Prometheus (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator)
	Actors: Noomy Rapace (Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows), Michael Fassbender (Inglorious Basterds, X-men First Class, 300, Centurion), Charlize Theron (Hancock, Monster), Guy Pearce (Memento)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 05.07.2012, Cinema, 3D
Synopsis: A group of explorers is on its way to a planet where some believe to have been invited by the creators of man. Will they discover our beginning or our end?
Review: A quasi-prequel to Alien by the same visionary director! Why not? You immediately notice that this is serious, realistic Science Fiction. Beautiful special effects and costumes. The story is interesting too as it searches for our origins, an eternal mythical (and astrophysical) question. The references to the Alien world are a pleasure for a fan (we get to meet Mr. Weyland after meeting Mrs. Yutani in the infamous Alien vs. Predator 2). The actors, in particular Theron and Fassbender, are very convincing. Fassbender has inspired his play by Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, and this makes me want to see it (out in Blu-ray in November 2012).  So for all those reasons the movie is interesting. Now some say that the movie is not scary, but for me it is not supposed to be scary as Alien was. For me the little problem with the movie is that the viewer doesn't feel enough involved in the story, although it is bigger than mankind. This is maybe because of some insipid secondary characters that quickly disappear from the main story. I'm looking forward to see Prometheus 2 anyway!
Rating: 6 /10

Men In Black 3 (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Barry Sonnenfeld (MIB 1 & 2, The Adams Family, Wild Wild West)
	Actors: Will Smith (MIB 1 & 2, Independance Day, Hancock, I Robot), Tommy Lee Jones (MIB 1 & 2, The Fugitive), Josh Brolin (True Grit)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 07.07.2012, Cinema, 3D
Synopsis: Ajent J (Smith) is now 10 years with the Men in Black. His partner K (Jones) still seems to keep secrets from him, until one day he dissapears, literally from the memory of everybody, like if he had died 30 years before.
Review: I found this one better than the second, maybe partly because (SPOILER!) most of the story revolved around the launch of the first Apollo mission to the Moon, a symbolic time. Also the comedy side is less present, with less heavy jokes with aliens (like the worms), but references to the two other films more discrete throughout the movie (like an advertisement for the talking Frank the Dog in a circus in 1969!).Will Smith is his usual self, but less overplayed. Josh Brolin plays a fantastic young Tommy Lee Jones (talking about that you should watch the trailer from Rolling Thunder, minute 1:10). The 3D is not essential but brings some depth to the image. I had a good time.
Rating: 6 /10

The Protector (2005)

	Also Known As: Tom yum goong
	Year of first release: 2005
	Director: Prachya Pinkaew (Ong Bak)
	Actors: Tony Jaa (Ong Bak)
	Country: T
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 12.07.2012, DVD, Home Cinema
Synopsis: A young man goes to the big city to see if his old male elephant and young one are of Royal blood. But gangsters steal his elephants and wound his father. Now he is out looking for his elephants and revenge, that will lead him as far as Australia.
Review: I bought this DVD some years ago, as I wanted to see some more action like Ong-Bak. As I have read in Mad Movies, The Protector is very similar to Ong-Bak, except that the hero (Jaa) always asks "where are my elephants?" instead of "where is my Buddha?"! But in the end the movie is not as good as Onk-Bak, we get lost in the story between the action scenes, and the screenplay is very poor and sometimes confused. Two action scenes to remember: one sequence shot (real?) of 5 minutes where Jaa climbs the levels in a building, following the stairs around the atrium and defeating tens of ennemies. The second one takes place in a single room, but Jaa (again) defeats litterally 50 opponents, most of the time by breaking their members (repetitive bone breaking sounds), because he is really pissed!
Rating: 3 /10

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Eli Craig
	Actors: Eli Craig, Morgan Jurgenson
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 15.07.2012, Blu-ray, Home Cinema
Synopsis: A group of young adults is going to spend the week-end in the cabin in the woods, where they meet a duo of rednecks. But the story quickly diverges from the classical one.
Review: I had heard/read some good about this movie, and especially my co-blogger friend recommended it to me. Watching it on a rainy Sunday afternoon was a delight. The movie follows the recent trend of horror/comedy movies initialted by Shaun of the dead, but is quite original. The characters are touching and the horror moments are really gore, which makes the funny moments even more funny. Not the ultimate horror comedy, but quite good.
Rating: 8 /10

The Wiz (1978)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1978
	Director: Sydney Lumet
	Actors: Diana Ross, Michael Jackson (Captain Eo)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Music
	Conditions of visioning: 14.07.2012, DVD, Home Cinema
Synopsis: Dorothy is not happy in her life. Magically transported to the land of Oz, she meets some peculiar characters and might find in herself just what she was looking for.
Review: I know about this all-black-cast Motown version of the classical Wizard of Oz story for a long time, but watched it only recently for the first time. It is actually not too bad. The actors, all actually singers I guess, play their part. In particular Michael Jackson is not bad as the scarecrow. The songs are sometimes slow and sad (and let's face it a bit boring), but sometimes more disco or funky, like the most famous "Ease on down the road". I was surprised to see that the whole movie takes place in urban surroundings (factories, bridges, amusement park...), while I think the original land of Oz is more rural, but I guess that was intentional and fits with the adaptation work.
Rating: 6 /10

The Tree of Life (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Terrence Malick (The New World)
	Actors: Brad Pitt (Fight Club), Sean Penn (Mystic River)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 13.07.2012, Blu-ray, Home Cinema
Synopsis: A couple is faced with loss of a child. What has is brother become 30 years later...
Review: Since I first heard of this movie I wanted to know more about this director supposed to make "contemplative" movies, so I watched The New World. Then I waited a little before watching The Tree of Life. I also wanted to watch it because it has both Brad Pitt and dinosaurs in it, and more seriously because some special effects were supervised by Douglas Trumbull (Blade Runner, 2001 Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Silent Running). After 2 minutes of movie you are sure it is a Terrence Malick movie: nice images, not always connected one with the next, few dialogs, whispers... The movie is not bad. I liked it when it leaves the characters to show the creation of the universe, in juxtaposed images not unlike Jens Harder in his excellent comics Alpha, Directions. The rest of the movie is more contemporary, easier to follow and more linear, which makes me prefer it to The New World... but all in all it is still very contemplative. You have to like watching trees. Also don't forget to push up the volume (like I read the director adviced) to hear all the range of tones in the sountrack.
Rating: 6 /10

La Planète Sauvage (1973)

	Also Known As: Fantastic Planet
	Year of first release: 1973
	Director: René Laloux (Gandahar)
	Actors: Jennifer Drake (voice), Eric Baugin (voice)
	Country: F, CZ
	Genre: Animation, Drama, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 11.07.2012, Blu-ray, Home Cinema
Synopsis: On a distant planet the Draags live their mystic lives, while using as pets the little Ohms they brought from another planet. But the Ohms are not unintelligent, and might end up chalenging the Draags...
Review: I have heard about this movie director from some friends who appreciate french comics (bande dessinée) from the 70's. This animated movie is definitely not suited for children, but on the contrary raises questions about our relationship with other people, I mean other "races" (different skin color, size...), the prejudices we have about them, and the conflicts that can result, escalading to genocide. The drawings are quite simplistic but efficient to carry their message. The soundrack is also simple but pleasant. One can find the movie a bit slow and boring at times, but all in all I enjoyed it. The blu-ray restauration was well done.
Rating: 6 /10

Super 8 (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: J.J. Abrams (Star Trek)
	Actors: Elle Fanning (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), AJ Michalka (The Lovely Bones), Kyle Chandler (King Kong)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 13.07.2012, Blu-ray, Home Cinema
Synopsis: A group of kids are busy shooting a short movie for a local contest when something big happens and they are confronted with an obscure conspiracy involving the miltary and maybe some extra-terrestrial.
Review: This movie was sold as a "revival" of the Amblin (the production company of Steven Spielberg) movies of the 80's, namely E.T. and The Goonies, by the current hit-maker J.J. Abrams. Indeed the cast is mainly composed of this band of pre-adolescent friends that are involved in a story much bigger than themselves. It is funny to see how many things revolve around them trying to produce a short movie, and you imagine the young J.J Abrams depicted in one of the characters. The little problem I find, although I enjoyed the movie, is that the kids talk, behave and react like adults, and I have never met any kid of that age behaving that way. Otherwise the movie is full of twists, big action scenes and the special effects are great. J.J Abrams abuses a little of the light "flares" like he did already on Star Trek, but we can excuse him.
Rating: 7 /10

Black Death (2010)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Christopher Smith (Creep, Severance, Triangle)
	Actors: Sean Bean (The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones), Eddie Redmayne, Carice van Houten
	Country: GB, D
	Genre: Fantasy, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 29.07.2012, Blu-ray, Home Cinema
Synopsis: In the 19th century England ravaged by the Plague, a young monk is recruited by a group of mercenaries (themselves hired by the local Bishop) to find the truth about a village aparently protected from the desease by unholy powers.
Review: I came to this movie after watching and appreciating the previous ones from Christopher Smith, and also reading some good about it in Mad Movies. I don't know if Sean Bean is tired of playing Boromir-like characters, but he does it well once again. The action progresses (too?) slowly, but unlike a simple historical horror movie, raises other questions: was the Plague a punishment by God as the religious think in the movie or is it Man that is spreading it by himself? Where will the quest for truth, witch-hunt and religious extremism in the movie lead to? Is there a need to make movie about a fantasy world ruled by infected or zombies turning against the living, while in the true History such period existed when the living turned against the deseased, or against the living. And why can't the French cinema produce such good movies?!? So the movie might be a bit slow and predictable at the beginning, it is finally quite original, without being revolutionary. Christopher Smith is still to follow.
Rating: 6 /10

The Great Alligator (1979)

	Also Known As: Il fiume del grande caimano, Alligator
	Year of first release: 1979
	Director: Sergio Martino (Screamers, 2019 After the Fall of New York, The Mountain of the Cannibal God)
	Actors: Barbara Bach (Screamers, The Spy who loved me), Claudio Cassinelli (Screamers), Mel Ferrer
	Country: I
	Genre: Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 29.07.2012, DVD, Home Cinema
Synopsis: A photographer is invited for the pre-opening of a luxury hotel along a wild river in Africa. The indigenous, although at the beginning in good terms with the white man, start to get nervous and fear the awakening of their God Kurna. Could this be a giant crocodillian?!?
Review: I bought this DVD in a set of two (together with Screamers) featuring Barbara Bach, the diva from the 70's. The french editor Neo Publishing made a good job of restauration (the DVD looks as good as some Blu-rays I've seen), and includes new and interesting special features with the movies (interviews...). The alligator itself looks obviously cheap (what to expect from an Italian pseudo-copy of Jaws from the 70's!?), but the director manages to hide it well, and show us more of the characters and their relationships, except towards the end when he has no other choice than showing us the plastic alligator eating a carton minivan in a swimming-pool! But all in all the movie is OK, and especially I had a great time with the groovy sountrack, with a good bass and drums for the scenes with the indigenous, and more towards disco for the scenes at the hotel.
Rating: 4 /10

Train de vie (1998)

	Also Known As: Train of life
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Radu Mihaileanu
	Actors: Rufus, Lionel Abelanski, Michel Muller
	Country: F
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 21.07.2012, DVD
Synopsis: In 1941, the fool of the village convinces the inhabitants of a small Jewish village in Central Europe to organize a fake deportation train so that they can escape the Nazis and flee to Palestine.
Review: The story line is a bit chaotic. The links from one scene to the next are sometimes unexpected but also without surprise. The basic idea and the final scene are huge. This plot should give ideas to other stories. The actors Rufus and Michel Muller give reality to their roles, fake and real. In each scene, the comic plot is driven by the director, quite well and actually often as expected by the viewer.The humor is also really good.
Rating: 5 /10

Inland Empire (2006)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2006
	Director: David Lynch
	Actors: Laura Dern
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 22.07.2012, DVD
Synopsis: An actress starts a new role. Her world starts to be surreal and threatening.
Review: On a similar way as Lost highway and Mullholland drive, David Lynch drives the viewer in a world, where dream, reality and expectations are not easy to distringuish, in a world, where the fears and the feelings felt by the actress are transmitted directly to the viewer.  From this point of view, great success. But the musical and the image rythms are slow and the movie is quite long.
Rating: 3 /10

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Guy Ritchie (Snatch)
	Actors: Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man 1 & 2), Jude Law (Gattaca, A.I.), Jared Harris
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 28.07.2012, Blu-ray, Home Cinema
Synopsis: While Watson discovered the married life, Sherlock takes him to a new adventure, on the tracks of the mysterious Moriarty, the arch-enemy of Holmes, across a Europe that is getting ready for war.
Review: I was not very excited by watching this sequel to the 2009 hit. Even forgetting the fact that we are very far from the original story from the book, I didn't manage to feel involved in the story. Robert Downey Jr. plays as usual, speaks a lot between 2 kung-fu scenes, and in the end fails to portrait the incredible capabilities of his character to make deductions from observations.The movie gets a bit better towards the end when we finally see the big picture, and Moriarty is revealed in all his evilness.
Rating: 4 /10

Starbuck (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Ken Scott
	Actors: Patrick Huard, Julie Lebreton, Antoine Bertrand
	Country: CDN
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 16.07.2012, Schauburg, OV
Synopsis: David is still living by his own, whereas his girlfriend is pregnant. Chocked by the news, he just go home, where he is harassed by gangsters to whom he owes money. In parallel, the sperm bank tells him that from all his donation as young student, he is father of 533 children and 142 of them want to know him.
Review: The plot is really original and funny and the movie does not show the sperm donators as bad guys. The family of David has great characters, coming from a comic book. The story is not lead in the expected way and is full of funny situations.  The scenery manages to give us the same surprises as to David.
Rating: 6 /10

Jeff, who lives at home (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Jay and Mark Duplass
	Actors: Jason Segel, Ed Helms, Judy Greer
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 09.07.2012, Schauburg, OV
Synopsis: Dispatched from his basement room, Jeff, 30 years old and living with mom, follows the signs along his life. Today, he might discover his destiny, as the signs make him meet his brother as he tracks his possibly adulterous wife.
Review The brother Duplass achieve with normal people in normal situations, what other directorsdo not get with extraordinary people in extraordinary situations. They develop the ordinary hero. The guy that looks like a looser, might be one, but is just living an ordinary life, surrounded by an ordinary family. They maintain a rythm in these ordinary actions, which makes us want to follow the action. Because actually, ordinary life is not boring! This is rare to have a story making ordinary people feeling extraordinary. The brother of Jeff is a bit overplayed. The scenery is like the movie motto. It is simple. As a comedy, well, you do not laugh that much, but the identification to the viewer is really a good stuff.
Rating: 5 /10

Inferno (1980)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1980
	Director: Dario Argento (Suspiria, Dracula 3D, Phenomena)
	Actors:  Leigh McCloskey, Irene Miracle, Eleonora Giorgi, Daria Nicolodi (Deep Red, Phenomena, Opera)
	Country: I
	Genre: Horror, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 26.07.2012, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: A young woman in New York finds a book about "The Three Mothers" (three witches) and discoveres that one is supposed to have lived in the same building as she does. Several murders occur, until she calls her brother from Rome to the rescue.
Review: Although it looks like a classical giallo (Italian "thriller" from the 70-80's) from Dario Argento, I wouldn't call it his best. I don't find it as good as Deep Red or Suspiria, my two favorites. I liked the beautiful colors in the movie, typical red and blue shades of the giallo genre, very well rendered in this Blu-ray edition. The horror scenes are nicely done at the beginning of the movie, but less and less after the first half. The music is OK but not as good as the one the band Goblin did for the 2 previously cited movies. I am glad to have seen the movie, but it doesn't not leave a strong impression on me.
Rating: 5 /10

Mimic (1997)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1997
	Director: Guillermo Del Toro (Cronos, The Devil's Backbone, Blade 2, Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy 1 & 2)
	Actors: Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Giancarlo Giannini (Quantum of Solace, Man on Fire), Josh Brolin (True Grit, Men In Black 3)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 23.07.2012, Blu-ray (Director's cut), Home cinema
Synopsis: A new breed of cockroaches is genetically engineered to eradicate an epidemy, and are supposed to die out quickly. Three years later, a strange bug is found, people dissapear, a man in overcoat is seen around...
Review: It is interesting that this movie is classified as Horror / SF on IMDB, while I replaced SF by Thriller, since I read an article last week about how mosquitos were genetically engineered to mate with disease-carrying ones in Brazil and have sterile offspring. So the subject is very actual although the movie is 15 years old. It is known that for his first Hollywood movie, the director had trouble with the producers of the movie, and the version that was released in theaters didn't show his vision. This Blu-ray edition shows a movie closer to this vision, at least "as much as legaly possible" or "as much as it will ever do", as Del Toro says in the introductory video.  Something else he says is that even if he changed the movie with this edition, the viewer should be more influenced by the fact that he himself has changed in 15 years. This is very true for me: last time I saw the movie was more than 10 years ago on an aging VHS and a 12" TV. Watching the movie again in much improved conditions was a delight. I found the story great, the actors good, and the filming immersive, with interesting orange and blue tones when underground, half way through the Del Toro of The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth. The story is still a B-movie one, but the quality of the way it is told is A-movie. The Blu-ray transfer is excellent, except for some dark scenes but I think this is more due to the original film. In particular the views of New-York from the sky at night are pretty ugly. The 7.1 surround sound is one of the best I have heard. Not so much the soundtrack but the sound effects like the creatures footsteps circling around you. The movie is accompanied with a full commentary by the director, in which he is supposed to tell all about the many conflicts at the time of film making. It is supposed to be the main reason for buying the movie, more than the movie itself! I am looking forward to hearing it.
Rating: 7 /10

Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1973
	Director: Bob Kelljan
	Actors: William Marshall, Don Mitchell, Pam Grier (Foxy Brown, Jacky Brown, Mars Attacks, Above the Law)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 20.07.2012, DVD, 22" LED TV.
Synopsis: Being denied the head of a clan, a man calls voodoo to bring some old bones back to life. He becomes the slaves of this new Dracula, himself looking for a meaning to his life.
Review: I bought this movie together with the first one (Blacula) in the "Blaxploitation" section of a second-hand shop in Princeton, USA. In the first one, prince Mamuwalde is already played by William Marshall who has a nice deep voice like the one of James Earl Jones (Thulsa Doom in the original Conan the Barbarian, and the voice of Darth Vador in the original Star Wars trilogy). He visits count Dracula in Transylvania in the 1700's, is bitten and comes back to life in the 1970's. In the sequel he is back again in the same period, and this time has relationships with the Voodoo community, in particular the caracer played by Pam Grier. Not much happens in the movie, a few death with flashy fake red blood, but a nice groovy soundtrack. The best scenes are the ones with Marshall or Grier, or even beter both at the same time, during which you feel like in a good vampire movie. The last 15 minutes are quite good, with the sound of drums playing continuously in background, and might justify watching the whole movie.
Rating: 4 /10

True Grit (1969)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1969
	Director: Henry Hattaway (How the West was won)
	Actors: John Wayne (Rio Bravo, The Searchers), Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall (Apocalypse Now, Open Range, Deep Impact)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Western
	Conditions of visioning: 19.07.2012, Blu-ray, Home Cinema
Synopsis: A man is killed by his coward employee, and his daughter would do anything to find the murderer, starting by hiring the toughest Marshall around.
Review: This is the original movie from which the Coen brothers made a succesful remake with Jeff Bridges in the leading role in 2010. I bought the Blu-ray thinking it was just another marketing trick, playing on the fact that some people will get confused and buy this one instead of the 2010 one, like they did for Inglorious Bastards. I don't think this particular John Wayne movie was well known in Europe (for information the french title is 100 dollars pour un shérif), at least until the remake. But I was surprised: the movie is as well written, played or shot as the remake. So few details have changed, the remake looks more like an hommage, slight actualisation of the dialogues maybe, and the opportunity to use a recent great actor (Jeff Bridges). The Blu-ray transfer is very good and lets you enjoy the beautiful lanscapes as well as the details on the faces of the characters. I watched the extras on the Blu-ray, and I learned that many people, like me, find John Wayne to be not such a good actor. The interviewed specialist tends to agree, except in the case of  some of John Wayne best movies: The Searchers (that movie is nice for other reasons, but I didn't find him to play so well), She wore a yellow ribbon (on my DVD shelf, still to be watched) and True Grit. I completely agree that his actor performance in this movie is fabulous, and he fully deserved the Oscar he won for it, the only in his career.
Rating: 8 /10