Eat Pray Love (2010)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Ryan Murphy
	Actors: Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 17.10.2013, DVD
Synopsis: Liz Gilbert had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having - a husband, a house, a successful career - yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused, and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali.
Review: I did not go to the theater for this movie, because I had the prejudice of a Julia Roberts love comedy. But I heard so much different about the movie, that I finally watched it. And it was indeed a good surprise.  Well, the love story of Julia Roberts with Javier Bardem is ok. The best parts are the farniente in Italy (for the images) with the plenty of food and people, even if you do not know what these people do nor are. And the scenes with the old man in Bali as this man is like a Yoda and all the viewers are kind of Padawans. It is finally not a girlie movie, but it is not a philosophical movie about life neither. Something in between. The directing gives the impression to make a video to increase tourism in these countries. In total, many impressions, but a lot of these are not quite flat and a few ones are enjoyable or intellectually interesting.
Rating: 5 /10

V for Vendetta (2005)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2005
	Director: James McTeigue
	Actors: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving
	Country: USA, GB, D
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 25.10.2013, DVD
Synopsis: A shadowy freedom fighter known only as "V" uses guerrilla tactics to fight against his terrorist, totalitarian society. Upon rescuing a girl from the secret police, he also finds his best chance at having an ally.
Review: I like the spirit of the movie. It is not necessarily a call for chaos nor for anarchism but it is deeply revolutionary. In this sense and also in the way the suspense increases along the movie, it reminds me Fight Club. The story brings Natalie Portman in many corners and feelings that she manage to act really good and full of emotions. Some of the quotes may inspire indeed people like Assange or Snoden by suggesting that everyone can and shall make a movement to change the world. Also the movement Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Frankfurt, etc. The multiple faces of the masked V build an interesting character. Nevertheless the mask blocks a bit the relationship viewer/V. But its crazyness to play classical music during his events is really nice.
Rating: 8 /10

Broken City (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Allen Hughes (Menace II Society, From Hell, The Book of Eli)
	Actors: Mark Wahlberg (Max Payne), Russell Crowe (Gladiator), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Traffic), Kyle Chandler (King Kong), Barry Pepper (Snitch)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 28.10.2013, HD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: A few days before trying to get re-elected, the mayor of New York City (Crowe) hires the ex-cop now prvate eye (Wahlberg) to investigate his wife.
Review: Broken City is a good average thriller, played by good actors, but doesn't really have any particularities that would help me remember it in the future. Thus I liked watching the movie but it will quicky be forgotten...
Rating: 6 /10

The Internship (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Shawn Levy (The Pink Panther, Real Steel)
	Actors: Vince Vaughn (Dodgeballs), Owen Wilson (Zoolander), Rose Byrne (Knowing, X-men First Class)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 27.10.2013, SD VOD, Home cinema, French version
Synopsis: Two salesmen (Vaughn & Wilson) apply for a traineeship at Google with the ambition of changing their lives.
Review: I watched the movie without my full attention, while doing something else. It is based on the same idea as Dodgeballs: ordinary people can also achieve great things. But I didn't lauch much during this one, the jokes didn't hit properly and it contains no really interesting character. Watching it in French reminded me why I never do that: the way the translation was done is just awful, not trying to adapt the jokes but just translate them word to word. I didn't watch this movie on purpose so soon after Real Steel, which is from the same director but diametrally different and much better.
Rating: 3 /10

Real Steel (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum 1-2)
	Actors: Hugh Jackman (X-men 1-3, The Fountain, Wolverine), Evangeline Lilly (Lost TV-series, The Hobbit 2-3), Dakota Goyo (Thor, Rise of the Guardians)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Drama, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 07.10.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Charlie Kenton (Jackman) is an ex-boxer reconverted into Robot Boxing. His lack of seriousness makes him a poor bet. How will he handle the summer with the son Max (Goyo) he barely knows?
Review:  I heard a lot of good about this movie, and I liked it the first time I saw it. This second viewing didn't change my opinion: it is a well told classical story of father and son getting to know each other, except that to make it more exciting it revolves around the future sport of Robot Boxing. It is the kind of movie that shows a future looking like today except for one technological element that has evolved far beyond what it is today. Once you put aside Robot Boxing in Real Steel, except for the design of some cars and smartphones it looks like today, especially when the couple of characters travels the countryside. It is probably true that the countryside evolves slower than the cities... The comparison with Over the Top (classic 80's movie with Stallone as irresponsible father) cannot be avoided, it is almost a remake with Robot Boxing instead of Arm wrestling! Well this is not completely true but close enough. The character of the father is actually quite different (honest man for Stallone, looser for Jackman). Real Steel sometimes displays an excessive amount of good feelings but that's OK. Dakota Goyo plays very well, although he sometimes exagerates the "adult attitude". I almost forgot to mention the Robots: they are very good-looking and the fights look incredibly real. You quickly forget that they are special effects to focus on the emotions of the characters, and that is the big strength of Real Steel.
Rating: 8 /10

Guilty of Romance (2011)

	Also Known As: Koi no tsumi (original)
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Sono Sion (Love Exposure, Cold Fish)
	Actors: Miki Mizuno, Makoto Togashi, Megumi Kagurazaka
	Country: J
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 25.10.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Married to a famous poet, Kazuko (Mizuno) is at home all day, trying to be the perfect wife, but she is not really happy in her life. She will start going out for a small job and will be proposed to do modelling.
Review: I really liked Love Exposure (reviewed here), at least the first half, so I was curious to see other movies from Sono Sion, in particular the two other chapters in his Hate trilogy (unlike its name indicates, it is about Love): Cold Fish and this Guilty of Romance. The movie starts well off with original ideas, characters and situations, but the elements I liked in Love Exposure cannot be found here. There is a great deal of sexual perversions, but the behavior of the characters is too unpredictable to be believable. In that sense the movie is very "Japanese", i.e. hermetic to a foreigner like me, even if I know some details of Japanese culture necessary to follow the story  I thought the movie was lasting 144 minutes but fortunately I watched only the European cut (112 minutes) which was enough already. This excessive lenghts reminds me of the second half of Love Exposure. I am not sure I want to see Cold Fish after that... Note that that topic of the movie is inspired by the true story of the female executive in a big Japanese company during the day, who was a prostitute at night.
Rating: 3 /10

Buried (2010)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Rodrigo Cortés (Red Lights)
	Actors:  Ryan Reynolds (Blade Trinity, Green Lantern)
	Country: E, USA, F
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 27.10.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: An American truck driver in Irak (Reynolds) awakes in a coffin, buried in the ground.
Review: Buried was quite successful in the festivals in 2010. It is a modest movie that takes the risk of never leaving the main character, stuck in his coffin. This may have been a challenge to shoot. I was expecting more twists in the story while it is rather straight-forward. I didn't get a feeling of chlaustrophobia when watching the movie, but a feeling of helplessness. The story is simple but well told, and Ryan Reynold is good when he drops his usual humor. Nice to watch.
Rating: 6 /10

Dinocroc vs. Supergator (2010)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Jim Wynorski (Piranhaconda, Camel Spiders)
	Actors: David Carradine (Kill Bill 1-2), Rib Hillis, Amy Rasimas Holt
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 25.10.2013, HD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Two genetically modified giant saurians escape from a research facility.
Review: I know that this kind of movie is usualy of poor quality. This has been confirmed each time I watch one, every 3-5 year: Octopus 2, Pterodactyls, Snakes on a train. This one is no different, except that nowadays the Special Effects look better and they are cheaper so we can see more of them. They are still at the level of a Playstation 1 video game and are poorly intergrated to their surroundings, but offer some fun moments of people being eaten. Otherwise the acting is poor, the story inexistent and the direction worse. The monster fight advertised by the title only occurs in the last minutes. I don't know how David Carradine ended up in this movie, he may be a friend of the producers...
Rating: 2 /10

Cosmopolis (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: David Cronenberg (The Fly, A History of Violence)
	Actors: Robert Pattinson (Twilight), Juliette Binoche (The English Patient), Sarah Gadon, Paul Giamatti (John Dies at the End), Kevin Durand (Real Steel)
	Country: CDN, F, P, I
	Genre: Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 27.10.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: A young billionnaire (Pattinson) crosses the city in a limousine, meeting the people in his life on the way.
Review: It pains me to give such a bad rating to a David Cronenberg movie but I really didn't get into it. The concept is interesting and there is nothing wrong with the acting of Pattinson (a good role to turn the Twilight page), but people are just talking, talking, talking... It was already maybe the case in Videodrome, A History of Violence or Eastern Promises, but it was interleaved with some action scenes and/or the music was excellent. In Cosmopolis the discussions are so weird and unrelated one with another that I quickly lost interest and kept on watching only for the quality of the direction. I didn't like all this philosophical chit-chat. I didn't get the meaning of the movie. I thought it could be a dream because the movie is jumping from one topic to another with no link. Very dissapointing to me.
Rating: 3 /10

After Earth (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: M. Night Shyamalan (The 6th Sense, Unbreakable)
	Actors: Jaden Smith, David Denman, Will Smith (Men in Black 1-3)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 24.10.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: 1000 years after humans have abandonned Earth, a father and his son (Smith & Smith) crash-land on the planet on which everything has evolved to kill humans.
Review: This synopsis, the usual one for this movie and also what you see in the trailer, is not fair to what acually happens. The story (created by Will Smith to play with his real-life son Jaden) is definitely one of father-son relationship. Everything around is just incidents that help bring them closer. The synopsis also doesn't mention the Ursa, beasts created by an alien spieces to track and kill humans by sensing their fear. As in all M. Night Shyamalan movies actually not much happens. The number of characters is very limited (in this case limited to two during most of the movie). I was expecting to be impressed by landscape images as Earth is supposed to be like a third character in the movie (and the Blu-ray was printed from a 4k master), but I was dissapointed. Also as usual Shyamalan is poor in shooting action scenes (I have noticed that especially in The Last Air Bender). I learned by watching the making-of that the filmmakers wanted to make a realistic movie about the future of Mankind, and they are glad to have succeeded. I strongly dissagree. Even if the production design looks good (architecture, daily-life objects design...), the science is very wrong, as if they didn't even a scientific advisor on the set: 1000 years is far too short for Earth to evolve that much, in space 2000 km is not a long distance, visible ionic layers, an animal that scents fear but doesn't have eyes, ... I don't mind a SF movie taking liberties with science, but then it shouldn't pretent to be scientifically accurate. So what to remember from this movie? Jaden Smith plays well as we follow his evolution throughout the film. Some scenes and shots are good-looking. Sometimes I have the feeling that Shyamalan built the whole movie around those shots he has in his heads, so that the intermediate scenes feel empty. This story of Mankind in danger actually makes me want to see Ender's Game currently in theaters.
Rating: 5 /10

You don't Mess with the Zohan (2008)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008
	Director: Dennis Dugan (Big Daddy)
	Actors: Adam Sandler (Mr Deeds), John Turturro (Transformers 1-3), Emmanuelle Chriqui
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 23.10.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Israeli super-agent Zohan Dvir (Sandler) dreams of beeing hair-dresser to make them silk and smooth, instead of capturing his greatest enemy Phantom (Turturro).
Review: During the first five minutes I was expecting the main character to wake up from this dream in which he is almost a super-hero, is surrounded by girls who love him and gives high-five to pelikans. But I realized it was not a dream and I had to accept that the movie was going to keep on being as crazy. The humor level is very low (ass-tit style) and you have to be fan of Sandler to stand it. I found it OK and had a few laughts, mostly because of the ridiculousness of some situations which is the one thing I like in this kind of humor. The movie is filled with prejudice against Jews (the use Hummus for everything) and Arabs (they all look like terrorists) which put ill at ease, even though it is obviously not to be taken seriously and done on the purpose to make laugh. The peace message at the end of the movie is a nice intention but cannot really hit the mark when you think about all the nonsense that precedes it. Nice cameos from John McEnroe (already seen in Mr Deeds), Mariah Carey looking like a plastic doll, and George Takei (Sulu in the Star Trek original series).
Rating: 4 /10

Kontroll (2003)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2003
	Director: Nimród Antal (Predators, Metallica Through the Never)
	Actors: Sándor Csányi, Eszter Balla, Zoltán Mucsi
	Country: H
	Genre: Thriller, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 22.10.2013, DVD, Home cinema
Synopsis: The daily life of ticket controllers in a fictionnal Budapest subway.
Review: I thought I had seen Kontroll at the Munich Fantasy Filmfest in 2003 or 2004 but I cannot find it in the archive, so I may have seen it at a regular screening then. I remember having had a good impression of it, the movie partly influenced my decision to go to Budapest for New-year's eve 2009, and then I bought the DVD to enjoy the movie again afterwards. The image quality of this British DVD is very poor, but hopefully it doesn't impact the special atmosphere of the movie, and the sound quality is quite good which is important as the music is great. The movie is hard to described. It starts with a statement from the Budapest Subway authorities that the movie is not representative of their real work! Then it oscillated between comedy (the controllers are a bunch of crazy freaks) and surrealist underground life. By the way we never see the outside world, which was a risky but rewarding choice. There are many things that are not said about the background of the characters but only suggested, to the best effect. The underground life of the main character can be interpreted in different ways: Is he in a purgatory? Is this why he can't find the exit? Who is this evil twin of his? The ending is quite open and could leave some viewers unsatisfied, but I found it was fitting with the rest of the movie. No wonder that Antal was recruited by Hollywood after this movie, but maybe he should come back to smaller productions to show us the talent he was already displaying in Kontroll.
Rating: 8 /10

The way, way back (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Nat Faxon, Jim Rask
	Actors: Liam James, AnnaSophia Robb, Sam Rockwell
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 21.10.2013, Schauburg, OV sneak preview
Synopsis: Shy 14-year-old Duncan goes on summer vacation with his mother, her overbearing boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter. Having a rough time fitting in, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, manager of the Water Wizz water park.
Review: This is a classical story on the coming of age. This time with a funny Sam Rockwell as mentor, a nice AnnaSophia Robb as would-like girlfriend and a rough guy Liam James as Manolito discovering good life compared to his pathetic family life. Some scenes are funny, when Sam Rockwell turns crazy, or when one of the kids are really authentic. The main problem is that the story does not where to go: comedy or drama, and it is not using the nuances of drama and comedy to build something in between. There is a lack of robustness in the storyline and directing. The actors make their best, even if sometimes it looks that a bit exagerated to drama or comedy. It is a pity, because the plot is quite good and the team is also good on the paper.
Rating: 2 /10

Filth (2013)

	Also Known As: Drecksau
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Jon S. Baird
	Actors: James McAvoy
	Country: GB
	Genre: Black Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 15.10.2013, Schauburg, OV Sneak preview
Synopsis: Bruce Robertson, a bigoted and corrupt policeman, is in line for a promotion and will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Enlisted to solve a brutal murder and threatened by the aspirations of his colleagues, including Ray Lennox, Bruce sets about ensuring their ruin, right under the nose of unwitting Chief Inspector Toal. As he turns his colleagues against one another by stealing their wives and exposing their secrets, Bruce starts to lose himself in a web of deceit that he can no longer control. His past is slowly catching up with him, and a missing wife, a crippling drug habit and suspicious colleagues start to take their toll on his sanity. The question is: can he keep his grip on reality long enough to disentangle himself from the filth?
Review: The storyline is very good. I first got introduced to a guy behaving like a bastard sometimes but having otherwise just a critical view point on his environment and on himself. Slowly I got introduced his feminine alter ego, apparently ex-wife. Slowly but definitely and at some time very abruptly, there is a big turn and all the pieces of doubt build a puzzle. The acting of James McAvoy is great in his multiple aspects. Some of his quotes are really greatly placed at the right time. Full of black humour that I like :) The cut style is a bit inheriting Guy Ritchie with fast sequences with lots of cuts. But this alternate with long takes to get a deeper view in the psychology of the main character. The directing does not show anything special but the big picture is very good.
Rating: 7 /10 As the German cover looks much better than the British one, you got it here as well.

Hanna (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Joe Wright (Anna Karenina)
	Actors: Saoirse Ronan (Lovely Bones, Violet & Daisy, Byzantium), Cate Blanchett (The Lord of the Rings 1-3), Eric Bana (Munich)
	Country: USA, GB, D
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 19,10,2013, HD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Hanna (Ronan) lives in the forest with her father who teaches her everything from science and language to combat and survival. Soon she will be exposed to the world
Review: I didn't know what to expect from this movie and was a bit confused in the first fifteen minutes (what is it, a survival in the forest? with those known actors?). Then the main story is established and you get it. I usually don't like Saoirse Ronan, always playing the naive and innocent girl, but this is her best role to date for me, as she plays a girl who actually has something hidden behind this innocent face. The twist about who Hanna really is turns out to be nothing new in cinema, but the story is told and shown in an unusual way which makes it attractive (although the ending could dissapoint some). One key element that makes the movie likeable is the music, very different from the interchangeable ones you usually hear in thrillers (for example I have recently seen The International and cannot remember anything about the soundtrack, except maybe that it was poor). Watching the credits of Hanna to the end taught me that the soundtrack was made by... The Chemical Brothers. I should have guessed. I may buy this soundtrack. Well between the time I wrote this article and published it, it is done, I bought it.
Rating: 7 /10

Masks (2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Andreas Marschall (Tears of Kali)
	Actors: Susen Ermich, Magdalena Ritter, Julita Witt
	Country: D
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 19.10.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: A young actress (Ermich) applies for a school that used to teach the extreme methods of its founder Matteusz Gdula.
Review: I have been eager to watch this movie for some time, and bought it in France to make sure I had sub-titles to understand everything. It met some success in festivals and was classified as part of the renewal of the Giallo genre like could be Amer, Tulpa, Berberian Sound Studio or La Couleur des Larmes de ton Corps. I cannot deny it belongs to this genre: it starts with bright colors, extreme close-ups, colorful murders, guitar and bass, and the mysterious school that brings to mind the one of Suspiria (including the story of a student escaping it just when the heroin arrives). It then slowly puts less emphasis on those elements to focus on the evolution / transformation of the main character. The whole thing is pretty well done, but half way between the perfectionism of Amer and the deliberate 70's style of Tulpa, which makes you feel in the end that the movie is not complete. I may not have been fully satisfied with Masks, it is nonetheless a remarkable German attemp to do something new and original, and I congratulate Andreas Marschall.
Rating: 6  /10

Snitch (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Ric Roman Waugh (stuntman on Lethal Weapon 2, Roadhouse, Total Recall, Hook)
	Actors: Dwayne Johnson (Welcome to the Jungle, Faster), Susan Sarandon (Thelma & Louise), Jon Bernthal, Nadine Velasquez (My Name is Earl TV-series), Rafi Gavron
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 18.10.2013, HD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Barely 18 years old, Jason (Gavron) accepts to hide a large bag of Exstacy pills for a friend. He is arrested for that and faces ten to thirty years in prison. His father (Johnson) would do anything for the Law to reduce his sentence.
Review: From the poster of the movie it would seem to be filled with action while it is not. The Rock doesn't even land a punch of the whole movie! His massive size seems to be useful only for the viewer not to fear for him. With this movie, he may have tried to become more than just an action hero. He tried comedy and that more or less worked. He already tried a movie with more meaning (Walking Tall) and he was quite good but still using his fists. In Snitch I found him very good, not taking show-off poses or playing with his eyebrows (or worse, his pectorals like in Voyage to the Center of the Earth 2). If I dare this comparison, I would say he succeeded where Arnold Schwarzenegger failed when stopping with Collateral Damage. The story in Snitch is very interesting. The kid made this one mistake and faces decades of jail time. The movie is actually done to make people aware about such sentences (Juveniles life without parole) like can be seen on its website. The reaction of the father is understandable, as he feels responsible for abandoning his kid after divorcing his mother. The drug dealers are scary and impredictable like they should be to keep you on your toes during the whole movie. A special mention to Barry Pepper (Enemy of the State) that I don't see often enough in movies and here that plays beautifully a cop who knows all too well the drug world.
Rating: 8 /10

The Croods (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Kirk De Micco (Space Chimps), Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train your Dragon)
	Actors (voices): Nicolas Cage (Knowing), Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern), Emma Stone (Zombieland, The Amazing Spiderman)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Animation, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 18.10.2013, SD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: A family of Cavemen is struggling to survive in a changing world. The father teaches caution, while the oldest daughter is curious about everything.
Review: This movie is well done and will probably please kids who will watch it repeatidly at home in DVD, but as an adult I found it to be only average, and not countaining any special idea that can make animation shine. Well, not everybody can produce The Incredibles...
Rating: 5 /10