Reviews

Come on ! #53 on the all time best movie list. You must be kidding ! or the vast majority of the people voting on IMDB must be 14 year old.

Totally fake from start to finish. Pre-packaged, pre-digested, Hollywood, rock product (apparently well) marketed to teenagers.

Bad, story, bad direction, bad acting. It is about 3 French youg jobless guys who go to America to strike it rich, do not make it and start a fast food business in the project. It is cliches, after cliches, after cliches. Boring ! I had to zap in fast forward through the second half.

Mildly interesting story about a young husband and father, dissatisfied with his life, who decides to start afresh and learn a new job as a construction jig operator by going to a 16 weeks training class. While his relationship with his family get strained, he befreinds a young misfit with a passion, if not the skills, for big machinery. Good acting and good eye for details.

When a timid office worker inherits from his mother, he moves to a beautiful house in the country. The invitation is to his coworkers and supervisor. All the petty jealousies and office intrigues are then exposed without the working place conventions to hide them. The result is a wonderful little movie, full of right on target observations and everyday life details. Don't miss this one.

Genevieve Bujold, this great Canadian actress, is Elizabeth Rolland, who, while sitting by her dying second husband, recalls her first bad marriage to the Lord of Kamouraska, and his murder by her lover, the exiled American George Nelson. This story of love, lust and murder plays in the backdrop of mid-nineteen century small town and wilderness Canada.

As I usually love irreverent, iconoclastic comedies, and the reviews I had read hailed this movie as such, I was expecting to like "Rushmore". I must confess that the humor, irreverence or charm of this movie completely eluded me. I found the main character obnoxious and boring, but neither funny nor likeable. I read comparison with "The Graduate" and "Harold and Maud", it reminded me more of "Revenge of the nerds" that at least had a few laughs. I this is the (other Anderson's) "if..." of this new generation of high school kids, society can sleep on both ears, it won't be disturbed very much.

Adventure, Action, Humor. What more do you want ? The plot, borrowed from "The Seven Samourais" is great, but the main attraction is the incredible computerized animation, and who cares if the blue ants have four legs ? I had not noticed until I read other comments. If you are looking for a great documentary about bugs, watch "Microcosmos", but if you just want to spend 90 minutes of fun, watch "a bug's life".

Sure, it is a romantic comedy. It has about as much chance to happen in real life as I have to win the lotto. But for once in this kind of movie, I did not feel it was written with highschoolers in mind. Direction and acting are on par with the story. Jerusalem, Paris, Dover and London locations do not spoil it either. I enjoyed it thoroughly from beginning to end and it kept me smiling well after it was finished.

I watched this movie because of the fond memory I had kept of it when I watched it when I was 12 and that peplum movies were my favorite genre.

Needless to say, it did not look quite as good today than it did 40 years ago. It is still quite watchable, with plenty of heroics deeds, good production values and adequate acting for the genre. Steve Reeves is actually quite good in the title role and he outmuscles Arnold any time.

What else is new since 1925 ? OK, maybe at the time they could get away with killing a few horses, and even maybe a few extras and stunt men. But what an incredible chariot race and naval battle without the help of digital technology.

The battle in the 1959 version is maybe a little better, but the race in the 1925 film is every bit as good if not better. For the rest the 1959 film is a remake almost scene by scene, with the advantage off course of sound, full color, wide screen and modern acting.

So, if you have to choose one, go for Charlton Heston, but if you are a movie buff, you cannot miss Ramon Navarro.

Hotel Sorrento is the story of three sisters reunited in their family house in a nice resort town on the coast of Australia. One of them, who now lives in England has written a successful novel (or thinly disguised autobiography). This is a very familiar story line, the family or friend reunion where dirty laundry gets sorted out. The novelty is that the movie also serves as a forum to discuss the state of Australian culture.

This kind of movie is supposed to make you cry, to make you laugh and to make you think and, in order to do so, needs a few basic ingredients that Hotel Sorrento is sorely missing: some sense of humor and above all, good acting and subtle direction. The acting is mediocre at best, direction about as light as the Titanic and humor totally absent.

Although "The last tycoon" is not one of Kazan's best movies, it is well worth seeing, if nothing else, for the all around great performances of a great cast, including a young Robert de Niro, and a nicely aging Jeanne Moreau.

The story, as the title suggests, deals with a Holywood movie producer of the 30ths with a huge ego, the kind of people who knows everything best. When he is confronted with the rejection of a young starlet and the challenge of a union organizer, he eventually loses everything as he cannot comprehend that some people would not bow to everything he wants.

It is extremely well directed by Elia Kazan and the period is superbly recreated.

Mayerling is supposed to be a story of love and passion set in the backdrop of political turmoil in the austro-hungarian empire. The problem is there is very little passion in this movie. Catherine Deneuve, which I usually love, and Omar Sharif give such wooden performances that it is hard to imagine they would die of love. Ava Gardner is about as bad and James Mason does hardly better. Only James Robertson Justice and Genevieve Page seem to believe in what they are doing.

As far as the political story, you will not know very much more of the state of the empire after seing the movie. Characters drop by Omar Sharif once a while without enlightening us very much about their problems and goals. The only redeeming values are production values which are quite good. Better watch the original French movie with Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux.