellini and William Hurt. The ingredients are all there and yet the final dish is unappetizing. What has gone wrong? I saw the movie at a special showing in London, with Ms. Gavras present. The theater – Cinema Lumière, at the French Institute - was absolutely full. After ten minutes, I knew it was going to be a struggle to stay to the end. Nobody was laughing. On screen, what should have been rapier wit turned out to be blunderbuss jokes. The approach was obvious and the humor was primitive, to say the least. Isabella Rossellini is Hurt's wife. She realizes one day that they have become, well, old. And she starts a campaign to minimize the effects of old age: she has handicapped kit installed in their bathroom, she buys for her husband a telephone with large, easy to see buttons, etc. This is supposed to be very funny. Worried that the suffers minor memory losses now and then, she follows her doctor's indications and goes to water aerobics, where lots of people in a swimming pool jump up and down, following an instructor's indications. She is out of step and jumps up when everybody else is jumping down. Again, supposed to be very funny. The whole film suffers from "in your face" attempts at being funny, which it ain't. When it ended, we had been told Ms. Gavras – the director – would appear on stage to answer questions and talk about the movie. Half the audience left the theater in a hurry, including my wife and me. We talked to a few of the people leaving the place and they all told us "It was bad enough to watch the movie… who wants to talk about it?". If only somebody like Woody Allen had directed this

This film recreates quite well 1936 Spain (or so it seems to me, not having been alive at the time). Leaving aside the plot, which is explained elsewhere, the problem is that the film's director had a clear political agenda: all left wing people are kind, lovable, intellectual, charming, intelligent and reasonable. All right wing people are brutal, ignorant, bigoted, thick and aggressive. More than a film, this is a piece of propaganda, designed to rewrite history.

1930s Spain and the 1936-1939 civil war are complex subjects. No side or political party was totally good or totally bad. The black-and-white view presented in this movie constitutes intellectual manipulation and assumes that the film's spectators are going to be gullible and naive, devoid of any capacity to appreciate the endless shadings of historical events.

Other than that, it is well made and easy on the eye. Pity that its central idea should be so biased and false.

Another résistance tale, excellent settings, clothes, etc., but a very flat plot that never grips you. That, plus the actual length of the film make it feel eternal. The theoretical "good guys" - the résisrance, are mostly communists, quite a few of them rather sinister. One feels that their ideas are very similar to those of the Nazis they're trying to fight and, frankly, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. And,like so many French films, this one tries to rewrite history. Because, much as the French hate to admit it, most of the population just wanted to survive the war and disliked the résistants, who provoked dangerous German retaliation. Of course, after the war EVERYBODY turned out to have been in the résistance and had behaved heroically. All in all, a disappointing movie. Much better stuff has been filmed about that period of French history.

A self-declared dandy in his 30s, who lives with his mother and works - now and then - at his (recently) dead father's workshop spends every night at a local bar, playing cards with friends and solving the world's problems. One day he decides to leave his town and move to Mexico. His last night in town happens to be that of his birthday and he goes, as always, to his bar, to meet his friends. That night there is a beautiful Russian girl there, they go out for a walk and spend hours discovering mysterious places, watching unexpected events and getting to know each other. With the arrival of dawn, reality raises its head: the main character has grown up more during that night - a true rite of passage - than in all the years of his life up to that point.

The film has a very Spanish ending - I can't say any more without spoiling it - and leaves a bittersweet taste in the spectator's mouth. The images remain in your head, as does the sheet magical mood of the night. Highly enjoyable.

A multifaceted story which - apart from being interesting, well filmed and well acted - keeps the spectator getting ideas about what is really happening, just to have those ideas destroyed a few minutes later. Everything is thrown in: personal stories, criminal events, the French publishing world, sex and romance in a complex and fascinating whirlpool that ensures that you'll pay close attention. Highly enjoyable film, which is and yet is not a "film noir". The main male character can be offputting, which is not surprising, considering that he might be - underline "might" - a serial killer. The female roles are very good, with Fanny Ardant in a superb performance. If you think you'd like an intriguing movie that requires you to think, don't miss it.

The movie appears to be a Germany/USA production, with a British director, yet its pace and mood are absolutely European (it could have been a French movie). I won't explain the plot, as it's been described elsewhere, but I must say that it kept me engrossed.

I think, however, that the silly habit of having "foreigners" speak in English with the accent of their countries should be eliminated: these are Germans supposedly speaking in German with each other. OK, we hear them in English, but that's for the benefit of English-speaking audiences. Why should they have a foreign accent? They're supposed to be speaking - I repeat - in their own language. This is an anglocentric quirk that should be stopped.

All in all, an excellent, atmospheric movie.

Won't describe the movie because its plot has been explained elsewhere. Good plot with a lot of overlapping themes: the female biological clock, the theater, romantic relationships... Loved the sense of humor and the witty dialogs. The quirky characters, with lots of chutzpah, are great. The actresses are clear proof of the beauty of Hungarian women, Budapest is an excellent background and the movie moves at a good pace.

The movies has no great pretensions, but that is exactly why it is good. This is the sort of thing that Hollywood has forgotten how to make. And for a country with a small international presence in the world of movies, this is a really professional film.

All in all, very enjoyable.

The clothes and settings are very good. And that's about it. Most of the characters don't look French, but clearly Anglo-Saxon, particularly in the way they move. The sound track is awful, with the modern tunes destroying any hope of losing yourself in the movie. I suppose that was considered "cute" or "cutting edge" by the director, but the result is a total sense of disbelief in the spectator.

In general, boring and pretentious. The fact that it got one or two Oscars (not sure and could not be bothered to check) confirms how bad it is, Oscars being in general the kiss of death.

Could be OK to watch with the sound turned off since, as I said at the beginning, it IS visually appealing.

Am sure it'll do well in the drive-in circuit, if any drive-ins still exist.

While Rome goes mad celebrating Hitler's visit - uniforms, bands, parades - two outsiders stay home, in a large building, and wind up meeting. She is Sofia Loren, who is the wife of brutish public servant and mother of six children. He is Mastroianni, a radio speaker who's been fired because of his homosexuality. Both of them need company and understanding, both f them find it in each other.

The movie covers a span of a few hours. The color are faded and everything takes place with a sound track of military marches and hysterical radio announcers. Strangely enough, the Nazi anthem - the Horst-Wessel-Lied - ends up becoming a romantic musical theme.

Beautiful movie, excellent recreation of a special era in Italian history and a touching, sad story. Mastroianni is as good as we have come to expect and Sofia Loren does a superb job, very far away from her usual truck driver's pin-up, Neapolitan fishwife personas. Don't miss it.

Bond for the mindless set: no class, no elegance, no humor, a Bond who looks extremely ill at ease in a dinner jacket, violence for violence's sake, endless explosions and fights... in fact, just another car-chases-explosions-and-guns film of the kind that Hollywood cranks out by the dozen, even if this one wasn't made in Hollywood. I yawned through it and left before the end.

This movie has been clearly aimed at a different market, at a public that consumes tons of popcorn and chats on mobiles (cellphones) while watching a movie. It is, you might say, a "chav" Bond. Daniel Craig would be more believable as a truck driver than as a classy character such as the real Bond we all knew and loved.

If you are a Bond fan, stay away from this garbage.

I decided to see Atonement when I saw its trailer: nice shots, life in England just before WW2, an interesting human drama, etc. I began to worry a little bit when I heard a critic say that "it is in The English Patient territory" - a film I deeply disliked - and worried even more when I read comments saying that Atonement would be a strong candidate for an Oscar, since Oscars are awards given on the basis of the commercial success of films, instead of their artistic merits.

My worst fears were confirmed: Atonement is a pretentious but ultimately vacuous film. It reminded me of that famous line, "he didn't say anything, but he said it so beautifully!". It is very well shot, the actors are decent - if a little bit wooden - the locations magnificent and its basic plot is fine. But it never involves you. I found myself yawning, making shopping lists in my head and wondering what time it was.

The plot? Without giving away anything important (not that there is anything much to give away) the film turns around a13-year old girl who, through a mixture of naiveté and jealousy ruins the life of a young man and many years later tries to make amends for it. It takes place in the late 30s and the 13-year old girl is one of the daughters of an upper middle class, wealthy family: beautiful country house, gardens, servants, the whole British cliché. The boy whose life is ruined is the son of one of the caretakers, but he's been taken under the wing of the family, has gone to good schools and is planning to study medicine at Cambridge, which means he knows how to wear a dinner jacket (when he's not carrying suitcases for weekend visitors).

The problem is that the movie tries to be "arty" while having mass appeal. It uses quite a few fashionable tricks, such as an unorthodox sound track (lots of typing noises), high volume sound effects and long, "artistic" tracking shots. It never manages to involve spectators in the events that it describes and, ultimately, it's but a pretentious and shallow attempt to describe the way some people lived in England at the time. Uninteresting, boring and fake. Or, to quote the classics, "much ado about nothing".

Apart from the beautiful clothes, houses and landscapes, this overlong film goes nowhere very, very slowly. I must admit that I've never been a fan of D. H. Lawrence and this French production certainly faithful to its original.

I love movies with a slow, contemplative pace, such as Visconti's, and am a decided admirer of European - particularly French - films, but this one just produced an endless stream of yawns. Its director has tried every trick in the book to create a "meaningful" movie: long shots, dreamy facial expressions, gurgling creeks, slow, al fresco sex, pseudo profound conversations. Nothing works. It's just pretentious tripe, so devoid of any interest that it may well get all kinds of Oscar nominations.

My advice? Regardless of whether you are in the Hollywood or European movie camp, avoid this one.

Harmless, not too good comedy is the best description for this movie. The idea? When an antiques dealer is told by his business partner that he has no friends, he denies it. A bet is made that he must produce a good friend within a few days. The rest of the film turns around his attempts to make a friend (and I cannot say any more without spoiling it, improbable as that is).

The idea is good, but the script is unpolished, the character are overacted and the plot does not use quite a number of possibilities that might have turned this into a better film. Not terribly funny, not too credible and, at times, just plain boring. It's surprising that people like Leconte and Auteil should have taken part in this rather mediocre movie.

In brief, there are better ways to spend an evening.

Luc Besson has never been one of my favorite directors (he seems to go for mindless violence à la Hollywood, except classier, of course) but this must be a one-off for him. An imaginative fairy tale, shot in black and white, with an absolutely beautiful Paris (he must have shot at dawn, to avoid crowds and cars) and a gangly but charming and oddly sexy Danish actress. The main male character is a typical anti-hero who comes good in the end, there are assorted baddies who - mostly - get their just desserts and you get to do a bit of tourism in Paris.

It's not a masterpiece, but it's amusing, entertaining and uplifting: you come out with a smile on your face and that can't be bad, right? If if it comes to wherever you live, don's miss it.

This is a film with a very simple idea behind it: The United Kingdom (and, one supposes, the rest of the West) is using Africa as an unwilling testing ground for drugs. There is the usual collusion between governments, drug companies and other capitalistic baddies, who are willing and able to go to any extremes, including murder, in order to make a buck. Africans are all good (except for those in government, who being part of the establishment, are also baddies) and Westerners are all bad (except for Ralph Fiennes, who seems to have taken a page off Hugh Grant's style book, playing the usual shy, introverted, bumbling but basically charming public school Englishman, and his wife, a fiery activist cum fearless investigator, rather unbearably self-righteous). Africa is nothing but shantytowns and misery. Official London is a nest of vipers. And the movie is, sadly enough, nothing but a collection of one-sided clichés. It is reasonably well shot and made, but it feels like a partisan documentary trying too hard to sell an idea.

I'm not saying that there is no truth in the accusations made in this film, but its obvious, heavy bias detracts from its possible message. No mention of the fact, for example, that African governments have dismissed on occasion the dangerous spread of AIDS as "a foreign invention" and in consequence are far from blameless. It's all black and white, with no shadings.

And leaving aside the message, as entertainment it's also dubious: I've been a John le Carré fan for many years, but when I read this book, I concluded that he had lost the plot. Literally. And the film has not made me change my mind. It's a film that had not made up its mind about whether it wants to be a love story, a description of the dark works of governments and large companies or a socio-political documentary with a large ax to grind. It tries to be all three things and as a result, it's nothing much. Boring.

This would seem to be a collection of people and situations meant to show us the underbelly of modern France. In fact, the only common theme would appear to be a politically correct view of illegal immigrants. Even this would have been OK, had it been done artfully. As it is, the film jumps around without much cohesion (apparently this is supposed to make viewers think. I found it amateurish). There is not a single instant of joy or even of contentment: everything is dreary, sad and miserable. Insofar as I am concerned, this is one of those films that justify Samuel Goldwyn's famous words to his scriptwriters, "If you have a message, go to Western Union!". Hard to believe Juliette Binoche let herself be captured for this. Absolutely sleep-inducing and best avoided.

It's a totally surreal movie that did remind me of "Delicatessen". Even the peculiar pastel colors are similar. The tale? A new maid starts working at a dilapidated boarding house - a pension - in Paris, in 1913, and she gets involved with a young German artist who lives there. Her relationship with him is the central part of the plot, but the other characters add subplots in their own strange ways. The people who live there are peculiar, the owners are peculiar, the situations are peculiar... but I got caught in it and came to enjoy the faintly claustrophobic atmosphere. Drama, touches of black humor, absurdity, love and betrayal, it's got it all. Not an absolute masterpiece but well worth seeing.