Dredd (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Pete Travis (Vantage Point)
	Actors: Karl Urban (The Lord of the Rings 1-3, Star Trek), Lena Headey (300), Olivia Thirlby
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 09.05.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: In a post-apocalyptic future, Mega-City One holds 800 million citizens. Dredd (Urban) is one of the Judges (also jury and executioner) trying to keep order.
Review: Not a remake of the poor 1995 Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone, but a different movie inspired by the same comics book. I remember the 1995 movie to be not so good, but I liked the screenplay that threw Dredd in the desert so that he could better come back and kick some ass. The choice was made for this new Dredd to stay in the city, and in particular in one of its 75000 souls appartment complexes. Also the movie was kept simple and I would classify it as B-movie. This was probably a good idea. The story is also simple and inspired by video games (reaching the top floor of a gangster-infested building) but is well told, and what brings the movie apart are the crude violence and gore effects that I was not expecting. It is quite a blast. Unfortunately the movie lacks ambition and scale, that would be my main critic. The large scale visual effects (city, buildings) and the slow motions are cool, but the details are not perfect (slow motion bullets and blood spills). The darks are very noisy and show the limitation of the digital camera used. It might be interesting to watch the 3D version anyway.
Rating: 6 /10

The Last Stand (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Jee-woon Kim (A Bittersweet Life, The Good the Bad the Weird, I Saw the Devil)
	Actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator), Forest Whitaker (Ghost Dog), Johnny Knoxville (Jackass, Men in Black 2)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 06.05.2012, Air France in-flight entertainement system
Synopsis: A druglord escapes and races towards the Mexican border. The sheriff of a border town (Schwarzenegger) will hold the last stand against him.
Review: The second movie of Schwarzy after eight years of political carrer and The Expendables 2. It is clearly formatted for him and tries to use the rules of the 80's movies, period at which the actor was at his top: bad guy with a superiority complex, good guy alone against all odds, action-packed scenes and a bunch of colorful characters/sidekicks. It feels good sometimes, and I particularly liked the pace at the beginning of the movie, slowly introducing the characters. I was able to go through the first inconsistency in the story, invoking the principle of suspension of disbelief, but as the movie goes on there are too many of them to be overlooked. The reactions of some characters are just wrong and let's face it, Arnie is not what he used to be, unlike Stallone that I still found fit in The Expendables. Also the character played by Knoxville and quite useless and is too obviously present to improve the comedy side. You can still spend a god time if you are nostaligic of this kind of 80's cinema, but it will not mark the memories.
Rating: 4 /10

Frankenweenie (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Tim Burton (Mars Attacks!)
	Actors (voices): Wynona Rider (Alien Resurrection), Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau (Ed Wood)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Animation, Comedy, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 06.05.2012, Air France in-flight entertainement system
Synopsis: Little Victor Frankenstein is upset when his beloved dog dies. He will bring it back thanks to a scientific experiment with lightning.
Review: The full-feature length remake of a short by Tim Burton of the same name, dated 1984. I read that it was not really useful, and tend to agree. Are present the usual Burton characters of sad boy and gothic girl, and the plot is a good idea, but some scenes feel a bit stretched. The animation is nice and in spite of the black and white, it is less depressing than Corpse Bride. The kids characters and their reactions are not so funny, but I liked the behavior of the dog, quite touching.
Rating: 5 /10

Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Rich Moore (some Simpsons and Futurama episodes)
	Actors (voices): John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer
	Country: USA
	Genre: Animation, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 25.04.2013, Air France in-flight entertainment system
Synopsis: Ralph, the bad guy in a video game, would like to be appreciated more and become a good guy.
Review: I didn't expect much from this Disney movie, but it turned out to be closer to a Pixar movie. It calls to different levels of viewers, not only kids like usually in Disney productions, but also young adults and especially adults in their thirties that lived throught the dawn of video gaming.Indeed the references to classics like Pacman, Mario, Street Fighter or Sonic are numerous. I was even surprised that so many characters from concurrent companies could be gathered in a same movie. The spirit is between Toy Story for the nostalgic characters and their funny unknown behaviors (what happens when we don't look at them?, for example to the drunkard and exhibitionist Zangieff from Street Fighter), and The Incredibles for the more adult references. But beyond that, I found the movie a bit flat and rather predictible, except for some plot surprises. It is not always original and I had the feeling it was using some worn-out tricks to please the viewer. The deep voice of the main character Ralph sounds like the one of Seth Rogen seen in Zach and Miri make a Porn, but it is not him. I may watch the movie again in Blu-ray to catch more details and appreciate it more.
Rating: 6 /10

Symbol (2009)

	Also Known As: Shinboru
	Year of first release: 2009
	Director: Hitoshi Matsumoto
	Actors: Hitoshi Matsumoto, Luis Accinelli
	Country: J
	Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 24.04.2013, DVD, OV
Synopsis: A man wakes up alone in a brightly illuminated white room with no windows or doors. When he presses a mysteriously phallic protuberance that appears on one wall, a pink toothbrush materializes from nowhere, clattering to the floor and setting in motion a genuinely bizarre chain of events. Soon the imprisoned man is engaged in absurd and hilarious attempts to escape the gleaming room, releasing random objects from the walls, creating a life sized mouse trap game in which a rope, a toilet plunger and an earthenware jug full of sushi might just be the keys to his escape. Meanwhile, in a dusty town, a green masked Mexican wrestler known as Escargot Man prepares for an important match. His family gathers around him, worried about his seeming impassivity before battle.
Review: The story is crazy and great! The balance between the story of Escargot Man and the story of the man pressing buttons is good. But as often in Japanese movies, some scenes of the second story are too long and Matsumoto is overplaying his character by screaming when it is not appropriate. The story is fantastically original. The scenery as well. But the acting of Matsumoto is really not appropriate and generates flaws when the rest is great. I should watch in another language than Japanese, maybe the translation saves the acting of Matsumoto.
Rating: 6 /10

Starlet (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Sean Baker
	Actors: Dree Hemingway, Besedka Johnson
	Country: USA, GB
	Genre: Comedy, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 22.04.2013, Schauburg, OV sneak
Synopsis: An unlikely friendship forms between 21 year-old Jane and the elderly Sadie after Jane discovers a hidden stash of money inside an object at Sadie's yard sale.
Review: In the first part of the movie,I was not able to say how Janewas making her money. At least her roomates seem spinning between drugs and computer games. When she decides to make out of Sadie a friend, it is funny to see her tenacity facing the suspiscious old lady. But Jane seemed also not to make anything in her life. Her hope of a honest and better life goes all through her relationship with Sadie. The story is very touching,especially with the contrast between her daily life with the roomates and her honest and affectionate relationship with Sadie. The resistance of Sadie will be explained and this gives a happy end, with a touch of melancoly. The scenery is very home-made, sometimes a bit too bright or a bit too dark, but never aggressive nor excessively realistic. The rythm is a bit flat, I guess to reflect the boring life of Jane. Quite nice movie, promising for the director and the Dree Hemingway.
Rating: 6 /10

The broken circle (2012)

	Also Known As: The broken circle breakdown
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Felix van Groeningen
	Actors: Veerle Baetens, Johan Heldenbergh
	Country: NL
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 25.03.2013, Schauburg, OV
Synopsis: Elise and Didier fall in love at first sight, in spite of their differences. He talks, she listens. He's a romantic atheist, she's a religious realist. When their daughter becomes seriously ill, their love is put on trial.
Review: The movie has a very good music, even if I am not a fan of this bluegrass/country stuff. This shows and enhances passion, rythm, love. The passion that rises in the couple is beautiful to watch, even if they do not speak much. The love to their daughter is shown actually as a secondary story, and therefore I did not feel involved in the illness of the daughter but more in the fall of this relationship. The music and the concerts have actually such a big role in the movie, that the rest appears secondary as well.
Rating: 6 /10

Polytechnique (2009)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2009
	Director: Denis Villeneuve
	Actors: Maxim Gaudette, Sébastien Huberdeau, Karine Vanasse
	Country: CND
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 22.03.2013, City46, OV
Synopsis: A dramatization of the Montreal Massacre of 1989 where several female engineering students were murdered by an unstable misogynist.
Review: After Elephant it is not easy to make a movie about mass killing at school. Well, here it is a university. This time, the drama is shown from the perspective of the killer and of several victims. The movie is more focused on how these people feel and their experience and the very short term consequences. The movie is very impressive and the playing very convincing, in particular Sébastien Huberdeau. There is also a small focus on the misogynism, without explaination how this came. The movie shows the fact that women are more successful in the studies and that for plenty of reasons: loveliness, goal-orientation, women should be valued.
Rating: 7 /10

The best offer (2013)

	Also Known As: La migliore offerta
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Guiseppe Tornatore
	Actors: Geoffrey Rush, Sylvia Hoeks, Donald Sutherland
	Country: I
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 18.03.2013, Schauburg
Synopsis: An eccentric art auctioneer, obsessed by pictures of women, gets involved in a Amour courtois story, in which he is a bit lost.
Review: A bit like in The Spanish prisoner, the auctioneer as the viewer is brought slowly into a betrayal story. The movie makes the characters appear quite attaching. We feel compassion for them also. All this with a simple scenery but a very fine story, with plenty of details that end to be critical and plenty of magnificent master pieces, that make the story speak even more to the heart. The acting of Geoffrey Rush is also great.
Rating: 6 /10

Jackie Brown (1997)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1997
	Director: Quentin Tarantino
	Actors: Pam Grier, Samuel Jackson, Robert Forster
	Country: USA
	Genre: Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 14.03.2013, DVD
Synopsis: A female flight attendant becomes a key figure in a plot between the police and an arms dealer.
Review: I have been really disappointed by this movie. I expected something à la Tarentino, with good music, cool scenes and dialogues, because many friends talking good about it. And finally, nothing of this all. The basic story is good but the acting and the directing were lacking of rythm. I did not fell asleep, but I was not so far. Or maybe it was a bad day.
Rating: 3 /10