Reviews

Ang Lee's "Crounching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was for me the best film of this category. I have watched it again and again... Loved the story, and obviously the combat scenes as well. I went into "Hero" and then "...flying daggers", but, unfortunately, none could reach my expectations.

In my opinion, "Fearless" is the worse of all of them: I got suspicious when reading on the DVD box "From the legendary action choreographer of THE MATRIX & KILL BILL". This was an obvious hint that it could not stand on his own feet, but needed a hand from other established movies in order to be able to make its own steps in the big movie business.

With all respect for his Wu Shu skills, "Superstar" Jet Li is *not* a good actor. I prefer his roles in American movies with less text and more fights (Lethal weapon 4).

This is a very touching story of a great Wu Shu practitioner, but poorly portrayed. Too transparent and full of clichés, just not credible enough, mostly due to poor casting.

Remove the combat scenes, "Fealess" wouldn't have anymore much to sell.

I found this film very OK. I would agree, it has that something that could make it a very nice film, but...

TL Jones, just as Clooney in Syriana, is trying to widen the world vision of his fellow countrymen and give the less fortunates of this unequal world, the voice they deserve. But what I found annoying was the too obvious clichés: The rich, arrogant and superficial Americans on one side, the poor, innocent but nice Mexicans on the other side and in the middle, Pete Perkins, role played by TL himself. It was too "black and white" and lacked of nuances that would have made it even more spicy.

This is, I think, TL's first try as director, but I don't believe he had to stretch his talent as he didn't had to reinvent the wheel. See for instance "21 grams" and you'll know what I mean.

The film could have put a little bit more focus on the issue of forgiveness, but that came a little bit too short too my taste.

Nevertheless, I would highly recommend to anyone. When actors go behind the camera, it is most of the time always worth it. I think of Eastwood, De Niro, Clooney and many others I don't remember the name right now....

(6++)7/10

Moolaade is a tribute to the African Woman, our Mother, That which gave us birth, that which gives birth to kings, that which gives birth to the fiercest hunters and fighters, and unfortunately... that which circumcise too!

Sembene's movie is a true and genuine portrait of the African society, it is great when showing the rapports between Man and Woman, Man and Man, Woman and Woman, as we know from other great African wise Men as the late Francis Bebey (Agatha Moudio's Son). Wit Moolaade, Sembene goes even further and shows us the flip side of the coin of the African traditions, the Tyrany and hypocrisy of the Men and Society Eldest against the Women and the others.

I have no idea of film making, but Moolaade could have been, maybe, a little bit shorter. In my eyes, 2 hours was a bit too long...

No doubts about it, Michel Bouquet as the late French President, Francois Mitterand, had an excellent performance. It reminds me Bruno Ganz's interpretation of A. Hitler in "Der Untergang" (The Downfall). But, what would have been the movie without him? That is what has disturbed me from the beginning. Antoine Moreau was, to my eyes, everything else but convincing in his role. this could be interpreted as a weakness of the film, as everything looks to have been focused on one and only one character, the old dying Mitterand who is preparing his farewell as president. A little bit of french/European history knowledge might be helpful, but nevertheless, this film is to recommend.

In the times of McHollywood and all the crap, it is good to know that we still have this kind of movies.

Time is what Juan, the lead actor in the movie, has the most and he uses that time to desperately find a steadier job and occasionally sells hand made knives nobody can afford. The simplicity of "Bombon, el perro" will captivate you. While following the lead actor during his search fornew life opportunities the film never misses an occasion to show thesocial situation in the country, Argentina, with both seriousness and humor.

The main actor gives us a savagely good performance in this film. His body language and mimic, his talk, a great pleasure!

Who ever read the book cannot appreciate the way it was implemented here. OK, I agree, it is unfair to compare books to the film who rely on them. Nevertheless, In my opinion, the director lacked a little bit of imagination and just echoed the book, a big mistake I think. Tomas and the political tension in Prague is here the central character, but from my point of view there wouldn't be this book and thus this film without Tereza. She is THE story.

I am not a director, but viewing the story from the young Tereza's angle, the unplanned child and maltreated but very ambitious young girl whose mother and step father are unable to give her the love and affection she needs. She flees their home in their village to live with Tomas, a surgeon from Prag she met two weeks ago in the pub were she used to work. Tomas turns out to have a weakness for women and though Teresa manages to achieve a good career as photograph, this situation poisons their relationship...

There are for sure many other films dealing with domestic violence, but I bet no one is better than this one.

This is something that is said to happen quite often in Spain and the movie was shot in order to sensitize people for this issue and to bring to talk about it. It is the story of an ill jealous man, full of complex of inferiority, terrorizing his wife and son.

I loved the love scene between both, where he makes her repeat that she gives all her body to him (Te doy mis ojos, te doy mi boca etc.). It shows perfectly the mental state of the husband who sees his wife as his property.

This was as well an excellent performance of Laia Marull and Luis Tosar.

This is an interesting film about relationships, falling in love, coming together and going apart.

It is a brilliant story about Marion and Gilles, she is shy and undetermined. Gilles is selfish but seems not to be prepared to assume its responsibilities in their couple.

Ozon shows in reverse order, a relationship between those two people that used to be in love but that are growing apart. This is naked truth of what a relationship is all about. It can end like with Marion and Gilles at the beginning of the film or never end like in the case of the parents of the Marion...

I read the book from Traudl Junge ("Bis zur letzten Stunde") by coincidence a couple of week before the movie was released and from my point of view, this was a perfect adaptation.

Hitler, the German 2nd world war is such a complex, but so interesting topic and such a movie had to be made and the makers of The downfall has understood it better than anyone.

What I like most in this movie is that it avoids the black and white approach and do not force the viewer to see the movie from a particular side.

Nevertheless, I think a good historical know-how is a must, else it could be hard to follow (And that could be the reason why it didn't get the Oscar).

This is probably the most boring, worse and useless film I have seen last year. The plot that was meant to have some philosophical aspects emerged to me as a very bad hollow copy of the matrix, with plenty of clichés: the lone wolf cop, good looking, psychologically disturbed, sleeping with his gun... + nice hard worker and shy, but good looking she-scientist, you add a 2 cent plot and you have I, Robot! I was terribly disturbed by the obvious advertising of brands like FedEx,Audi,converse etc. This movie stinks the commercialization and tend to be more a poor ad spot that unfortunately will not end after 30 sec. I wouldn't recommend this to my worse enemy, if you have some spare time, watch a good TV program instead or better read a nice book.