From Hell (2001)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2001
	Director: The Hughes Brothers (Menace II Society, The Book of Eli)
	Actors: Johnny Depp (The Ninth Gate), Heather Graham (Austin Powers: the Spy Who Shagged me), Ian Holm (The Lord of the Rings, Alien)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 29.11.2014, DVD, Home cinema
Synopsis: In 1888 London, the Opium-addict inspector Abberline (Depp) is on charge of solving the famous Jack the Ripper case. To gather information he gets closer to the prostitute Mary Kelly (Graham).
Review: I re-discovered this movie in my old pile of DVDs, and was interested by watching it again for several reasons. Like when watching The Ninth Gate, I wanted to appreciate Johnny Depp in his pre-Pirates of the Carribean years. Also I had a good memory of the movie from when I watched it about 6-7 years-ago in this French edition that offers a nice thick paper cover and extras like a documentary on Absinthe that I found particularly interesting at the time. Unfortunately I noticed this time the rather poor quality of the image and sound, and I regret not having watched it in Blu-ray, which could have increased its rating of one point. Besides the excellent performances by Johnny Depp and Ian Holm (I like to re-discover him in more and more movies), the movie had other reasons to succeed: it is adapted from a graphic novel by Alan Moore (Watchmen) which translates into a very original and new take at the classic Jack The Ripper story. This solid original material was adapted for this big screen by the gifted Hugues Brothers from which I also liked Menace II Society (and its soundtrack) and The Book of Eli. And they did a good job at it: the London they depict seems extremely realistic and shady (again, I missed the HD to appreciate fully the effort, especially during the many dark scenes), reminding me of the Sherlock Holmes story that I am reading and that take place ten years-later. The gore parts are well managed (we don't see too much of them but we guess enough thanks to the sound effects) and most importantly the twisted psyche of some characters very well rendered I found.
Rating: 7 /10

The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2005
	Director: Judd Apatow (Knocked up)
	Actors: Steve Carell (Crazy Stupid Love, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World), Catherine Keener (Into the Wild), Paul Rudd (Knocked Up)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 24.11.2014, SD VOD, 32" TV
Synopsis: When his working colleagues find out that Andy (Carell) has never known a woman, they give him sometimes contradictory tips.
Review: I was not really motivated to watch this movie, thinking I knew already the whole story in advance. But after watching Knocked Up, I understood that Judd Apatow could deliver a bit more than a comedy American Pie-style. Indeed the additional layer of comedy and deeper background story is also present in The 40 Year-Old Virgin, leading to a movie length of two hours (like Knocked Up), unusual for this genre of modern romantic comedy.  The movie does contain the elements I was expecting (caricatured virgin but not exaggeratedly so, insensitive friends, aborted sex attempts, true love in the end) but it is all quite well wrapped and relatively pleasant to watch (although obviously embarrassing at times), thanks to the toned-down play by Carell, perfect cast for the role. It is only slightly bothering to notice that his role lead him to similar ones in Crazy Stupid Love and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. In the end, better than I was expecting.
Rating: 6 /10

Third person (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Paul Haggis
	Actors: Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, Adrien Brody, Moran Atias, Mila Kunis, James Franco
	Country: USA, GB, B, D
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 17.11.2014, Schauburg, OV sneak preview
Synopsis: Michael (Liam Neeson) is an author who has holed himself up in a hotel suite in Paris to finish his book. He is having an affair with Anna (Olivia Wilde), who wants to write and publish fiction. There are also two other stories, in Rome and in New-York.
Review: The stories are not very captivating in the first hour. Then it drifts to induce mystery about the reality of the stories, a bit like the recently seen Blind. It is here again difficult to know whether these stories are written by the protagonist or are thoughts or memories and this is actually the interesting part of the movie. But the introduction is far far too long!  The acting is good but the roles lack of interest to me. Keeping only a short intro of 10 minutes and the last 30 minutes of the movie would have increased my rating by much. It makes me confirm that I really recommend Blind! Rating: 3 /10

The zero theorem (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Terry Gilliam
	Actors: Christoph Waltz, Mélanie Thierry, Lucas Hedges
	Country: GB, F, USA, RO
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 24.11.2014, Schauburg, VO sneak preview
Synopsis: Qohen Leth (Waltz) is a computer scientist living in an ancient monastery whose goal is to discover the reason for his existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the unreachable Management. Bob (Hedges), a teenager being a computer crack and Bainsley (Thierry), a pretty call-girl.
Review: I was excited when it was clear in the sneak preview that the "surprise" movie was this one, as I was excited by the plot. But I did not see in the story the search for a sense in life. Qohen is actually just waiting for a phone call that will never come, for an illusion. I understood Bob as the son of the Management, the son of God, and he tells the good words to Qohen, about freedom, love and social life; and Bainsley as the call-girl actually looking for being loved by Qohen and encountering only a wall of indifference. Here the Manager is a kind of God observing Qohen and everybody in order to make him work for his goals. The parties are like today in a café where people meet physically but each one is connected to anything via the Smartphone and pays attention only to it.  The photography is dark and very colourful at the same time. The futuristic view of the world is a kind of translation of what already happens via Internet (e.g. social networks, games, violation of privacy, user-adapted advertisement) on the complete world, on the street. The costumes are beautiful of colours and originality except Qohen's. It is also full of elements having connotations (to Christian religion, to unreachability, omniscience of God/Management, to workaholism). This was interesting. Unlike other movies of Gilliam I liked (Brazil, Fisher King, Twelve monkeys, The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus), I do not see a strong sense nor a mystery in this movie. As this surprises me, I wonder whether I missed something as I had difficulties to understand Waltz talking in the first 30 minutes.
Rating: 5 /10

Partie de campagne (1946)

	Also Known As: A day in the country, Eine Landpartie
	Year of first release: 1946
	Director: Jean Renoir
	Actors: Sylvia Bataille, Jacques Borel, Paul Temps, Georges Saint-Saens
	Country: F
	Genre: Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 12.11.2014, DVD, French version
Synopsis: A Parisian family spends a day in the country. While the men, Henri (Saint-Saens) and his future father in law, decide to go fishing, the ladies, Henriette (Bataille) and her mother, let their charm work on two rowers Rodolphe (Borel) and Anatole (Temps) of the village.
Review: As I saw this DVD, I took it because I loved La grande illusion. But this is much different. The movie is very short, just 39 minutes, has been produced in 1936 and has been released actually only in 1946 ten years after the production. Nobody knows really why.  There are several sides. The naive romance of Henriette. The would-be romance of Henriette's mother. The comedy with Henri and Henriette's father. The plot is very simple and reminds the impressionist classical paintings of picnic along the rivers close to Paris. Jean Renoir is the son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the famous impressionist painter. Maybe this played a role. The acting is very authentic but as the characters, very simple. Sylvia Bataille is not only beautiful but is also stunning with her acting. The romance does not look to be mutual until we see the kiss and the last scene years later. There are also a couple of average humorous scenes. Well, the movie in general is average.  In the DVD, there are also unused takes thanks to the Cinématèque française. Some of these are very funny and other show also how Renoir directed the actors. Relatively interesting. For instance, Sylvia Bataille rejected one take because of the light.
Rating: 4 /10

Nightcrawler (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Dan Gillroy
	Actors: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Bill Paxton, Riz Ahmed
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 10.11.2014, Schauburg, OV sneak preview
Synopsis: When Lou Bloom (Gyllenhaal), a driven man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. Aiding him in his effort is Nina (Russo), a TV-news veteran.
Review: The story of Lou Bloom, convinced by himself and without scruples, is amazing for the ever increasing reluctance and admiration you can feel for this personality. Reluctance for his insanity and admiration for the way he manages to convince everybody of his good will so that I may have trusted him as well. Reluctance is also felt by the young exploited employee Rick (Ahmed). Admiration is also felt by the TV-news boss Nina. For me it looked like the American dream of a self-made man who does not make anything too illegal but completely illegitimate and becomes successful with this behaviour. The image is well done and I find it great for all the night outdoor takes. The acting of Gyllenhaal and Russo is great especially when they negotiate as there is a change in the self-perception of Russo and a dry and inhuman logic in Gyllenhaal. In the acting there are plenty of negotiation situation and therefore of conflicts that are not completely cleared. This kind of feeling is not easy to act without exageration.
Rating: 7 /10

The Siege (1998)

	Also Known As: Couvre-Feu (French)
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Edward Zwick (Legends of the Fall, Blood Diamond)
	Actors: Denzel Washington (Crimson Tide), Bruce Willis (Die Hard 1-5), Annette Bening (American Beauty, Mars Attacks!), Tonny Shaloub (Men in Black, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Polar, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 18.11.2014, SD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Terrorist attacks intensify in New York, while FBI agent Hubbard (Washington) investigates, hindered by the silence of CIA agent Kraft (Bening).
Review: At the end of the 90's, The Siege may have shown a different view on the classic 'terrorist' movie (Die Hard for example), a view that dramatically came true (and not too far from the movie events) on September 11th 2001. The parallel is easy to draw: indeed the movie depicts large scale terrorist attacks in New York City, targeted at official buildings (FBI offices vs. Pentagon on 9/11) but also at civilians (bus vs. planes on 9/11, and a demonstration vs. a marathon recently in Boston), by a group of individuals (organized in cells) that do not even present demands, but are ready to die for their cause. Only the scale of the real events was even larger than the screenplay writers could imagine (some years later The Sum of all Fears surpassed this scale). Other difference, the response of the government is (too) extreme in the movie: declaring Martial Law on the city. This extreme response occurring in the last half hour didn't please me so much. Otherwise the rest of the movie is a rather good, the story intricate enough and the actors solid. The moral of this story (we cannot let ourselves become worse than our enemies) is a bit too much, but this is what to expect from the director of Legends of the Fall.
Rating: 6 /10

Street Trash (1987)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1987
	Director: James M. Muro (more known as camera operator on many movies like Terminator 2, Predator 2, The Abyss, Titanic, X-men 2, The Chronicles of Riddick...)
	Actors: Mike Lackey, Bill Chepil, Vic Noto
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror, Black Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 17.11.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: In the worst part of town, a lunatic Vietnam veteran controls a group of hobos. One of them buys a bottle of old cheap liquor that will have the most devastating effect.
Review: I remember hearing about this movie from a friend 20 years ago. It was typical of what we could find in the Horror section of our local Video Club. He told me that hobos drink a kind of alcohol that makes them melt! I had actually never seen the movie myself but now I could fix that and appreciate it in the best possible conditions. This "Meltdown edition" was produced with great care (great image and sound), even including a sticker for you to reproduce your own bottle of the terrible liquor, and a feature-length documentary about the making of the movie that I have yet to watch. Street Trash is inspired by a 15-min short film of the same name that the director shot in 16 mm (also provided on the Blu-ray). The short film focuses on the cursed liquor, while the movie adds much more around it, and the meltdowns occur only sporadically and are not the heart of the story. So between those gooey moments (all of them well made and producing an effect unique to this movie), we follow the violent life of those hobos struggling to survive, grow up (the two heroes are teenage brothers), eat, drink, fuck. The characters are all exaggeratedly colorful (the owner of the garage, his secretary trying to help the hobos, the determined cop and of course the mad chief of the hobos), reminding me actually of a Troma production like Toxic Avenger or Poultrygeist. The actors are not too bad and portray a very cruel society, which is why I classified the movie as Black Comedy as well. So this is what I will remember from this movie: hobos living in a car wreck junkyard (the two brothers live under a tire pyramid!) and occasionally melting down into a colorful and disgusting puddle.
Rating: 5 /10

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1988
	Director: Stephen Chiodo
	Actors: Grant Cramer, Suzanne Snyder, John Allen Nelson, John Vernon (Dirty Harry, Topaz)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 16.11.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: What looked like a meterorite lands on Earth and takes the shape of a circus tent. Its alien inhabitants look like clowns and start to decimate the population with a pop-corn gun, turning them into cotton-candy (barbapapa).
Review: After The Blob and Basket Case, yet another classic Horror movies from that 80's that I decided to watch in its recent "ultimate" Blu-ray edition. Arrow Entertainment did an excellent job with this one, the images are incredibly sharp, the colors saturated enough to enjoy the variety of the clowns and their accessories (to give you an idea, see the picture at the end of this post), and only the sound is a bit weak (bass missing) but that is also probably due to the original material. As for the beautiful editions of Time Bandits and Knightriders (by the same editor), the extras are numerous: reversible cover (see below), commentary, interviews, making-off and a nice booklet. Now about the movie itself: the basic idea is great (Those E.T.s have actually been on Earth before and this is where humans got the idea to disguise as clown from!) and the choice was taken to make it a parody. Indeed the starting point is similar to the one in The Blob, but you immediately notice the non-seriousness of it all, a feeling reinforced by the very poor play of the actors, and the cheap 80's music and sound effects. Once you accept the movie as a parody,  there are some jewels to be found in it:  the design of the clowns is absolutely scary (Coulrophobia victims stay away!) and their prosthetic masks quite well done for a low budget film of that time. The accessories are also fantastic: pop-corn gun (in which the corns grow to be horrible worms with teeth), cotton-candy cocoons, acid cream pie, carnivorous shadow puppet show, and my favorite: the balloon dog that tracks the scent of the future victims. Everything was so colorful it was a pleasure to watch the movie in this excellent Blu-ray transfer. Unfortunately the pace is quite slow and I cannot recommend the movie to anybody, but it is definitely a classic. I am looking forward to learn more about its genesis when watching the Blu-ray extras, and will follow the development of the announced The Return of the Killer Klowns from Outer Space in 3D.
Rating: 6 /10

Passengers (2008)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008
	Director: Rodrigo García
	Actors: Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar), Patrick Wilson (Watchmen), David Morse (Contact, 12 Monkeys)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 16.11.2014, SD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: The young psychologist Claire (Hathaway) is given the task of caring for a group of plane crash survivors. She will get more and more attracted by one of them (Wilson), particularly ecstatic about the whole experience.
Review:  The topic seemed interesting. The lovely Anne Hathaway plays very well a fragile woman unsure of herself, and the contrast with the character played by Patrick Wilson works well. The slow development is intriguing enough to keep the viewer interested in spite of the predictable romance, but when you start to understand where it is going and when you see the ending you wonder: all this just for that?!? This movie only reminds me that I want to watch Flight with Denzel Washington, but I will otherwise quickly forget it.
Rating: 3 /10