Change Your Image
thucy1
Reviews
The Artist (2011)
risky venture, wonderful achievement
Viewing the trailer and hearing the comments, I wanted to see this movie. But I wondered if I would not be bored by a black and white silent movie. Not at all ! I have not been annoyed only one second.
The performance of the actors, jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo, is incredible. The music, the direction are perfect. It's a pure entertainment, and an awesome tribute to Hollywood's golden age.
Dujardin, with his expressive face and his impressive acting talent, is particularly brilliant, and his Oscar award is highly deserved. He managed to express his feelings better than he would have succeeded with words.
2 Days in New York (2012)
A pathetic and insane series of clichés about French (dirty, ill-mannered and so on...). Shameful !
Oh my god. It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen in 30 years. What is very rare with me, I wanted to leave the theatre quickly after the beginning of the movie. The last time it happened to me it was 30 years ago, I was about 14. But this time, for the first time in my life, I left the movie theatre one half hour before the end, because I couldn't stand it any longer.
I saw that movie because one of my colleagues like "2 days in Paris", and this one was its sequel.
Right from the beginning, I was dismayed by the vulgarity of the movie. The character played by the french actor July Delpy (who is also the director of the movie) is vulgar and insane, telling with crude words her whole sexual life to one of her colleague.
But the worst came after : her french family came in New-York to visit her and her husband. Her father doesn't want to take a shower more than once a week, he was arrested at the airport because he had a lot of french sausages hidden under his clothes. Her sister and her sisters' partner are sex-addicts and drug users. The whole family is a bunch of asocial, immoral, ill-mannered and childish people.
Well, one could say : it's just a farce. But the problem is that it's not shown like that. They seemed to be a typical french family, a kind of primitive tribe coming in a civilized world, the US.
I didn't expect to see that kind of french-bashing coming from a french director. But True, Julie Delpy left France a long time ago and live in the US since many years now. Seeing that movie, I understand why : she seems to despise her former country and her former fellow citizens.
I can imagine some US french-haters seeing that movie in the US, laughing loudly, and thinking : "I always knew that the french were like that, and it's a french who tells us, so it must be true !" I felt insulted, as if mrs Delpy had spit on my face. I'm not chauvinistic, but I don't like to be insulted, as anybody else I think.
Intouchables (2011)
not simply a "buddy movie" or a "feel good movie", but a movie about humanity, devotion to others, friendship, tolerance.
I have read the review of a famous french movie journalist called Pierre Murat, in the very intellectual magazine "Telerama", and I'm furious about it. He wrote that the worldwide success of this movie was highly predictable : good feelings, a "feel good movie" in a gloomy time of economic crisis, etc, etc...
Nonsense. Who could have thought that a french movie about a tetraplegic man on a wheelchair would be seen by 37 millions people in Europe, that is to say more than the US family blockbuster, the last Harry Potter movie ? Please, be serious Mr Murat.
Mr Murat too says that this movie is just good feelings, not good acting or good movie direction. Here again, it's completely out of base. the actors are wonderful and have a perfect chemistry between them, the script is perfect.
I laughed and I have been "touched"at the same time. Laugh and emotion at the same time, it's a rare combination in a whole film.
But infamy didn't come only from some pedantic french journalists who always denigrate and despise the successful movies (of course, when a movie is liked my many people, they say it's demagogic and bad taste). Some US critics dared to say that this movie was racist because the actor playing the man who helps the rich paralyzed aristocrat is black ! My god. Why some Americans are so obsessed by the skin colours ? As a French, it's not at all something that I noticed ! Who cares if Omar Sy is Black ? They totally missed the point.
What is important in this movie, it's precisely the universal message delivered behind a true story wonderfully told by 2 brilliant actors : beyond all of our possibles differences (physical or social disabilities or prejudices), we are human beings after all, who can be friends.
Intouchables is not simply a "buddy movie" or a "feel good movie", it's a movie about humanity, devotion to others, friendship, tolerance.
Unfortunately, Mr Murat kept is social prejudices (he thinks that a popular movie is always a bad one), as some US commentators kept their racial prejudices about black men serving white men.
Beware : this movie is for open minded people only ! I'm however pleased to see that they are more open minded people than I thought. :-)
The Paperboy (2012)
a dark and poisonous thriller
Wow. I was knocked down when I left the theatre. I didn't expect to see a so dark and poisonous thriller.
We see a sordid Florida and its racial and social prejudices, the atmosphere of the movie is as unhealthy as the life in the Everglades marshes. ! I have been particularly impressed by Nicole Kidman who dares to play a role totally opposed to her usual glamorous and clean image : she plays a vulgar and scatterbrained Barbie girl, but very naive and touching.
I saw the movie because of her and I was not disappointed.
But my god, this movie is so dark...
Q (2011)
Not bad, even if I expected better
This movie is very daring because showing many unsimulated sex scenes, what is not frequent in mainstream movies. Some young actors are good and promising. The first one is Deborah Révy who plays the leading role. Even if her character is not very credible (a girl obsessed by sex and greedy to make love with many people, just because her father died recently), she plays it well, with a provocative and natural attitude. She's pretty convincing even if the storyboard is rather awkward.
Hélène Zimmer who plays, on the opposite, a shy girl frightened to make love with her boyfriend for the first time, is touching and very convincing too.
In that kind of movie showing explicitly physical love, I preferred "9 songs" by far, because in "Q", one has often the feeling that the explicit sex scenes are shown for themselves and don't really serve the story. so, watching the movie, one have an embarrassing feeling to be a voyeur.
that's pity, it could have been far better. But I enjoyed it anyway.
Chroniques sexuelles d'une famille d'aujourd'hui (2012)
good description of the sexual life of a whole family
What is interesting is the description of the sexual life of a whole french family living nowadays : from the young teenager who makes love for the first time with her girlfriend, to his grandfather who lost his wife and makes love with a young prostitute.
I found the description rather credible and realistic, all the actors are good.
I saw the uncensored version which is quite less explicit than many other mainstream movies with explicit sex scenes (like "9 songs" for instance). The DVD issue is more explicit, but most of the versions shown in movie theatre are censored (and rated for a public above 12 in France).
the sex scenes are relevant, they are linked to the story and they are neither gratuitous nor vulgar, I think.
The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)
Great actresses - not real history
Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman are great in this movie. The opposition of temperament between the 2 sisters is well played by these two gorgeous actresses. The atmosphere of the royal court is also well described.
However, don't expect from this movie to see a reconstitution of these historical events that changed the destiny of England (the separation with the Catholic church). The movie is full of historical inaccuracies.
But, even if not historical, the story is dramatically intense and seems real.
Forget the real story, see it as a fiction. A story of love, jealousy, power, domination, cruelty, forgiveness. A whirl of violent passions that will leave you breathless and knocked out at the end of movie.