Reviews

As far as comedies go, I must admit, this one from Quebec is much funnier than many of those made in France in recent years. This movie is humorous on three different levels: the slapstick comedy bits, the hilarious set-up and its continuous action and dialogs, and also the whole plot viewed as one wholesome story.

The movie is about two comedians who tour small villages and perform their stand-up routine in different bars. And, as luck would have it, in one of those villages they made fun of a wrong person in the crowd, who then immediately set on getting his revenge. Michel Côté is simply fantastic in his role of a village thickheaded old bachelor with no charms, who eventually acquires more and more social skills and "the sense of humor", with the help of those two funny-men that he holds as hostages.

What I especially liked about this film is the precision and subtlety with which the relationships between different people are portrayed and presented: between Luc and Marco, between Marco and his wife, between Luc and his sister, etceteras. But the main feature of this movie, that makes it so great, is that all the jokes work extremely well, they are all funny and delivered with impeccable finesse and exact timing.

In conclusion, this is a fantastic comedy, one of the best I've seen in years. Anne Dorval, though her role is quite short, shines brightly, as usual. I only give the film nine stars, because towards the end, a certain plausibility of main characters' actions was missing a bit, but this did not prevent it from having a grand and astounding finale.

This is a great movie, which came from Quebec. Let the title not confuse you: the language of the movie is French, and it is shot in Montreal. There are two main characters, a single man and a single woman in their late thirties. This is the age, which is considered by many as the last possibility at romance, family and children. He meets her by accident, and in order to overcome the awkwardness of the situation and to start a conversation, he pretends to be someone else, that she used to know in college. I will not give any more spoilers, but what follows is a game of sexes, with doubts and revelations, in which ultimately the heroes must learn to listen to their hearts. It is a romantic movie, but it is also a terrific comedy. I found the dialogs between the leading man and his Haitian coworker extremely hilarious. There are also many funny scenes, for example in the remote restaurant, which is called "Cattail in the Wind". During the scene, where the guy meets the girl's father, I literally fell off the chair. All in all, this is a splendid lighthearted romantic comedy, which would entertain you rather charmingly for about eighty minutes.

I give seven stars to this movie. Largely because of the restaurants they have visited, I liked exactly seven. Also, I am a huge fan of the British humor. It makes you think, why exactly the joke is supposed to be funny. One of the guys does hilarious impressions of famous people, though I wasn't able to tell which ones. Because of the actors' rather peculiar accents, I didn't understand half of their conversations. Luckily, the cultural references in the other half went right over my head, so, I suppose, I didn't miss all that much. But the film is definitely worth seeing. It is very well shot, fantastic camera work, and just the right amount of lighting in nearly all the scenes. The actors are good too. I would say they worked hard and diligently at their roles, and it shows. In conclusion, it turned out to be a very educational experience, watching a movie made on the other side of the Atlantic ocean.

This is another coming-of-age comedy with elements of drama from Quebec. The movie takes place in 1969, in a small town, where a 12 year old boy dreams of making it to the Woodstock Festival to see his hero, a guitar rock musician James Hendrix. There are a lot of funny scenes and touching episodes. A fair amount of drama and a bit of tragedy. Overall, it is a great movie, which keeps you feel good, long after you walk out of the theater. I think the movie will also appeal to those who want to see an interesting movie about the life in Quebec at that time. I liked the very nicely developed characters and the great actors' play as well.

The film tells the story of two girls from poor Moroccan families in Paris and their friendship. There are no interesting twists or turns in the movie, which jumps from one uninteresting "real-life situation" to the other, without making deep observations or being somewhat entertaining. We see those girls interact with their families, friends, colleagues, lovers, we see them partying and working, talking to each other, but the dialogs are rather boring. One thing that I found amusing is that the characters use a lot of "verlan" and they dress fashionably cute. The bottom line is that the film is dull, the characters are under-developed and the dialogs are rather plain.

I liked very much the previous movie by the director, "The House of Sand and Fog", but this one is below average. First of all, there is a question of how credible the main characters' behavior is in the extraordinary circumstances. One thing for sure, no "columbine-style" killer walks and talks like this - too polished and cool, like an actor in a western. And no victim behaves the way those two girls did, that is a fact. Also, many factual mistakes, for example the modern style flat screen computer terminals existed in 1992? The bottom line is, the movie appears as a lame attempt by Hollywood to play on viewers' emotions, but fails miserably.. It does not deliver the goods, as there is only a very little credibility for the characters, for their dialogs, and for the actual events. In short, it is a bit painful to watch, as the movie falls apart in many places.

This is a very engaging and interesting movie, but I still was left somewhat disappointed after it ended. The actors are good and the camera work is not bad either. What let my overall impression down were huge holes in the story, quite a few things that didn't make any sense at all, and the absurd desire of the creators to add as many turns and twists to the story as they can possibly squeeze in. Seven people dies to save one little secret? Highly unrealistic. I will not go into divulging any of the spoilers, but the second part of the movie was so hollywoodish, in the worst sense of the word, that it was almost on the verge of laughable. Also, several key scenes were shot hastily and without any respect for the viewer, just to carry on with the unrealistic plot. The bottom line: it is an OK movie, but with some huge gaps in the storyline and direction.

An American couple goes to Greece for their honeymoon, and soon after befriends a smart and beautiful Russian girl, who feels lonely on the island while her father does important archaeological work. You can probably guess where the movie plot is going, but yet it is full of surprises and unexpected psychological twists and turns. Without giving any spoilers away, I would say that the plot would keep you on the edge of your seat up until the very last scene (which I found shocking and somewhat regrettable). I especially liked the dialogs, full of eloquent allusions - they were quite thoughtful and sophisticated. And last, but not least - you get to see beautiful panoramic views of mesmerizing nature, sea, and shores as well as detailed scenes of town's life with its own cultural treasures and unique customs. And lots of tits and ass as well :)

I enjoyed most of the film. I really did. It has every little bit of a great cinema a buff can enjoy: great script, which delicately develops a wonderful plot, good directing and camera, and great actors, for the most part. Except for the police woman played by Demi Moore. Her character is utterly pretentious, and hard to believe. I think her presence on the screen kinda ruptures the smooth way the story is going, in a bad way. Big mistake: she doesn't belong to the role and the role does not belong to her. I swear from now on I will never watch any other flick with her participation, for the most part because of her inferior performance in this movie, which has made her character lose all credibility and made us feel like we forcibly watch Striptease for the first time in a row. Other than her, the movie is great, the plot is deliciously sophisticated and the final scene will blow you away.

After hearing all this hype, I went and saw this cartoon. On the positive side, it teaches us a lot about the history of Iran, in primitive terms, so maybe some children can benefit and enhance their education by watching this. The explanations are kept simple, to the point of being painfully naive, trying to squeeze into short childish narrative several decades of the history of Iran. The cartoon is not funny, make no mistake! Several lame attempts at humor fail flat. There is a little bit of charming development of the main character, but it again is kept very simplistic and does not go into a bigger extent. Many times I was looking at the watch, quite bored, wondering how soon this cartoon would end. In summary, the cartoon is not entertaining, and the history lesson it tries to teach is rather for the first-graders.

I was mesmerized by the first half of the movie. In great traditions of French cinema, it brought to us real people with real lives, jobs, feelings, circumstances. The actors are simply terrific, the three lead ones, Laurent Lucas, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Charlotte Rampling (don't confuse these two Charlottes, like the director did, the former one has very small breasts and much younger, the Rampling one is much older and used to be very sexy in the first half of the twentieth century) do an amazingly charming job. I enjoyed many things in this movie, the acting, the directing, and the camera work. I guess what did not make me put this movie in my favorite's list is the very dumb ending. I will not reveal the details and particulars, let me just say that they should have kept it simple, but instead all the twists added made it look rather idiotic than believable. After the 86-th minute of the movie I thought someone has replaced the screenwriter with an overly medicated monkey on malt liquor. Also, the music is really bad. I think an amateur was writing all the supposedly "creepy" score at the most dramatic moments, and it is not very good.

In conclusion, I loved the director's previous work, "Good Friend like Harry". Despite not eating raw eggs after each coitus, I still found it fairly amusing. But not this one, due to its hugely disappointing ending.

The movie is made too soon after the tragedy. The movie exploits the tragedy, but not in an entertaining way. There are several episodes in the movie, which are not credible at all, like the episode with telephones, and the bathroom, and the co-pilot stuff. The passenger's behavior is very strange, they act like Hollywood make-out war heroes, although they are supposed to behave just like ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. The camera work and the prompts are good, but the directing is flawed. I could not wait for the movie to end, and I regret wasting my time on it. Apart from being absolutely not credible, the movie does not grip you, does not make you feel for the characters, and as everyone knows how it ends, does leave much room for anticipation. I would definitely recommend skipping this one.