Sons of Anarchy - Season 1 (2008)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008
	Creator: Kurt Sutter
	Actors: Charlie Hunnam (Children of Men, Pacific Rim), Katey Sagal (Married with Children TV-series), Ron Perlman (Blade 2, Hellboy 1-2), Mark Boone Junior (Memento), Kim Coates (Black Hawk Down), Tommy Flanagan (Gladiator), Mitch Pileggi (The X-files TV-series)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: March-April 2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: The day-to-day life of the motorcycle club and gang of outlaws known as the Sons of Anarchy in the small town of Charming, California.
Review: This series was recommended by a tattoed friend of mine. In it you find the usual receipe to make a good series: good guys, bad guys, some love stories, and also drugs, police corruption... The unusal setting is this gang of bikers, which we learn are much more than that. Indeed for me the interesting point in this TV-series is to learn about the values of the Sons of Anarchy, what do they fight for or against, in which spirit were they created. We get some pieces of answer throught this first season, as the main character Jax (Hunnman) reads through a book written by his father, one of the founders of the gang. In particular in the episode 4 (Patch Over), Jax isolates himself to think back about what attaches him to the Sons. His feelings will evolve until the end of the season. Also from the beginning we understand that the Sons are a family and that they care for each other (I think this defines a gang), and that they protect their town from agressive capitalism (there are no franchises like Starbucks in it). The thing about this series is that there are no really bad guys: bikers are killers and outlaws, and police is corrupted. Even some of the uncorrupted ones have flaws. It is difficult to find whom to identify yourself with, but you always feel bad when any (good or bad) characters takes the wrong decision and has to face the consequences. Some words about the characters: Jax (Hunnman) plays the good-looking central characters, but sometimes he looks too soft to be part of the gang. It took me some episodes to get used to not laughing at the voice of Gemma (Sagal) that I am so used to hear in Married with Children and Futurama, but then she fits very well with this kind of manipulating godmother to the Sons. Ron Perlman (playing Clay) found the right role of leader for his strong face and character. A special mention to Mitch Pileggi, the Skinner from The X-files, that I found plays very naturally the leader of a nazi gang. The second half of the season also welcomes Ally Walker that plays the same role of FBI agent as in the Profiler TV-series, but less conflicted and more bitchy. The events get pretty intense towards the end of the season as it ends with the great song John the Revelator that I also heard in Blues Brothers 2000. I don't know how they could keep it up for five more seasons. I will wait a little before watching the second season. It is indeed quite time-consuming, but the series has great qualities and I liked it.
Rating: 7 /10

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1982
	Director: Steven Spielberg (Jaws, Jurassic Park)
	Actors: Dee Wallace, Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote (Sphere), Drew Barrymore (Scream, Charlie's Angels 1-2)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 23.04.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: How a little boy meets a harmless extra-terrestrial stranded on Earth.
Review: After Jaws, I wanted to see this other classic movie recently released in a Blu-ray edition supervised by its director Steven Spielberg. The image and sound quality are indeed very good and probably true to Spielberg's original vision. So good that it is easy to see the defects in the optical and puppet visual effects! But it looks like the director knew it even at the time, as he reveals his main character (E.T.) very slowly, bits by bits, and often back-lit so that the defects are not obvious. This is well done and contributes to the special atmosphere of the film. Actually the movie may have been completely different if photo-realistic CGIs had been available at the time. Now about the story and emotion... well it is not the same as when I saw it as a kid. Watching it again now and in this pristine edition made me appreciate some details I had completely forgotten, it is still a very good movie, an important part in Spielberg's carreer, but now I appreciate it at a different level than what kids do. This may be nostalgy.
Rating: 7 /10

Quantum of Solace (2008)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008
	Director: Marc Forster (World War Z)
	Actors: Daniel Craig (Cowboys vs. Aliens), Olga Kurylenko (Max Payne, Hitman, Oblivion), Mathieu Amalric, Gemma Arterton (Byzantium)
	Country: GB, USA
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 21.04.2012, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: James Bond (Craig) travels around the world to track the activities of a secret organization that buys pieces of land in the desert for an unknown purpose.
Review: The movie actually follows the events of the previous Bond episode (Casino Royale), which is rare in this franchise. But it is disconnected enough so that it can be watched independently. My first attraction to this movie comes from the fact that part of it was shot at the hotel in which I resided many times, close to the Paranal observatory in the Atacama desert in Chile, and that belongs to my company. They even organized a private projection of the movie for employees in 2008! My opinion has improved a little since I saw it that time. I found it to be a stupid succession of action scenes with explanatory scenes in between where they quickly justify the next exotic shooting location. It still felt the same but at the second viewing I could appreciate better the quality of some action shots like the ones in Sienna (Italy), and understand better the detail of the story in the explanatory scenes thanks to subtitles. It is anyway for me the third Craig Bond films in quality after Skyfall and Casino Royale, in that order.
Rating: 4 /10

Westworld (1973)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Michael Crichton (screenplay writer of Jurassik Park 1-4)
	Actors: Yul Brynner (The Magnificent Seven), Richard Benjamin, James Brolin (Catch me if you can)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Western, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 20.04.2012, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: At the Delos amusement park, you can live as if you were in ancient Rome, at medieval times or in the Far West, thanks to robots that act as you please.
Review: The idea is interesting, especially in a forty years-old movie. Yul Brynner plays a good mechanical cowboy and James Brolin looks like Christian Bale. But the movie focuses too much on showing us the science behind the robots and the amusement park in general (cheap-looking electronics, walls full of blinking lights, magnetic tapes...). A few scenes depict how the customers get into their role, but in between nothing happens. Too bad for one of the few movies directed by Michael Crichton. The Blu-ray transfer is excellent in this French edition.
Rating: 4 /10

Berserk 2 (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Toshiyuki Kubooka, Michael Sinterniklaas
	Actors: -
	Country: J
	Genre: Animation, War
	Conditions of visioning: 05.04.2013, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: Inspired from the manga with 35 volumes. The trilogy is supposed to cover the Golden Age books. This is a flashback showing Guts' youth and what led him to become the "Black Swordsman". Guts grows up as a young mercenary until his (forced) enrollment in the Band of the Hawk. He develops complex relationships with Casca and Griffith the Band's charismatic leader who leads the Band to its rise to prominence within the Midland army. The part 2 focuses on this relationship and the Guts seek for his life'goal.
Review: I never saw the first part of this trilogy but I was curious to watch one manga in this festival. There is a short summary of the first part atthe beginning, very helpful. There is also a confusing summary of the third part at the very end. The characters psychology and goals are very well described, even if actually one of the heroe has exactly this problem of having no goal, even if he is the best warrior. The place of women in the society, sexual object of desire and person with straight thoughts, is the main story of this episode with a background of classical war. Nice to see. But if it is developping to be a series, this would need too many hours of viewing.
Rating: 4 /10

The Between (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Giorgio Serafini
	Actors: Isabelle Fuhrman, Joel Courtney, James Le Gros
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 06.04.2013, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: An ailing father, who is about to undergo a potentially life-threatening surgery, takes his teenage kids into the woods to try and recapture their early closeness, before he and his wife divorced and everything changed. Lost in a haunted forest from which there seems no escape except death.
Review: The viewer is driven in believing that persons are looking for dead people. Slowly, we see that the roles are actually inversed. This plot reminds a bit The others. But instead of showing a bare house, we are here moving in a forest. The adventure is tempered with supernatural characters, some gentle other apparently dangerous. This fantastic forest is drawn with sensibility. The movie is the second movie of director Giorgio Serafini dealing with the death of kids and is obviously a work on the death of his daughter.
Rating: 6 /10

Vanishing Waves (2012)

	Also Known As: Aurora
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Kristina Buozyte
	Actors: Jurga Jutaite, Marius Jampolskis, Brice Fournier
	Country: B, F, LT
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 05.04.2013, Centre des Beaux Arts, BIFFF2013
Synopsis: A neuron-transfer scientist experiments with the thoughts of a comatose young woman. He is supposed to report all what he sees and feels, and to be only an observer.
Review: Vanishing waves goes at the edge of the neuroscience, where electrical waves of the brain can be observed and studied by machines. The ethically critical step is to replace the machine by a human by linking directly both brains. The way it is explained seems very realistic and it is therefore even more scarying, like for The fly by David Cronenberg. The rules are then broken by the test scientist because he does not fhis own life. The esthetic is definitely as in an experimental movie, where the dreams are suggested by design location with design furniture and an intemporality of the lights. The music full of bass reminds that we are in the body of the character. All the scenery has been well thought and well realised, to feed both the intellectual level of the viewer (complex story, limits of the science, ethical question) and the physical level as well (music, scenes without dialogue). The actors could have been better, but for an indie movie,the result is really good!  The director has a good future in front of her. I am already looking forward for the next one.
Rating: 7 /10

Personal belongings (2006)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2006
	Director: Alejandro Brugués
	Actors: Gilda Bello, Caleb Casas
	Country: C
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 02.03.2013, City46, OV
Synopsis: A group of young Cubans try everything to get out from there. One wants to stay in Cuba.
Review: The movie is quite slow and with a simple plot. The actors are not bad, but show a bit like the message of the movie (?) their lack of motivation in life, and that they do not make anything for their life except the one thing to try to flee Cuba. Maybe this is why the only convincing actor is Gilma Bello, whoknows what she wants: give love via her work as a doctor and find love. The inscenery had nothing special. But it is remarkable that this topic has been put on the table by Cuban producers.
Rating: 5 /10

Iron Sky (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Timo Vuorensola
	Actors: Julia Dietze, Götz Otto, Christopher Kirby, Udo Kier, Peta Sergeant
	Country: FIN, D, AUS
	Genre: SF, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 01.03.2013, DVD, OV
Synopsis: The Nazis set up a secret base on the dark side of the moon in 1945 where they hide out and plan to return to power in 2018.
Review: I heard about this movie in a travel in Finland in 2010. In a modern art musem of Helsinki, there was a room and a fake newspaper about a Nazi invasion from the Moon. The music of the trailer was then really good! The director was looking for fan investors.  I did not expect the story and the special effects being so good, after the experience of Star Wreck. Even if it is full of CGIs, these are not cheap. The colours are very grey and dark, but many small objects have been included to make it more fun and more realistic, like the calendar in the school room and the furniture of the president. Plenty of ideas have been given by the fans all along the production, things have been designed by them. This helped for sure a lot the artistic direction, even if it may be difficult to filter all the entries. Moreover, the story has a rythm, keeps the suspense and has all the political incorrect humour I like. The acting is not so complicated, but they do what they need to do.
Rating: 7 /10

Sightseers (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Ben Wheatley
	Actors: Alice Lowe, Steve Oram
	Country: GB
	Genre: Black comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 24.02.2013, Cinema Ostertor, OV
Synopsis: Chris wants to show girlfriend Tina his world, but events soon conspire against the couple and their dream caravan holiday takes a very wrong turn.
Review: As I saw the trailer by casualty, I expected a very funny black humour movie. And it is so. My deception comes from having seen all the movie in the trailer. The rudeness of daily life is answered with death. Very fast, jealousy and boredom cause death. The camera work is done and thought tohave a surprise effect with some indices on what may happen, so that after a while the viewer finds out who and how will be killed.
Rating: 4 /10

Stille Seelen (2010)

	Also Known As: Ovsyanki, Silent souls
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Aleksey Fedorchenko
	Actors: -
	Country: RUS
	Genre: Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 23.02.2013, City46, OV
Synopsis: A man and his companion go on a journey to cremate the dead body of the former beloved wife, on a riverbank in the area where they spent their honeymoon.
Review: I went in the theater without many expectation except to watch something from a country being rare in the movie theaters and festivals. Wow! The story deals with death and remembrance and focuses on some local traditions that seem strange, but with the explanation are full of love. The graphical quality is magnificent, not only due to the landscape, but mostly to the position and configuration of the camera, the light and the composition. The dialogues, with a recurrent off, are poetic, crude, philosophical. This mix reminds me a bit the literature of Gabriel García Márquez. The movie was short (about 78 minutes) but remains a great time of cinema.
Rating: 8 /10

Hitchcock (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Sasha Gervasi
	Actors: Antony Hopkins, Helen Mirren
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 18.02.2013, Schauburg, OV
Synopsis: The hate and love story between filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville during the filming of Psycho in 1959.
Review: The movie itself is intersting and Helen Miller plays her role greatly. The make-up of Antony Hopkins seems to have blocked his great acting competence. What a pity! The movie did not catch me, although I am a really big fan of Alfred. Well, actually, this gave me more motivation to watch Hitchcock movies again, not only Psycho, but Vertigo, Blackmail, North by Northwest, etc. As a good basis for the selection of his movies, I recommend the famous book: Le cinema selon Alfred Hitchcock/Mr. Hitchcock, wie haben Sie das gemacht? So you may see some of them soon.
Rating: 5 /10

Le nom des gens (2010)

	Also Known As: The names of love
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Michel Leclerc
	Actors: Jacques Gamblin, Sara Forestier
	Country: F
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 16.02.3013, City 46, OV
Synopsis: A young, extroverted left-wing activist who sleeps with her political opponents to convert them to her cause is successful until she meets her match.
Review: This comedy spreads a huge energy, thanks Sara Forestier (L'esquive) and a poesie, thanks Jacques Gamblin (Mademoiselle, Le premier jour du reste de ta vie). Both are great actors and they show it again. The absurdity of some pieces of the story that nevertheless change lives reminds me the last Tarentino (Inglorious bastards and Django unchained). It reminds also to men that when THE woman comes into your life, it is a kind of big bang, in which you are shaked. And also to women that they cannot expect everything from THE man. The dialogues are extremely funny, again for their absurdity, for the clash of her young energy against his melancoly, for the clash of politics and real life. I laughed really a lot.
Rating: 8 /10

Hugo (2011)

	Also Known As: Hugo Cabret
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Martin Scorsese
	Actors: Ben Kingsley, Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz
	Country: USA
	Genre: Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 15.02.2013, DVD
Synopsis:Set in 1930s Paris, an orphan who lives in the walls of a train station is wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton.
Review: The basic storyline is actually great. The discovery of the legend of special effects, Georges Méliès. The evolution of characters is slow, so that we have sometime the impression to see the same scene 30 minutes later. The camera movements are well done and eased by the CGI environment. But except the revelation of Master Méliès via his drawings, there is nothing that catches the emotion of the viewer.
Rating: 5 /10

Little miss sunshine (2006)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2006
	Director: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
	Actors: Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano, Toni Colette
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 15.02.2013, DVD
Synopsis: A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus.
Review: The family is fun. The men are very extreme: extremely positive, extremely pessimistic, extremely sex-obsessed, while the women are more quite and pragmatic. All the actors are very good. The few twists and turns coming up in the story give a pleasant rythm. The family virtue discovered slowly. Nice movie.
Rating: 6 /10

Inuk (2010)

	Also Known As: Le voyage d'Inuk
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Mike Magidson
	Actors: Gaaba Petersen, Ole Jorgen Hammeken
	Country: F, KN
	Genre: Drama, Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 13.02.2013, Cinema Ostertor, OV
Synopsis: A young boy Inuit living a goal-less life with his mother in the city of Greenland has to go in the north to learn how to behave better, far from his alcoholic mother.
Review: The story is quite simple without many events, but the atmosphere is interesting, as the Great North is a new world for the movie theaters. There was also Gnade in 2012, but movies up there are very rare. And here, there was the plot of many movies in the last 20 years about the coming back from the sin city to the good values of the countryside.  The environment for directing (real lost nature and non-professional actors) and the way some classical parts (mentor, love story) are introduced, make this indie movie quite remarkable and sensible. Well, the movement of camera and the acting of Inuk (Gaaba Petersen) are not so good and the movie seems time to time long, but Ikuma (Ole Jorgen Hammeken) is very convincing. For a first movie, chapeau!
Rating: 6 /10

Zombieland (2009)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2009
	Director: Ruben Fleischer
	Actors: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 10.02.2013, DVD
Synopsis: A shy student trying to reach his family in Ohio, and a tough guy trying to find the Last Twinkie and a pair of sisters trying to get to an amusement park join forces to travel across a zombie-filled America.
Review: What about watching a zombie movie before breakfast? This was not the first time I saw Zombieland, but this was the best match. Something light, funny and with action, to wake up in a good mood.  The consumption society are a reason to be moved and to laugh at: obsession on a product, idolation of a movie star, appetite and pleasure for destruction. Only some rules for surviving help. The way the rules are presented, numbered, with a living example, some right at the beginning and others along the movie makes it funny. The suspense is coming from the slow gathering of the small group of protagonists and the milestones on the way to the park. The actors are perfect in their roles and make the caricatures realistic. It is a very good zombie comedy, at the same level as Shaun of the dead.
Rating: 7 /10

Contagion (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Ocean's 11-13, Che)
	Actors: Marion Cotillard (Inception), Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity 1-3), Jude Law (A.I.), Laurence Fishburne (Matrix 1-3), Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man 1-3), Kate Winslet (Titanic)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 15.04.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: As a virus spreads across the planet, we follow the investigation to determine its origin and the race to find a vaccin.
Review: I was not expecting much from this movie, but Steven Soderbergh managed to attract my interest. At first one can be seduced by the large number of known faces present on the poster, but then it is the peculiar way of telling the story that keeps the tension. It is done in a very realistic way, following closely all scientists involved in the unfolding drama, and avoiding the common scenes of global panic and political debacle / conspiracy. The movie contains some interesting characters like the one played by Jude Law: a blogger that will benefit from the panic effect. The music is scarce, but when there is some it is a kind of hypnotic drum rythme that helps increasing the tension when needed. It seems the purpose of the movie was to show what will happen when this kind of pandemia hits us, and I found it very sucessful at doing so. It is done from a scientific / logistic point of view but also from a humane one thanks to the character of Matt Damon.
Rating: 7 /10

The Secret (2012)

	Also Known As: The Tall Man
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Pascal Laugier (House of Voices, Martyrs)
	Actors: Jessica Biel (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Total Recall), Jodelle Ferland, Stephen McHattie (300, Watchmen, A History of Violence)
	Country: CDN, F, USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 12.04.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: In a small former mining town now poor and desolated, a child dissapears every two months. The town nurse (Biel) and a passing FBI agent (McHattie) will be involved in the next kidnapping.
Review: After Alexandre Aja (Piranha, Maniac), another french director starts a career in the USA. I skipped the movie at the Munich Fantasy Filmfest 2012, but since then I heard more good about it. I liked the original approach taken for the movie, and was kept interested until the first turnaround, but then I failed to feel involved enough and in the end I found the rythm too slow. Not as dissapointing as the usual french thriller or genre movie and their weak endings, but something was missing.
Rating: 5 /10

Blow Out (1981)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1981
	Director: Brian de Palma (Scarface, Carrie)
	Actors: John Travolta (Saturday Night Fever, Pulp Fiction), Nancy Allen (Robocop), John Lithgow (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), Dennis Franz (Die Hard 2)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Polar, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 08.04.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: A movie sound editor (Travolta) accidentally records the sound of a car accident that turns out to involve a high rank politician. He will start his own investigation.
Review: First I saw Profondo Rosso by Dario Argento and learned that he borrowed some ideas and the main actor from Blow-up by Michelangelo Antonioni. Both movies deal with accidental photography of a crime (less importantly in Profondo Rosso). I also learned that on the same topic existed The Conversation by Francis Ford Coppola with Gene Hackman (about audio recording) and this Blow Out by Brian de Palma. I learned by watching the interesting bonus on this Blu-ray that de Palma is a huge fan of Blow-up, and that he intentionally wanted to have the main character combine both sound and image in his movie, as he did. There is a special atmosphere to the movie, not as in a usual thriller, and the ending is unexpected, so I am not surprised that it was not sucessful at its release. But the story is definitely interesting (although it lacks ambition), the actors good (especially Nancy Allen playing naturally a simple-minded girl), and the visual aspect most interesting. A movie strongly recommended for the lovers of 80's thrillers like me. As the sound plays a big role in the movie, I was glad to hear that the quality of the soundtrack on this Blu-ray edition is quite good. The image however is not very sharp (due to the original film used?) and during the night scenes one can see waves of shadows passing in the black areas, not really good-looking.
Rating: 7 /10