Kill List (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Ben Wheatley (Sightseers, A Field in England)
	Actors: Neil Maskell (Doghouse, Basic Instinct 2), MyAnna Buring (The Descent 1-2, Doomsday, Twilight: Breaking Dawn 1-2), Harry Simpson, Michael Smiley
	Country: GB
	Genre: Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 27.09.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Jay (Maskell) hasn't worked in eight month. To take care of his wife (Buring) and kid, he will try to change that by accepting a contract with his old buddy Gal (Smiley).
Review: I have a heard a lot of good about this movie since it made Ben Wheatley known during the festivals of 2011, and I quickly bought it and went to see the next movie by the same director: Sightseers. I didn't really know what to expect from Kill List, maybe a story with a killer and horrific murders, so I was very surprised by the first half hour showing very closely the main character and his family. It immediately got me immersed in the atmosphere of the movie and liking it. The movie then takes a really unexpected turn but keeps this way of having us close to the characters, maybe something inherited from the Dogme movies. It is all too easy to compare it to The Wicker Man (I can't wait for the Blu-ray edition to be soon released) but the reference is obvious. I had to browse a bit the web to make sure I understood the ending which leaves you with a bitter taste in the mouth. Indeed an excellent surprise and original movie by Ben Wheatley.
Rating: 8 /10

Prince Avalanche (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: David Gordon Green
	Actors: Paul Rudd, Emile Hirsch
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 29.09.2013, Schauburg
Synopsis: Two road workers spend the summer of 1988 away from their city lives. The isolated landscape becomes a place of misadventure as the men find themselves at odds with each other and the women they left behind.
Review: An in camera without any door! The introduction explains that the region has suffered wildfire and shows the desaster. The story focuses on the talks of these two guys in a nature that has been destroyed. This appears to me as the image of their own lives. Destroyed relationships in their cities with their women. Along the movie, we see how the landscape regenerates and keeps its beauty. And this will be slowly mirrored on the characters as well after showing their own desasters.  The landscapes are wonderful, even if post-apocalyptic. This reminds me a trail in Corse in a region that suffered wildfire a couple of years earlier and another trail in Finland in a region that suffered from storm one month ago. The close-up on small parts of the forest are also beautiful and have a similar beauty to the close-up on the body of the protagonists of Amer.  This movie is thus a beautiful image of hope.
Rating: 7 /10

About time (2013)

	Also Known As: Alles eine Frage der Zeit
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Richard Curtis
	Actors: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy
	Country: GB
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 23.09.2013, Schauburg, OV sneak preview
Synopsis: At the age of 21, Tim discovers he can travel in time and change what happens and has happened in his own life. His decision to make his world a better place by getting a girlfriend turns out not to be as easy.
Review: The story has a slice of science-fiction with the time travel. But no special effects. The way the time travel is done is really like the way I played it as a kid. You go in a dark place, close your eyes, close your fists and Bang! Then the love and life story presents a traditional life, with the relations with parents, with a sister, with friends, with lovers, but always with a personal perpective. Of a guy that can replay, but finally does not want to replay everything, because life is already good as it is, if looking the life on the right way. Even in crisis times. I find the way the off is used having a perfect timing and the perfect quite voice, giving the impression to live the life of Tim on different levels. Very interesting sensation! Bill Nighy is huge and shows again how wide his play is. I like also a lot the charm of Rachel McAdams. On top of it, I laughed a lot. The last comedy of this magnitude was... hmm, I cannot find the movie in JoRafCinema, so it was more than one year...
Rating: 8 /10

Star Trek X: Nemesis (2002)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2002
	Director: Stuart Baird (U.S. Marshals)
	Actors: Patrick Stewart (X-men 1-3), Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Tom Hardy (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises), Ron Pearlman (Hellboy 1-2, Pacific Rim)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 26.09.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: The new praetor of the Romulan Empire Shinzon (Hardy), long-time enemy of the Federation, unexpectedly requires to open discussions. Picard (Steward) goes to meet him and discover his true identity.
Review: Done! I have now watched all Star Trek movies and it was quite pleasant. During the first five minutes of Nemesis I believed to be in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, released three years before: aerial alien city landscapes, a senate, senators in robe... There is an obvious will to modernize the franchise, while keeping what made Star Trek a success: the crew of the Enteprise, a captain in doubt, alien races, and human space exploration. Nemesis takes special care of developing the characters of Picard and Data, and I was not surprised to see that Brent Spiner (interpret of Data) is credited as one of the screenplay writer. The movie contains some nicely done space battles, but mostly philosophical discussions between Picard and his Nemesis Shinzon, a troubled character that seems to have inspired Nero (played by Eric Bana), in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek XI, both in speech and posture. I am always surprised to see how Star Trek movies can keep me interested for two hours with such stories... Anyway it works!
Rating: 7 /10

Seul Contre Tous (1998)

	Also Known As: I Stand Alone
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Gaspar Noé (Irréversible, Enter the Void)
	Actors: Philippe Nahon (Haute Tension, Les rivières pourpres), Blandine Lenoir, Frankie Pain (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain)
	Country: F
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 24.09.2013, DVD, Home cinema
Synopsis: The reflexions of an unemployed nameless butcher about life.
Review: The first feature-length film of Argentinian director Gaspar Noé before Irréversible (2002) is quite raw. Most of the time we hear the thoughts of the main character while we see him going about his miserable life. The way of telling the story made me think at first that the director wanted us to share this ultra-pessimistic view on life, and I didn't agree to it. But then it seems that this view is only the distorted one of the butcher who has never known love in his life, either from parents or family or wife, as he has never know professional success and he has then been limited to surviving in the past 50 years of his life. Surviving alone against everybody else. The direction of the movie is interesting/disturbing, with the voice-over as I said already, interrupted every five minutes by a gun shot, and sometimes by sentences written in white against black on the full screen. The image quality on the DVD I have seen is quite poor (faded colors, out of focus), I don't know if this is caused by the original material or the transfer.
Rating: 6 /10

Star Trek IX: Insurrection (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek VIII: First Contact)
	Actors: Patrick Stewart (X-men 1-3), Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Donna Murphy (Spider-Man 2), Anthony Zerbe (The Matrix 2-3)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 23.09.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: When Data (Spiner) is going berserk on a planet under study, Picard (Steward) and the crew of the Enterprise-E come to investigate.
Review: This movie reminded me a lot of the Stargate SG-1 TV-series, showing how much the baseline story has popular in the late 90's: a crew of Terrians exploring new worlds (via spaceships or Stargates) to study them, making alliances (The Federation) within which they have common enemies (The Borg or the Goa'uld). The explorers also sometimes fall in love with inhabitants of the foreign worlds. Insurrection reminds me in particular of the episode Brief Candle (season 1, episode 9, actually produced after the Star Trek movie), in which a small group of people on a foreign planet live happily but only for 100 days. Interestingly, in Insurrection the livespan is on the other extremity of the scale, but the way of life of the inhabitants looks the same.  Aside from this comparison, I would say that the movie follows the spirit of the previous ones and in particular the last one. A lot seems to have happen between the two movies (new enemies, new allies) because of the TV-series running in parallel. Steward is as good as always and the story is interesting, even if limited in ambition.
Rating: 6 /10

Speed Racer (2008)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008
	Director: Andy Wachowski & Lana Wachowski (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas)
	Actors: Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild, Killer Joe), Matthew Fox, Christina Ricci, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman (The Big Lebowski)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 22.09.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: The young Speed Racer (Hirsch) dreams about only one thing: becoming a racing cars champion like his big brother Rex.
Review: One thing is sure: the Wachowski like to bring something new to Cinema to enrich it. I don't remember their first movie Bound (I should watch it again), but for sure The Matrix was a little revolution, and Cloud Atlas is an epic story that even if it didn't succeed much, is at least original, a different way to tell a story, and may be more and more appreciated with time. Speed Racer is for me as special. It is adapted from a Japanese animated TV-series itself adapted from a manga. I had seen this Blu-ray already but was motivated to see it again after watching this interesting review (only in French) on the website of the Mad Movies magazine, in which redactors were invited to revise the original opinion they had of a movie. How to make a live movie as fast and flashy as a cartoon? As fast as the Japanese full-length feature Redline and as fun as Pixar's Cars? The choice was made to have the characters evolve in a fully-fictional world, mosly in CGI. The brights exagerated colors reminded me of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The effects look sometimes unfinished or poorly matching the rest of the environment, but it was likely done on purpose so that one could focus even more on the characters. Because apart from the car races and caricatural villains, the heart of the story is about family. And when the viewer is not blow away by the races scenes he can identify to this family, united even when lost in the middle of corruption and cheating affairs. This feeling is helped by the choice of good actors: John Goodman and Susan Sarandon as the parents, Emile Hirsch as Speed Racer, Matthew Fox as the mysterious Racer X and Roger Allam as Royalton the corporate leader. Against the general good impression I had of the movie, I can only criticize the sometimes heavy humour by Spritle the youngest Racer kid and his buddy chimpanzee.
Rating: 7 /10

Behind the Candelabra (2013)

	Also Known As: Ma vie avec Liberace (F), Liberace (US)
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Steven Soderbergh
	Actors: Michael Douglas, Matt Damon
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 16.09.2013, Schauburg, OV sneak preview
Synopsis: Scott Thorson is introduced to flamboyant entertainment star Liberace and quickly finds himself in a romantic relationship with the Las Vegas pianist. Swaddled in wealth and excess, Scott and Liberace have a long affair. Kept away from the outside world by the flashily effeminate Liberace, and submitting to extreme makeovers and even plastic surgery at the behest of his lover, Scott eventually rebels.
Review: This was another movie on the rock'n'roll life of a local star (The look of love). Well a least one star that I never heard about. This time more parties, sex and drugs. The movie was entertaining, but I do not see anything remarkable or original or interesting in it. The story was classical and fully foreseeable. The acting was good for Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, but the directing had nothing special. Well, this was a good experience of the difference between entertainment and art. I am looking forward in the hope of finding something more original/personal, more ideas, more sensibility.
Rating: 3 /10

Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Rob Marshall (Chicago, Memoirs of a Geicha)
	Actors: Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Ian McShane
	Country: USA
	Genre: Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 19.09.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) is back. This time we follow him and two concurrent ships on the search for the Fountain of Youth.
Review: The first Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and its two sequels are supposed to have restarted the interest of the public in pirates movies (or 'swashbuckle' genre). I found that those movies were a bit confused, the fight scenes too long and the humor misplaced. Only after watching On Stranger Tides do I realize that the first three movies actually had something in them, some good ideas and character development, but less and less from the first to the third: the two faces of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), the love triangle, and the general storyline. On Stranger Tides has lost everything, except for the funny act of Johnny Depp, but even this one feels overstretched. The fight scenes are definitely poorly choregraphed, and because it is a Disney movie we don't see any trace of blood, no dead people (pirates are supposed to be cold-blooded bandits!), and no topless sirens for example. It is all very formatted. Usually special effects movies keep me awake, but on this one I was looking at my watch. I hope they stop the series at that.
Rating: 3 /10

Despite the gods (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Penny Vozniak
	Actors: Jennifer Chambers Lynch, Sydney Lynch
	Country: AUS
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 14.09.2013, Sao Jorge Theater, MotelX2013
Synopsis: Jennifer Lynch braves the unmapped territory of Bollywood-Hollywood movie making, where chaos is the process and filmmaking doubles as a crash course in acceptance and self-realization.
Review: The movie follows Jennifer Lynch in its difficulties of making an horror film in India. Finally, the critic is focuses on the Indian without considering what Jennifer Lynch could have done better. This big part of the movie was not so good. There is a story about having her daughter around and this was interesting to me, because this was specific to the movie, to the combination Jenny Lynch and India. Thus my interest to this movie is very limited and I am wondering why this movie happened? Because of her last name?
Rating: 2 /10

Conjuring (2013)

	Also Known As: Die Heimsuchung
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: James Wan
	Actors: Lili Taylor, Ron Livingston, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 13.09.2013, Sao Jorge Theater, MotelX2013
Synopsis: In 1971, Carolyn and Roger Perron move their family into a dilapidated Rhode Island farm house and soon strange things start happening around it with escalating nightmarish terror. In desperation, Carolyn contacts the noted paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, to examine the house.
Review: The storyline looks like a true story in the 70s. The 70s style is then really well depicted, the deco, clothes and picture colours as well. The way it is presented, the suspense leads to the fear time to time with subtility. The tone track enhances the suspense also with subtility. There is no Boo! effect and this makes a good movie. The scenery has a rythm to alternate investigation and action and personal aspects in both Warren and Perron families. Finally, I do not know whether the Warren are very good storytellers or have expericenced all this, but to watch the movie and appreciate it, you should not care about that.  After several years of break, James Wan comes back with fine skills, much finer than Saw.
Rating: 7 /10

Chained (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Jennifer Chambers Lynch
	Actors: Vincent d'Onofrio, Eamon Farren
	Country: CDN
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 12.09.2013, Sao Jorge Theater, MotelX2013
Synopsis: This movie is about A cab driver called Bob who picks up women and takes them to his house where he kills them. But on this one day he picks up a woman and her 9 year old son Tim. Bob then makes Tim live in the house with him all while he keeps killing women. Tim grows up there, watching, seeing all that happens. Bob wants to make him his protégé.
Review: The story is already known of a maniac kidnapping, raping and killing women. This time not much violence, but a focus on psychological torture and oppression lived by the victim. A different scenery and additional dialogues could help for understanding the direction Lynch wants to take. I had not a good time. But I cannot put it on the movie.
Rating: 5 /10

Star Trek VIII: First Contact (1996)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1996
	Director: Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek IX: Insurrection)
	Actors: Patrick Stewart (X-men 1-3), Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, James Cromwell (Babe, I Robot)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 16.09.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: The Enterprise-E is following a ship of the Borg, worst ennemies of the Federation, to a time warp back to before humans made first contact with aliens.
Review: I was afraid the movie would follow the easy option of sending back the Enterprise crew to 1996 (present time when shooting it), like was done in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. But it is not the case, and the story rather sends them to a time critical for future space exploration, and it gave me the same feeling as when I watched Men in Black 3 (when agent J is sent back to 1969, just before Apollo 11 take-off). While the previous movies were quite independent from the TV-series, it is harder to start this one without knowing the background, but fortunately it is well summarized in the first half hour (basically Picard was captured by the Borgs and came back). This new enemy is a cybernetic organism that assimilates every living form or technology it encounters (it reminds me of the parody of such ability in South Park), and that have a collective consciousness. This idea is recurrent in SF movies, and seems to have been for a while the best original idea to describe alien really different from us, although the idea was already present at the time of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The special effects in 1996 stared to look good, so the (few) space battles look nice. I realize I didn't say anything yet about the quality of the movie! Well I liked it, thanks to the space exploration spirit it is filled with (like often in Star Trek movies), and the reflexion on individual vs. collective life. Patrick Steward is really invested by his role, and James Cromwell plays an excellent anti-hero, opening the path for Humanity to a bright Future, and I was touched by the first intergalactic handshake.
Rating: 6 /10

Death Trap (1977)

	Also Known As: Eaten Alive, Le Crocodile de la Mort (french)
	Year of first release: 1977
	Director: Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist)
	Actors: Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Carolyn Jones, Robert Englund (Nightmare on Elm Street)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 14.09.2013, Sao Jorge theater, MotelX2013
Synopsis: The owner of a motel in the Florida swamps (Brand) starts to kill his customs and feed them to his crocodile imported from Africa.
Review: I remember watching this movie on an old French René Chateau Vidéo VHS at least 15 years ago (maybe I still have it somewhere...) and finding it cheap, but fitting with my horror films taste of the time. Now I could watch it again as part of the retrospective on Tope Hooper at the MotelX 2013 festival, but the quality was not better. It looks like an original copy: heavy grain, red images and most annoyingly: high-pitched ear-piercing sound. The movie is as slow and cheap as I remembered, but has this quality of the 70's to be perverse and sick. The main character is indeed crazy and scary, when he chases his victims with his scythe. So there are some interesting moments and the movie is part of history (you have to watch it if you like Tobe Hooper), but it cannot be called a good movie, because of the uneven rythm and the poor characters, and some badly done scenes (like the little girl crawling under the house for half a day!). Note that the first sentence of the movie said by the character of Robert Englund "Name's Buck... and I'm rarin' to fuck" was quoted in Tarantino's Kill Bill.
Rating: 3 /10

Mighty Joe Young (1949)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1949
	Director: Ernest B. Schoedsack (The Most Dangerous Game, King Kong)
	Actors: Terry Moore, Ben Johnson, Robert Armstrong
	Country: USA
	Genre: Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 13.09.2013, Sao Jorge theater, MotelX2013
Synopsis: Jill (Moore) and her gorilla friend Joe were living peacefully in Africa, until they travel to New York to discover the world, not all for the good.
Review: I have heard about this movie since a remake was done back in 1999, but until now I hadn't seen any of the two. It is known because of several reasons and its similitudes with the classic King Kong (1933): same director, same writer, the couple made of a big ape and a girl coming to New York. Moreover Mighty Joe Young is the big first undertaking of special effects legend Ray Harryhausen, working hand-in-hand with his idol Willis O'Brien who animated King Kong. The movie was shown in the "Big Bad Wolf" retrospective at the MotelX 2013 festival, so that actually mainly a classroom of children were attending, and JoRafCinema were almost the only adults. Instead of recent DVD or Blu-ray, an old film was projected and it was showing: shaky and grainy image and high-pitched sound. At some point the film even stopped and burned! I had never seen that before except in parodies of it. Fortunately the movie resumed and we could see it all. I liked the movie in spite of the obvious intention to repeat the success of King Kong, and the fortuitous ending (Walt Disney ending as my co-blogger said). The special effects are remarkable, in particular the interaction of the ape with its environment and with humans. Its motion is very fluid and sometimes it doesn't look like stop motion but almost like digital effects! Impressive for that time. I will probably purchase this movie and its remake in Blu-ray when they are released, to watch them in the best conditions.
Rating: 7 /10

El desierto (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Christoph Behl
	Actors: Victoria Almeida, Lucas Lagré, Lautaro Delgado
	Country: RA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 12.09.2013, MotelX2013
Synopsis: A love triangle in a post-apocalyptic world.
Review: The story starts well by introducing the characters and more or less the situation post-apocalyptic (plague with quasi zombies). Then many problems are settled, but as there is almost no communication as dialogue, the evolution of characters is very slow and is anyway distorted. The communication works via video posts between 2 of the three persons (reminding facebook or so).The third one is completely segregated. The movie ends there, as if big parts were missing.
Rating: 4 /10

Goose bumps (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Koichiro Miki
	Actors: Mitsuki Tanimura
	Country: J
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 12.09.2013, Sao Jorge Theater, MotelX2013
Synopsis: Built like a series of scary stories all linked together via Mitsuki Tanimura, a young women working in a call center.
Review: In some of the stories, the link is not clear and /or the story itself is not clear. The others are quite good shot with the usual white light for indie Japanese movies. Inspired by series of the same director, this collection of episodes is nice to see, because you have different types of thrills, even if most of them are linked to stalking. There is no marking music except one classical one. For a thriller, to impose rules like no special effect nor over-acting nor deviation from normal life is really good and is even very effective in the thrills because it makes feel the story as if it could happen to you.
Rating: 5 /10

Shooting Bigfoot (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Morgan Matthews
	Actors: C. Thomas Biscardi, Wayne Burton, Rick Dyer
	Country: GB
	Genre: Documentary, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 12.09.2013, Sao Jorge theater, MotelX2013
Synopsis: A British documentary director follows three teams of Bigfoot Hunters.
Review: I like the Mockumentary (fake documentary) genre, like the famous Spinal Tap or the unknown Ski Jumping Pairs. In this one it is funny to watch three teams with different styles tracking the legendary monster. One is composed of two amateur hunters, one is a more known Bigfoot hunter but infamous for having faked one discovery, and the third is the most famous of them, probably on his last hunt. It is funny to see them desperately trying to convince us that they are the real deal, that the saw the Bigfoot and that they will capture one. They are very convincing at that. We spend quite some time looking at blurry photographs or films and trying to see the beast. The question of truth or lie is always present. In the end the documentary is OK but the number of good or funny ideas is limited.
Rating: 4 /10

Open grave (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Gonzalo López-Gallego
	Actors: Sharlto Copley, Erin Richards, Josie Ho
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 11.09.2013, Sao Jorge Theater, MotelX2013
Synopsis: A man wakes up in the wilderness, in a pit full of dead bodies, with no memory and must determine if the murderer is one of the strangers who rescued him, or if he himself is the killer.
Review: The story reminds the comic books XIII for the search of one's remembrance. We follow a group. Slowly they discover their dreams, slices of remembrance and their relationships. The suspense is maintained via separating the group, and giving infos only step by step. Good! Only the character of the Asian woman is disturbing because sometimes her behaviour is fully dumb while she is suposed to be the start and the key of the story.  During a short stolen interview of the director with JoRafCinema, Gonzalo López-Gallego confirmed that the main topic of the movie is the remembrance, not only personal but also historical. The pictures of graves in Yougoslavia and Rwanda influenced his work even if the final scene is a CGI on a place found by casualty during shooting.
Rating: 7 /10