Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman
	Actors (voices): Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Zoë Kravitz (After Earth), Nicolas Cage (Face/Off, Con Air), Liev Schreiber (Scream 1-3, X-men Origins: Wolverine), Chris Pine (Star Trek 1-3), Oscar Isaac (Star Wars 7-9)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Fantasy, Animation
	Conditions of visioning: 27.05.2019, VOD, 11" tablet screen
Synopsis: Miles Morales is a kid living in Brooklyn, New York. Miles struggles to find his place in life as many kids, that is until he encounters Spider-Man, hero loved by everyone, and is himself bitten by a radioactive spider.
Review: I have been so absorbed by the MCU movies recently that I have discarded other super-hero comic book adaptations. Moreover, I mistook this animated film for something for kids or teenagers, like many cheap Marvel TV-series are. I got the hint when I saw serious (adult) YouTube channels excitedly mentioning it. So I watched it, and I am so glad I did. It is so refreshing and young. And miles away from the blockbusters of the MCU. Thanks to its distance to the Marvel official Universe, and I believe to the animated format, the creators could go all crazy and put to image all their best ideas. The result is short of mind-blowing, and probably the best animated adaptation of a comic book ever. The movie got me as excited as I was when reading great graphic novels like Watchmen or Mutafukaz. I always though: how talented are those people, how many details in each frame, how many references? And that was exactly the same here, with the two added dimensions of movement and music. The soundtrack is awesome, I don't even know how young people call it nowadays, is it Hip-Hop, Electro?!? And the animation is... realistic, if that makes any sense. It is just smooth but cartoonish at the same time. Like comics book, the movie TALKS to a generation of people. Hell I don't belong to that generation and its ripples talked to me. It did get the 2019 Academy Award for best animated feature, well deserved. The story of the multi-verse is crazy and the villains (excellent Kingpin) over-the-top in visual but just right in behavior and reactions. Well-drawn, well-written, the usual combination of two artists that makes for great comics. This was not the last time I watched this movie. Highly recommended.
Rating: 8 /10

La cité de la peur (1994)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1994
	Director: Alain Berbérian (Le Boulet, Paparazzi)
	Actors: Chantal Lauby, Alain Chabat, Dominique Farrugia
	Country: F
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 26.05.2019, DVD, 42" TV screen.
Synopsis: At the margin of the international film festival of Cannes, the projectionists of a cheap horror movie Red is Dead are killed in series. To surf on the wave of popularity, the press secretary Odile Deray (Lauby) invites the lead actor Simon Jeremy (Farrugia) to the next projections, but safely un der the protection of Serge Karamazov (Chabat).
Review: Like other French comedies (for example the recently reviewed La Classe Américaine - Le Grand Détournement), I always wonder if this kind of movie can be appreciated by people of any other country. Released in 1994, it was the pinnacle in the career of the Comedy troop Les Nuls which was extremely popular at that time among the audience of the encrypted channel CANAL+ (I didn't have it at the time so I discovered them via friends or later VHS tape and internet). I was around 18 when I first saw it on TV and immediately loved it. It was a time when I was a big fan of the American ZAZ parodies like Airplane, The Naked Gun, ... and their sequels. La cité de la peur was the same but made by French people for French people. Indeed Les Nuls used to be responsible for the translation of the jokes in the ZAZ movies which made the French version funny too. I have watched the movie countless times and at some point was using its dialogs ridiculously often. This sounds weird but I was definitely not the only one, like I learned watching the episode 56 of the short TV-series Bref entitled J'ai grandi dans les années 90. It felt so weird watching the movie again after 10-15 years without... in particular because I still remembered all the dialogs... and was not the only one of my friends in the room to do so. Together we could even find funny details we had never seen before. I realize I haven't even told why is the movie funny. There are exact parodies of scenes like the famous one in Basic Instinct, but the allusions are usually more subtle (contrarily to the ZAZ productions or the recent parodies like Superhero Movie) and instead of referring to a particular movie, copy a genre (car chase, serial killer, thriller, romantic comedy...) in exaggeration and with humor. Subtle details include shooting his gun in the air in frustration like in Point Break, which will be again parodied in the excellent Hot Fuzz. The movie has aged (my god it is already 25 years old!) but it still makes me laugh, a lot. I wonder if one day it won't anymore. Meanwhile, will you have a whisky or just a finger?
Rating: 8 /10

Dunkirk (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception)
	Actors: Fionn Whitehead, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance (Ready Player One), Tom Hardy (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises)
	Country: GB, NL, F, USA
	Genre: War, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 30.04.2019, in-flight entertainment, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Early in WWII, the German army has surrounded the town of Dunkirk and hundreds of thousands of allied troops in it. The British Government has asked all available ship, army or private, to go get then back to Britain, while the few available plane try to protect the convoy.
Review: I usually find that one has to be in a special good mood to watch a movie about WWII because they are usually rather depressing, like Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan or The Pianist. Dunkirk is different in that it really focuses on courage and hope, while showing you the interleaved fate of about four different groups of people during that couple of days. I should have written "magnificently showing you", thanks to the talent of the crew behind Christopher Nolan still at his best. The whole movie looks good and very realistic, although all stories are apparently pure fiction but convey the feeling of what it was like to be there, which is what I ask from such a movie. I find great all the stories but like in particular the aerial shots. Again I wish I had seen it in a (home) cinema. Nolan uses Hans Zimmer as composer like he did for example on The Dark Knight trilogy, and this one re-uses the strings theme that was so successful at building up tension in those movies. All stories are screaming truth thanks to incredible actors, in particular Mark Rylance (Ready Player One), Kenneth Branagh (Wild Wild West, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) and James d'Arcy (Agent Carter TV-series) and above all Tom Hardy (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises) as a R.A.F. pilot who manages to convey so much although most of the time we only see the top of his head behind an aviator's mask. I was afraid of watching Dunkirk because of too much confusion between the stories (one or two critics titles I had read, totally not justified) and a too dark tone, but I was pleasantly surprised by the focus on courage and hope, as already said.
Rating: 8 /10

Game of Thrones - Season 8 (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Creators: David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, George R. R. Martin
	Actors: Peter Dinklage (X-men: Days of a Future Past, Avengers: Infinity War), Lena Headey (300, Dredd), Emilia Clarke (Terminator: Genisys), Kit Harington (Pompeii)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: May 2019, VOD, 42" TV screen.
Synopsis: Now that Winter is here and everybody knows it, will they unite to defeat the Night King, and in the end who will win the Iron Throne?
Review: The is the long-awaited last season of the cult series started back in 2011 following the George R. R. Martin books A Song of Ice and Fire. Meanwhile, seasons were produced faster than he could write the books, so that the last ones and in particular the ending (this whole season 8) may not be what he had intended, although he still is producer / consultant on the series. Maybe more than other series, to appreciate this one you really have to know your characters, and there are many! you can easily find a recap of the previous season(s) online. Personally I re-watched the whole Season 7 before this one, something I find to be good practice for seasons that are released one year apart (even longer for that last one). The last two seasons have finally shown our characters re-unite after years of separation, something I praised. I will not spoil who lives or dies or wins in the following but give some feeling about what happens in each episode so you may not want to read if you haven't seen the season yet. Those episodes have each a very different story (except the first two) unlike in the previous seasons that were more continuous, or with a mid-season cliffhanger. I found the first two episodes S8E1 Winterfell and S8E2 A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms to play too much on the meeting of the characters we know and exchanging memories of when they met or what happened to them, like a veeeery long wink to the audience. S8E3 The Long Night didn't disappoint me but its resolution came at a surprise. In retrospect I think it could have led the series differently (like spoiler highlight to read: the Dead Army avoiding Winterfell and going straight to King's Landing where Cercei would have then needed the help of the North) but I am OK with the choice made. S8E4 The Last of the Starks is the mandatory pause and reflection on what to do next. S8E5 The Bells is the (also) long-awaited final battle, was a bit of a let-down on that aspect and has some major logic flaws (more on that later), and takes a radical turn which may have surprised / infuriated many fans of the story. Finally S8E6 The Iron Throne does not include any battle, this was done before, but a needed epilogue that must bring the series to a conclusion and let people contemplate 8 years of adventure, similarly to the long ending of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. My general opinion on that final season (originally the second half of the seventh): Not bad, understanding that not everybody can be pleased by the choices made. The creators tried to keep up with the dark tone the series is loved for until the end, I think they succeeded in that, a happy ending would have been disappointing. However I feel that they rushed a bit in doing so. People could have easily watched 10 or 14 episodes if they were better paced and took more time to avoid big logical flaws, like the speed at which people now travel across continents (it is more convenient to show but makes no sense at all) or the reason why a depleted army beats a fresh larger one in the blink of an eye. Game of Thrones changed forever the way we watch TV. In fact we don't watch TV anymore, I invite you to search how many people watched the first season on regular TV and on apps, compared to the last. The last episodes have beaten record after record of audience. 15 years ago no one would have guessed Fantasy would become mainstream! I may one day watch again the whole series...
Rating: 7 /10

Con Air (1997)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1997
	Director: Simon West (The General's Daughter, Tomb Raider, The Expendables 2)
	Actors: Nicolas Cage (Face/Off, Knowing), John Cusack (2012), John Malkovich (R.E.D.)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 12.05.2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: After an unfortunate incident, Cameron Poe (Cage) is sentenced to seven years in prison right before his daughter's birth. On the day of his release he flies home in the company of some of the worst criminal, who have secretly planned to hijack the plane.
Review: This movie was released the same year as John Woo's Face/Off, both star Nicolas Cage at the top of his career and belong to the same genre of over-the-top 90's Action flicks. Con Air is slightly more realistic, maybe just because it doesn't involve a hard-to-believe face-switching technology. The main interest of this movie resides in the cast, all showing off more than the other: in addition to Cage, Cusack and Malkovich you get Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction, Mission: Impossible 1-6), Steve Buscemi (Argameddon), Danny Trejo (Machete) and a bunch of others that all look badass. As often in the 80-90's, characters are very stereotyped: the criminal can be smart but are always evil, while the hero has a pure heart. You also watch this movie for the Action and you don't get disappointed between cars chasing a plane, an ambush on the ground and the crazy finale. You definitely have to switch your brain off not to be hurt by the nonsense story, the exaggerated character's reactions, the impossible coincidences and even some bad digital effects (the practical effects are good however). Possibly invoking nostalgia for the viewers like me who were 20 at its release and liked Action, Con Air may probably otherwise make you laugh for some time and bore afterwards.
Rating: 6 /10

Hulk (2003)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2003
	Director: Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi)
	Actors: Eric Bana (Star Trek), Jennifer Connelly (Once upon a time in America, Requiem for a Dream, Noah), Sam Elliott (The Big Lebowski), Nick Nolte (48 Hrs, The Thin Red Line)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 18.05.2019, VOD, 14" computer screen.
Synopsis: Son of a military scientist, Bruce (Bana) follows without knowing in his footsteps. After an accident in his laboratory, he gets chased by the military led by the father (Elliott) of his co-worker and former love interest Betty (Connelly).
Review: I had almost no memory of watching this movie except for the fight against the big dogs which I wrongly thought was the climax, and the breathtaking (although simple) shot of an explosion that I played twice like I did 15 years ago. It has been clearly stated that this movie does not belong to the official Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it was released four years before Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk started it. I really thought Marvel was trying to make it disappear so when I found it on the German Netflix I had to watch it immediately. You can tell from the tone (and the cast) that it does not fit what the MCU adopted for all of its movies, but I like to think that I can believe this original story to be the one of the Hulk we see in the MCU. It would explain why he is like he is and why there is no other Hulk (its genesis is a convoluted and lengthy adventure). This movie even ends in Latin America where The Incredible Hulk starts! There is in fact a lot to be said about this movie: - The 2003 digital special effects are much better than I thought they would be in particular their insertion in the many practical ones (a plus) except that I find the Hulk to be too green, less realistic than the shades we see in the following movies. - Director Ang Lee (discovered thanks to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and later known for successes like Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi) chose to shoot this move like a Drama, with a Comics-book backdrop. I believe this is unheard of in any other adaptation. This reminds me of the choice of classic director Robert Wise to shoot the first Star Trek movie. He does an excellent job at directing his actors and shooting their performance in close-up during realistic interactions. For good or worst the time he spends on his actors brings the length of the movie to 2h18. - The movie sometimes has a cheap 80's-90's look (maybe helped by the 1.85:1 filming ratio) but I find it does fit with what the directors tried to do. One scene is even shot like a theater play (light, sound, acting)! - Banner's conflict with his other personality is well-shown on screen - The action scene are well-spaced and edited - The movie over-uses of comic-book-looking transitions between scenes and several-angle-of-view inserts which I can qualify as I read on a review as "hit-and-miss". This attempts at giving a comics-book visual identity to an adaptation looks like the movie is trying to distinguish itself from the 2000's other super-hero movies that were Sam Raimi's Darkman and Spider-Man, X-men and Fantastic Four. - The aerie Music by Danny Elfman is kind of a character in itself. The notes reminded me of the soundtrack of Alien or other space-borne movies of the 80's. It looks like Elfman was the go-to guy for the soundtrack of comic books adaptation at that time as he was on the aforementioned Spider-Man films, Darkman and then Hellboy II: the Golden Army. In the end an interesting super-hero movie to watch, especially for the comparison to the contemporary films in the same genre, and to the ones made in the following decade.
Rating: 5 /10

Love, Death & Robots - Season 1 (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Creator: Tim Miller
	Actors: -
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Animation
	Conditions of visioning: March-May 2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: An anthology of short animated films around the topics of, well Love, Death & Robots.
Review: I am often surprised by the variety of what Netflix produces itself as movies and series. Love, Death & Robots is more than an animated SF series for adult like Final Space or Rick and Morty (which would already be a success to me), it is an anthology of short films with a serious tone. It couldn't have been made an anthology full-length feature film because there is no link at all between the segments excepts for the topics of the series title and the fact that they are animated. Still it reminds of the cult Heavy Metal and its 2000 sequel. More so, it reminds in its tone and format of The Animatrix series that was released between The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions: different stories, animations styles and approaches to a same global idea. I always found The Animatrix to be a worthy addition to the Wachowskis' trilogy, and I still literally have nightmares about the segment The Second Renaissance. I hadn't seen photo-realistic animated films since Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in 2001 (does The Adventures of Tintin count?) so I was baffled by the visual quality of such segments which are about half of the first season. I really had to rewind and look for telling details and sometimes couldn't find any (barring the futuristics of course). Beyond the quality of the animation, I loved diving into those short stories like any SF nerd could submerge into written SF short stories since the 1960's. It did feel like that. The short films don't pretend to be anticipating the future, they just tell fantastic stories of a future world. Segments can be light (S1E2: Three Robots) or dark (S1E1 Sonnie's Edge), photo-realistic (S1E7 Beyond the Aquila Rift) or more artistic (S1E3 The Witness), more focused on Love (S1E8 Good Hunting), Death (S1E1 Sonnie's Edge again) or Robots (S1E15 Blind Spot), about pure SF topics (S1E18 The Secret War) or leaning towards borderline poetry (S1E12 Fish Night, S1E14 Zima Blue). There are of course segments that I prefer to others (and that I will probably watch more times) but in this first season I didn't find any single bad one. There are probably many shorts that fit the description of this series being produced around the world, but it's great that Netflix a) funds directors to put their ideas in (very good-looking) images and b) gathers them under one banner (series) and distributes them to a vast audience. I do hope for a second season.
Rating: 8 /10

Poseidon (2006)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2006
	Director: Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, The Neverending Story, Air Force One)
	Actors: Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws, Always), Kurt Russell (Big Trouble in Little China, The Hateful Eight), Emmy Rossum (The Day after Tomorrow)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 27.04.2019, VOD, 42" TV screen
Synopsis: When the cruiser Poseidon is hit by a giant wave that capsizes it, Robert Ramsey (Russell) will go search for his daughter Jennifer (Rossum) and a way out, accompanied by other survivors.
Review: This is the remake of the classic 1972 disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure that I watched many times as a kid. I finally watched it to see how bad it could be, and to see a movie with Kurt Russell made in the period between his Action-hero fame of the 80's and his recent comeback. The story is exactly the same but with more action and bravery. However the one-sided characters that were fitting in the 70's (a hero, a coward, a family, a daughter/bimbo that obviously had to be in a revealing party dress...) feel out-of place in that remake. Before even that, I found the disaster to occur too early without any warning and not enough time to introduce the character and build any kind of attachment to them. Also the reactions of everybody are expedited: "OK the boat is upside-down, let's keep calm and wait for rescue". The situation is (very) quickly accepted by everybody and they move on. Often the special effects look cheap especially when there is fire and explosions. The movie plays too often the easy trick of having the audience hold their breath (literally) when the characters do. In the end the movie is passable and it took me two attempts to watch it in full. Maybe disaster movies were not supposed to be made after the 70's (so bad was the recently reviewed Aftershock), except if you up the scale and add extraordinary elements (Knowing) or go full over-the-top and don't treat your subject seriously (The Day after Tomorrow, San Andreas).
Rating: 3 /10

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Anthony Russo & Joe Russo (Captain America 2-3)
	Actors: Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder), Chris Evans (Fantastic Four 1-2), Scarlett Johansson (Match Point), ...
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF, Epic
	Conditions of visioning: 02.05.2019, Costanera Center Cineplanet.
Synopsis: After their last encounter with the Mad Titan Thanos, what's left of Earth's mightiest heroes have to decide whether to avenger the fallen ones, or move on.
Review: The spoiler-free period of 1-2 weeks is apparently over (according to the directors and the studio), although I don't like this tendency of forcing us to watch those movies as fast as possible under the threat of spoilers (the same goes for the final season of Game of Thrones). Still, I will try to keep my review relatively spoiler-free as usual (except for a few comments you should highlight to read if you've already seen the movie). After such an unbearably long wait I went to see the movie twice, the first time virgin of the trailers and predictions from the previous three weeks so that I could be surprise and express myself during the projection, the second time more relaxed to catch more details and get a better feeling around the whole thing. For those who don't know, this is the sequel to the 2018 Avengers: Infinity War and the last of 22 movies in the first 3 phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The end of an 11-year era really. In short, if Infinity War was the culmination of what Marvel led us to in the past decade, Endgame is more of a satisfying (and necessary) conclusion. Satisfying indeed, I liked it a lot and think the directors and studios couldn't have done much better. Necessary also, to prepare for the future of the franchise / Universe. The movie starts with a bang and cleverly shows all that was seen in the first trailer so that you can then enjoy the rest of the show with a free mind. Then it goes a bit where I was expecting (time travel) but doesn't use that tool as the ultimate weapon: heroes still are. So that even if some things were expected from the trailer, obvious reasons or stolen set images, what happens to the characters and relationship between them was still to me fascinating to watch unfold. And the voyage our heroes take is also an excuse to have them introspect and make unexpected encounters (like Tony with his father). At the same time the story manages to keep a level of humor usual in the franchise (ha ha I loved fat Thor). Well written and well done. All leads to a third act that I found fully satisfying, in particular via three moments that got great outbursts of emotion from someone like me that has been following this Universe since 11 years: Cap yielding Thor's Hammer, the Avengers all-hands gathering and Tony's death. At the first viewing I found that the music was lacking punch, especially in those last scenes, and especially compared to the one during Thor's arrival at the end of Infinity War. On second viewing it was better, but still I believe it should have been played much louder. At first viewing I also had the impression that many special effects had been rushed, in particular for the scenes of compositing of many known characters in ensemble shots, while obviously all those actors could not be gathered on the same day for the one shot. I had the impression that all the edges of the characters were blurred and that they were not fitting with the background. This kind of composite scene was for example better done with Christopher Lee in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Again it felt better on second viewing but still, I was not impressed by special effects although they are omnipresent in this movie. In general I liked the movie a lot, and I upgraded Infinity War from 7/10 to 8/10 so that I could give 7/10 to Endgame, because I like the other one a bit more. For a full breakdown of the movie you may watch this video from the YouTube channel New Rockstars, or the emotional walkthrough from director Kevin Smith. At the time of writing this post, Marvel is about with this movie to beat Avatar's record of worldwide most lucrative movie ever (more than 2.6 billion dollars!!!), so I seriously don't know where they can go now. The trailer of Spiderman: Far from Home to be released in July gives us a hint of a post-Endgame world and Marvel has announced dates for two movies in 2020, three in 2021 and three in 2022. More details on titles will be given in a few months time but we expect sequels to Ant-Man (maybe), Doctor Strange, Black Panther and Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (with director James Gunn returning) a solo Black Widow movie, new franchises like The Eternals and Shang Chi. The big question is: will they manage to combine all of those to build up to a new Avengers movie?
Rating: 7 /10