The twilight of the cockroaches (1989)

	Also Known As: Gokiburi-tachi no tasogare
	Year of first release: 1989
	Director: Hiroaki Yoshida
	Actors: -
	Country: J
	Genre: Animation, War, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 28.05.2016, Naxoshalle, Japanese version with English subtitles, NCF2016
Synopsis: A society of cockroaches who live peacefully in the apartment of a bachelor named Seito until a woman moves in and the humans begin to exterminate the cockroaches. Then the different groups of cockroaches try to find out a military strategy to fight against humans. But humans have weapons of mass destruction. The cockroaches are depicted through animation, and the humans are depicted through live-action footage.
Review: I wanted to watch this movie because of the visual concept like in Roger Rabbit to mix real characters with animated characters. And also because of the plot: a story of cockroaches. I have not been disappointed. Even if the live-action footage lacks of image quality, it is well done to shoot the environment of cockroaches. We always look with their eyes and the change of perspective is very original and very interesting to experience.  The story itself has not many surprises. It might be symbolic about people confronted to weapons of massive destruction. Most of the creativity and surprises for me came from the way the live-action footage is mixed. The way the cockroaches are using all what they can find in the house. This gives many funny scenes.
Rating: 6 /10

Love and Peace (2015)

	Also Known As: Rabu & Pisu
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Sion Sono
	Actors: Hiroki Hasegawa, Kumiko Aso, Toshiyuki Nishida
	Country: J
	Genre: SF, Drama, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 28.05.2016, Mousonturm Saal, Japanese version with German subtitles, NCF2016
Synopsis: In the summer of 2015 in Tokyo, Japan. Ryoichi (Hasegawa) dreamed of becoming a punk rocker when he was younger, but became a timid salaryman at a musical instrument parts company. He has feelings for Yuko (Aso) but he can't tell her how he feels. One day, he has a fateful meeting with a turtle on the rooftop of a department store. He names the turtle Pikadon and he adores it, but his co-workers laugh at him. Ryoichi throws Pikadon into the toilet already eaten by his regrets. The turtle though goes through sewerage and meets an old man (Nishida) who lives in the underground. Something then happens.
Review: The originality of many Japanese movies and this one as well is to bring something completely strange but funny in a normal story. Giving life to this turtlethe way it is done could sound ridiculous for Western eyes but it is exactly what I like in Japan. Firework of creativity! And it is not ridiculous. The scenes with the turtle become sometimes hilarious, sometimes kitsch-wise dramatic. And the main story remains the social life of two electronic nerds Ryoichi and Yuko. Ok, some scenes might be ridiculous, but I am pretty sure it is done on purpose for the fun and the comedy. The reactions of the two nerds are relatively realistic even if sometimes it appears to me a bit exaggerated. It is then again for the sake of the comedy.  The creative work behind this movie is amazing! The characters gathered and cared by the old man, the underground scenery, the Godzilla-like run in the city, the source of successfull songs. All this was freely thought and I love the result. There are many things that only Japanese artists can dare and do. Western productions would never dare it. Then the movie in general might not be mine, but Hats off to Sion Sono who once again shows that he is a master of creativity (a long time) after the amazing Love Exposure.
Rating: 6 /10

Three stories of love (2015)

	Also Known As: Koibito Tachi
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Ryosuke Hashiguchi
	Actors: Atsushi Shinohara, Toko Narushima, Ryo Ikeda
	Country: J
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 28.05.2016, Mousonturm Saal, Japanese with German subtitles, NCF2016
Synopsis: Since his wife was killed in cruel random murder, bridge inspector Atsushi (Shinohara) lives sadly and lonely. Toko (Narushima) lives with her husband and is longing to escape this loveless relationship. Elite gay lawyer Takashi (Ikeda) does not manage to be successful in love.
Review: All these love stories are lonely, sad, get the character focus on oneself and are full of authenticity. Step by step each of them open up. Even if the love stories do not get better, at least the satisfaction of life is seen at the end of the tunnel. This way each story is touching.  The actors fit to their roles and manage to transmit a lot of authenticity. The direction is done with a lot of care for realism in relationships.Some views on the Japanese society are original such as the work environment that is presented here. Really the common worker in common jobs.
Rating: 5 /10

Kung Fury (2015)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: David Sandberg
	Actors:  David Sandberg, Jorma Taccone, Steven Chew
	Country: S
	Genre: Action, SF, Fantasy, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 29.07.2016, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: Kung Fury (Sandberg) is a cop using his powers to kick ass in the 80's until an old super-villain re-appears.
Review: This ultra fan movie emerged from the mind of the Swedish David Sandberg who got it funded on Internet (to a level even higher than his expectations) after showing a very promising trailer he made for 5000 dollars only. Kung Fury lasts 31 minutes and the best way for me to describe what it is about is to show it here as the movie is freely available for streaming, an advantage of crowd-funding in that case! I have already watched it twice and find it hilarious every time, finding new details to laugh at. It is an extreme example of parodic Fan movies referencing to a past era and/or a specific genre, a bit like Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, Black Dynamite or Iron Sky. And it contains everything to please amateurs of such Genre movies like me. It is set in the 80's (well, the beginning at least) and its visual quality was deteriorated to look like you are playing an old VHS of that period. The colors, dialogs and music are also very dated on purpose. I find it very impressive that it was all done with only a few actors in a front of a green screen. I can try to list some of the references I found in this movie but there are probably many more: you get dinosaurs, Conan-style barbarian ages (with machine gun-equipped amazons riding giant wolves), an ancient God, a bit of Tron and The Terminator, a super-geek (named Hackermann...), time-travel, evil Nazis and Hitler a.k.a. the Kung-Führer, a cameo by David Hasselhoff, an animated sequence including reference to the M.A.S.K. animated series (for those of you old enough to remember) and of course awesome Kung Fu practiced by a super-cool hero who gets all the chicks. Sometimes the movie also has a video-game look (reminding me of SEGA's Streets of Rage), and in fact there exists a derived video game called Kung Fury: Street Rage. I love the disclaimer at the end of the game trailer: "Don't try Kung Fury moves on innocent bystanders. Being awesome in-game doesn't make you awesome in real life. Unless you get hit by lightning and bitten by a cobra [NB: this is how Kung Fury got his powers]. Then you're OK", which summarizes pretty well the spirit of the whole enterprise. A must see for a good time. A sequel Kung Fury II is in production.
Rating: 8 /10

The Mohican comes home (2016)

	Also Known As: Mohican Kokyo ni Kaeru
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Shuichi Okita
	Actors: Ryuhei Matsuda, Akira Emoto, Atsuko Maeda
	Country: J
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 28.05.2016, Mousonturm Saal, Japanese version with German subtitles, NCF2016
Synopsis: Eikichi (Ryuhei) left his hometown in Hiroshima prefecture for Tokyo. He tried to find success with his music band, but failed. Several years later, Eikichi goes home to tell his father, Osamu (Emoto) that his girlfriend Yuka (Maeda) is pregnant. His father curses him out, but he is also excited to have a grandchild. Osamu has a party to celebrate the news, but, at the party, he collapses and goes to the hospital. Eikichi struggles to make his father happy.
Review: The originality of the movie is to bring bored young Tokyo couple to one small island full of life and rythm given by the Big Band music teacher. The story is full of surprises. And these surprises make the fun of the movie. The acting is driven by the contrasting roles of Eikichi and his father Osamu. Both seem really to have had fun. In addition, the music that is played is not necessarily that great but contrasts every time with the expectations. And this makes it funny again.  Akira Emoto is definitely charismatic and this actor did everything, Japan sinks, Journey to the shore, Memories of Matsuko.
Rating: 7 /10

Be the world for her (2004)

	Also Known As: Sekai wa kanojo no tame ni aru
	Year of first release: 2004
	Director: Daisuke Hosaka
	Actors: Kei Horie, Maiko Asano
	Country: J
	Genre: SF, Drama, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 27.05.2016, Naxoshalle, Japanese version with English subtitles, NCF2016
Synopsis: Hiroki (Horie) and Kaori (Asano) seem like two normal Japanese high school teenagers. When Hiroki mysteriously disappears, Karoi discovers a conspiracy.
Review: From a beginning romance, the movie turns into a quest mixing military conspiracy, aliens and superpowers. For a Japanese movie nothing abnormal. The movie is built really like a pot-pourri of all genres. It is finally quite funny but at the end, you do not know what you looked at. And later you forget the story very fast.  By luck the viewing was rescued by Thank you, Mom, a recent short movie of the same director. There you can see much more maturity in the story and in the story telling. The weird mom-robot becomes both friendly and strange at the same time. Some ideas of Robot & Frank are seen again, but in a different cultural context making the situations even more funny. This short cut is not rated here, but it would have been at a 7-8/10 level.
Rating: 3 /10

Nagasaki - Memories of my son (2015)

	Also Known As: Haha to Kuraseba
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Yoji Yamada
	Actors: Sayuri Yoshinaga, Kazunari Ninomiya, Haru Kuroki,
	Country: J
	Genre: Drama, War
	Conditions of visioning: 28.05.2016, Mousonturm Saal, Japanese with German subtitles, NCF2016
Synopsis: Nobuko (Yoshinaga) works in Nagasaki, Japan as a midwife. Her son died 3 years earlier from the atomic bomb. On August 9, 1948, her son appears in front of her again. Since that time, Koji (Ninomiya) appears in front of her and they reminiscence about pleasant times. These happy, but bizarre moments seem eternal.
Review: After the second world war the atmosphere depicted in the streets of Nagasaki are very similar to the visual impression of Always - Sunset on third street. The story does not deal only with the struggle for life of destroyed families in Nagasaki. And not only by the Atomic bomb dropped by the US Army. A mother who lost her complete family. A man having lost his family.  The sadness of a mother for her dead son.  Unfortunately the whole worries of the dead son deal with her promised wife, Machiko (Kuroki), who is taking care of the mother. Nothing about the death of the blossoming medicine student. Nothing about the injustice of the atomic bomb.  The acting of the mother, so kind with everyone, so respectful, so sad also, so lost in her memories, is very very touching. Even if sometimes I would have preferred her reacting more vehemently. But so are Japanese people. The roles of the other characters are well written with authenticity and the acting confirmed this. Once again Japanese show a huge endurance, while they could have blamed the US army. There are just a few images of war, bombing and Pikabon (nickname given to the bomb).  One month after having been in the Peace memorial of Hiroshima, in the museum as well as in the park, my head was still full of pictures of these disasters, full of pictures of the life before and the ruins after.
Rating: 6 /10

London has Fallen (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Babak Najafi
	Actors: Gerard Butler (300, Gamer), Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight), Morgan Freeman (Deep Impact, Oblivion), Radha Mitchell (Pitch Black)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 27.07.2016, VOD, 32" TV
Synopsis: When the British Prime Minister dies, many World leaders gather in London for the funeral, including the American President Benjamin Asher (Eckhart) and his friend Mike Banning (Butler) also head of his Security.
Review: About two and a half years ago I made the mistake of watching back to back the two almost identical movies White House Down by Roland Emmerich and Olympus has Fallen by Antoine Fuqua, and I preferred the latter. Again looking for something easy to watch I selected London has Fallen, and made the assumed choice of watching again Olympus has Fallen just before. It was not such a mistake because it confirmed the opinion I had of that first movie (I even raised its rating from 5/10 to 6/10), and it allowed me remembering who the main characters were (and which past they have in common) which would have confused me a little otherwise. So this sequel uses the same elements that worked in the first: POTUS and his buddy bodyguard, massive and actually successfully destructive terrorist attacks, decision-making process in the hands of the Chairman of the House (Freeman) this time rather useless, and my favorite part: bloody violence unlike in White House Down. Could it be the reason why that other movie did not deserve a sequel? Talking about violence, I even found that it was sometimes too much this time (of course some things have to be bigger in a sequel): the character played by Butler doesn't just kill the bad guys with two bullets that create a nice splatter, he does it more and more creatively (also with knives) and apparently with pleasure, or at least a satisfied feeling of revenge (reminding me of Jack Bauer in the 24 TV-series). At some point I thought this would lead to an interesting reflexion later in the movie but it does not. Instead the man just keeps on going, against all odds, until the Action and the way to show it reminds of a video game. But I mean that in good, the single-handed attack he does towards the end of the movie is visually very original and exciting. Other new idea: this time around the bodyguard sticks much more with the president while in the first movie not. In the end apart from the blood and the very pessimistic starting point, there is not much interest in London has Fallen. Better watch again The Sum of All Fears.
Rating: 4 /10

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 2 (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Creators:  Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly)
	Actors: Clark Gregg (Iron Man 1-3, The Avengers), Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Blair Underwood (Gattaca, Deep Impact), Edward James Olmos (Battlestar Galactica TV-series), Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks TV-series, Dune, Hidden)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 22-25.07.2016, VOD, 32" TV screen
Synopsis: Life and work must go on in the team led by Phil Coulson (Gregg) in spite of the formal dissolution of S.H.I.E.L.D. and of what happened to some team members. They keep on trying to stop the Hydra organization while recruiting new members.
Review: We meet again the agents that we discovered in the first season, some months after we left them. As I mentioned in the review of that first season, some characters did undergo a radical change and this continues in the second season. In particular the one of Skye (Chloe Bennet), the strong woman of the series that undoubtedly carries the mark of its creator Joss Wheadon, like in the past Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or River Tam (Summer Glau) in Firefly. The evolution of the characters and the introduction of new ones (special mention to a brilliant Kyle MacLachlan) is a positive point for this season. But as often the case, it is difficult to maintain the same level once the surprise of a new series has passed, and I found myself less immersed in the story as I did in the first season, although it successfully unites the same elements. Also I made the mistake of watching the whole season too fast (in just 4 days!) which leaves me with a weird feeling (already encountered in the past) that it was rushed while it is in fact not the case. I'll try to remember not to do that anymore in the future. The season still evolves in the Marvel Cinematic Universe consolidated in The Avengers, and I found that in fact it reinforces the importance of the Captain America franchise thanks to a constant conflict against the Hydra terrorist organisation. In particular the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier are often mentioned or even shown in background. I loved that the season delivers a mini-climax at the end of Episode 10 What They Become, then giving the audience a chance to breathe a little before ramping up the action again until the revelations in Episode 17 Melinda and the excellent Episode 19 The Dirty Half Dozen introductory to Avengers: Age of Ultron. I am expecting the release of the third season on Netflix soon, although the last three Episodes of this season (20-22) don't really let me anticipate new ideas.
Rating: 5 /10

Eye in the Sky (2015)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ender's Game)
	Actors:  Helen Mirren (2010, Hitchcock, R.E.D 1-2), Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman (Die Hard, Galaxy Quest, Dogma, Harry Potter 1-7), Iain Glenn (Game of Thrones TV-series)
	Country: GB, ZA
	Genre: War, Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 21.07.2016, onflight entertainment 8" screen
Synopsis: A military operation is led by the British with support of the American Forces to capture some of the terrorists on their most-wanted list as they meet in Ethiopia.
Review: I hadn't heard about this movie and watched it during a long flight because of its cast: Mirren, Glenn and the regretted Alan Rickman. Thus I didn't expect such a tension to increase and hold through the 1h40 of the movie, but it is indeed the main strength of this movie. I does not display modern warfare in the ultra-realism style of movies like The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty or American Sniper (all of them American movies about American wars) but rather reminded me of Black Hawk Down, the country of setting of the action probably helping in that. In Eye in the Sky we don't follow a military troop in the action, but rather two pilots of a drone that flies high above the action (themselves located in the USA), and the many people taking decisions based on the transmitted images: the head of operations (Mirren), her boss (Rickman) together with political advisors, the British minister of foreign affairs (Glenn), an image analysists in Hawaii and two local Somalis in support. We are in the era of communications and the use of a drone is very actual (I have recently seen some on TV displayed during the French Bastille Day parade). The movie even goes beyond that by showing a mini-drone of the size of an insect. I have seen a documentary and read an article about this technology, not as far in the future as you may think. The events quickly don't go as planned and it gets even worse when (spoiler, highlight to read) a 9 year-old girl comes near the planned point of impact of a missile. The decision-making process of all the characters is very well told in the movie, and the tension rises to the point of being almost unbearable for the audience. And I found the ending perfectly uncompromising. Highly recommended.
Rating: 8 /10

Being good (2015)

	Also Known As: Kimi wa iiko
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Mipo O
	Actors: Kengo Kora, Machiko Ono, Chizuru Ikewaki, Michie Kita, Kazuya Takahashi
	Country: J
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 27.05.2016, Mousonturm Saal, Japanese version with English subtitles, NCF2016
Synopsis: This movie has an ensemble cast which draws normal people who might be living next door, in any normal town. And it draws various problems like child abuse, chain of abuse, negligence, teasing, which might exist in any town, more than a little. The problems could be solved sometimes by "kindness" and "consideration" of people. When it comes to know in a family which is closest and smallest community for us that there is someone who has lost those feelings, what people can do? If it comes to know, just go and talk. Just go and hold their hand. It is possible that people could be saved only by that. Plants die if they don't receive nutrient, people also die without the "kindness" of someone. The "kindness" can definitely save someone, it blossoms flower in that person and someone else could also be saved. There is possibility, since everyone was once a child and someone's neighbor. This movie draws the light arising out of series of such feeling.
Review: The story by episodes about people who will meet in one of these episodes may not be that original, but in this movie it makes really sense as it shows that child maltreatment as sexual, physical, psychological is spread everywhere and that it could be your neigbour. There are many movies about this violence, trying to show it melodramatically (e.g. Room) or to investigate the case or the root cause (e.g. Refugiado) or to highlight the big consequences that this can have.  This topic is extremely touching. And the way it is shot makes it also very touching. Because the Japanese society does not talk much and even less about sensitive topics. The child is something very sacred in Japan, being one of the few countries in the world having the Children's Day on May the 5th. By not talking much, the actors have to express a lot, and they do! The powerlessness of third persons observing a case, the power of a hug, the power of a help. The actors are very authentic. And this on many many scenes with many different actors. It is a concentrate of excellent and subtle Japanese acting.  This acting is also enhanced by the directing. The scenery is chosen appropriately: school room, facade of a house, playpen, backyard of the school, in a sunny or a rainy day. This movie shows a complex vision of one problematic, shows a lot of subtlety.
Rating: 9 /10

Angry Indian Goddesses (2015)

	Also Known As: 7 Göttinnen
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Pan Nalin
	Actors: Sarah-Jane Dias, Anushka Manchanda, Amrit Maghera, Sandhya Mridul, Pavleen Gujral, Rajshri Deshpande, Tannishtha Chatterjee
	Country: IND, D
	Genre: Comedy, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 02.06.2016, Schauburg
Synopsis: Their closest friend Freida (Dias) has invited a group of women: Madhurita (Manchanda), Joanna (Maghera), Suranjana (Mridul), Pamela (Gujral), Lakshmy (Deshpande), Nargis (Chatterjee) to her family home for a surprise announcement : she's getting married! Thus begins an impromptu bachelorette. A riotous roller coaster of girl bonding: friendships, breakups, make ups, screw ups, passion, devastation, hesitation, terrorization! Emotions run high and dry and hidden secrets surface.
Review: I wanted to watch this movie, not only because a part of the team was present in the theater, but because I was curious about the feminism in India, especially after the last years when the news from India were about men killing their wives because of jealousy or just because she wanted to split; news about men raping Indian women (e.g. the student) without being disturbed by the people around and killing her.  The introduction of the characters injects life into the movie from the beginning with a bit of show and drama. And then the story is more focused on the daily worries of these women, their joy in life, their expectations, their relationships with men. Their feminism is for women and not against men. As long as they are in the big house, everything is fine. As soon as they go out and are conftronted with men, then everything goes banana and the tension is clear because of the contrast with the life in the house.  The movie shows with help of contrasts in the storyline, in the music and in the colours that the expectations of these Indian women are encoutering strong resistances and the emancipation of women will not be an easy task. The acting of the whole group of women is great. I really felt their complicity and authenticity in all scenes, although their characters have very different origins. The colours are also great in the movie, in the house, in the garden, on the beach.
Rating: 8 /10

The Last Witch Hunter (2015)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Breck Eisner (The Crazies, Sahara)
	Actors:  Vin Diesel (XxX, Pitch Black), Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones TV-series), Elijah Wood (Maniac, Sin City), Michael Caine (Zulu, the Dark Knight trilogy, Harry Brown, The Fouth Protocol)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Fantasy, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 21.07.2016, inflight entertainment 8" screen
Synopsis: In ancient times, Kaulder (Diesel) defeats the Witch Queen who curses him with immortality. Centuries later he has become a weapon of the Church to maintain the peace between witches and humans, at a time of transition between his 36th and 37th guardians (Caine and Wood).
Review: In the category of the recent Action Fantasy movies, The Last Witch Hunter holds up pretty well. I was curious to see if Vin Diesel was still deserving his title of Action Hero, as the last time I saw him was in the average Riddick and I don't count the Fast & Furious franchise nor The Guardians of the Galaxy in which he only has a small voice part (Groot). He plays this time more a real hero than an anti-hero, but still gives to the character the usual indifference he does so well. The quartet Diesel / Caine / Wood / Leslie (Ygritte in the Game of Thrones TV-series) works pretty well for me. The story contains the right amount of twists and regularly spaced action scenes, put into images using the latest in digital special effects. It is hard to describe why The Last Witch Hunter is better than a Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters for example, but it is. Maybe because the wardrobe of the characters is not designed to look oh-so-cool, neither are their dialogs. The digital special effects are numerous, I couldn't appreciate them fully because of poor visioning conditions but I liked how they contributed to the dark atmosphere of the movie. Not a masterpiece but a serious piece if Action Fantasy seriously directed.
Rating: 6 /10

Rosalie Blum (2015)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Julien Rappeneau
	Actors:  Noémie Lvovsky (Camille redouble), Kyan Khojandi (Bref TV-series), Alice Isaaz, Anémone (Le père Noël est une ordure)
	Country: F
	Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 21.07.2016, inflight entertainment 8" screen
Synopsis: Vincent Machot (Khojandi) lives a simple and almost boring life, when he comes across Rosalie Blum (Lvovsky) whom he is persuaded to have met in the past. He starts to follow her every moves.
Review: Kyan Khojandi became well known in 2011 thanks to the short episodes of the excellent TV-series Bref that he wrote and directed for some, and in which he acted. Now that I mentioned it while writing this review I couldn't resist watching some of them again. Rosalie Blum is one of the movies with which he is now starting a cinema career, accompanied by other more or less known actors, and he is quite well playing this urban Mr Average (a bit like he did in Bref actually). The life of his character starts to change in good upon meeting Rosalie, like if he had finally found a motivation in this life. The movie is very well made so that when the story focused on Vincent could start to become repetitive, something weird happens and the editing of the movie gives it a whole new angle, a rather enjoyable one. I found all characters in the movie very well written and filled with realism. In fact the movie is adapted from a graphic novel of the same name by Camille Jourdy (see cover at the end of this post), explaining this feeling I had of a well-thought story, exquisite and consistent until the last minute. Several times throughout the movie I felt touched by what happens to Vincent, Rosalie, her niece and the friends of that one, and the movie left me with a nice feel-good smile, which is exactly what this kind of dramatic comedy should do. Highly recommended.
Rating: 7 /10

Zootopia (2016)

	Also Known As: Zootropolis (French)
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Byron Howard (Bolt, Tangled), Rich Moore (Wreck-It Ralph), Jared Bush
	Actors (voices):  Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman (Horrible Bosses, The Hangover 1-3), Idris Elba (Thor, Pacific Rim)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Animation, Action, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 21.07.2016, inflight entertainment 8" screen
Synopsis: Judy Hopps has worked hard all her youth to become the first rabbit police officer in the metropolis town of Zootopia in which former predators and preys have evolved to live together in harmony eons ago. She teams up with the crook Nick Wilde to investigate a case of missing predators.
Review: Zootopia is a Disney production. It is important to mention it because this studio has a History that differentiates it from Dreamworks or Pixar for example, although it now own the latter and I have noticed its influence on its recent productions (see Brave). The latest animated movies from Disney itself were not bad actually: Big Hero 6 (2014), Frozen (2013) and Wreck-it Ralph (2012), after a long desert crossing that was lasting since the 1999 Tarzan and 2002 Lilo and Stitch (except for Bolt in 2008 that I love). The story in Zootopia is quite classical for a Disney animation aimed primarily at kids, and it is well told. The anthropomorphic animal characters are as you would expect them at first: cute bunny, sleazy fox, innocent sheep, stubborn bull... but this changes in the course of the movie which makes it more interesting. Note the funny presence of Shakira playing the pop-star Gazelle. Even though I didn't watch the movie in the best conditions, I could notice a step up in the quality of the digital animation: fur, colors, details, backgrounds, contrasts and out-of-focus areas are improved compared to the previous generation of movies, in fact in the continuation of what I saw in Big Hero 6. The first trailer of the movie gives you a good idea of all of those visual qualities and of the kind of humour to expect. To summarize: I liked watching Zootopia but didn't find the story exceptional. There are only some scenes that I found conveying a message above kids' heads: when there are talks about discrimination over a minority of the population, biological tendencies, how a fox will always only be seen as a crook, politicians covering their asses... I found all of this to have a special significance in the current climate of tension present in the USA.
Rating: 6 /10

Les Visiteurs: La Révolution (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Jean-Marie Poiré (Les Visiteurs 1-2, Le père Noël est une ordure)
	Actors: Christian Clavier (Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait au Bon Dieu?), Jean Reno (Léon, Godzilla), Franck Dubosc (Camping 1-3, Bis)
	Country: F
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 21.07.2016, inflight entertainment 8" screen
Synopsis: Unable to reach their medieval times, Godefroy de Montmirail (Reno) and Jacquouille (Clavier) are stuck at the time of the French Revolution.
Review: The first movie Les Visiteurs was a huge hit in France in 1993 thanks to colorful duo of main characters and the humour resulting from their confrontation to modern times, all of it put into images by Jean-Marie Poiré in the energetic manner that is his. The sequel Les Visiteurs 2: Les Coulours du Temps was also well received in 1998. There was even an American remake in 2001 (by the same director) starring the two French actors and Christina Applegates (Married with Children TV-series). The story of Les Visiteurs: La Révolution picks right after the one of the second movie and the ageing of the characters is easily justified in this time-travel story. But what is the use of this sequel 20 years after, apart from trying to make money? The French cinema industry is apparently short on ideas those days as it is producing more and more sequels or remakes of pasts hits: Camping 3, Les Bronzés 3, Pension Complète ... Watching those characters again reminded me of the good times I had when watching the first movie and thus I smiled a few times, but there is in fact nothing really funny in the situations depicted in the movie. The story evolves but without involving the audience that remains on the sidewalk. And the time travellers don't really discover anything new. Better avoid this movie. The disappointing open ending makes me fear that a fourth one will be released soon.
Rating: 2 /10