Tron (1982)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1982
	Director: Steven Lisberger
	Actors: Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski, True Grit), Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 21.01.2016. HD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Flynn (Bridges), genius programmer, is trying to hack into the Master Control Program of the company he was fired from when this one sends him inside its own digital world.
Review: After watching and appreciating Tron Legacy, I was really curious to watch again the original Tron and found out that I had never seen it in full actually, only chosen segments like the famous bike race probably during some Christmas Disney special. I had the same remark about Fantasia, and Tron also shares with the musical animated film an experimental look and daring special effects for the time. Those effects make the originality of the movie (and its success at the time) but are also its main weakness when watched today. Indeed those effects date from the very first days of 3D digital imaging and more than occupying some key scenes of the movie they constitute a large number of those which can be a bit laughable, like the tanks vs. bike chase. The story is quite actual (a corporation spying on others, the way employees are treated) although the love triangle is a bit too much, and I could recognize a concept similar to The Terminator's Skynet (1984) and they way programs talk of each other is strikingly close to the way it is done in the Matrix universe. I also found interesting the quasi-religious relationship the programs have with the users. What is sure is that the concept of this movie born in the very early days of the digital age is original. I appreciated to see that some design elements (the disks, the bikes, the carrier ship, the recognizer vehicles) have been re-used in the sequel / remake. The look of the Grid world is well-thought and was also re-used for the sequel, in particular the excellent idea of the character's clothes with bright lines in the shape of micro-circuits. The only problem is that the optical techniques used in 1982 show too much that the actors were wearing some kind of grey pyjamas. Also a bit ridiculous. And I found the electronic music to be very poor and accompanying very badly the action scenes in particular. So I would recommend Tron only to cinema enthusiasts curious about this piece of cinema History and willing to go thought it while accepting its defaults.
Rating: 4 /10

Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1970
	Director: Don Siegel (The Beguiled, Dirty Harry, Escape from Alcatraz)
	Actors: Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino, Dirth Harry), Shirley MacLaine (Bruno, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), Manolo Fábregas
	Country: USA
	Genre: Western
	Conditions of visioning: 17.01.2016, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Only after Hogan (Eastwood) saved Sara (MacLaine) from rape does he find out that she is a nun. He is willing to let her on her way as soon as possible but their paths will not be so easily separated.
Review: I am almost done with watching all the movies from a nice Clint Eastwood Blu-ray box-set that I started with Play Misty for me, and only Breezy is now missing. I am pretty sure I has never seen Two Mules for Sister Sara, not one of the most famous Western with Clint. He plays like very often the lone mercenary with a big heart, and the encounter with the nun makes for some interesting reactions. In this movie I liked the historical background (the French invasion of Mexico which I didn't know of) and the discussions about faith between the mercenary and the nun. I liked the natural and energetic play by Shirley MacLaine, but I found her make-up ridiculous, totally unfitting to the period and to her supposed character, although after watching the end of the movie I had to re-think this remark. Mention has to be made of the quality of the images and of the camera motions, probably thanks to an experienced director Don Siegel. One shot in particular amazed me, when the couple dismount from their horses and they start to walk, the camera follows them by moving backwards, then under a bridge that we see the couple crossing, and finally the camera pans to the left to reveal a town market, the destination. There would have been many ways to shoot this scene much less interestingly. The battle scenes are rather crude (bloody) and realistic. The conclusion is a bit far-fetched. An interesting and slightly original Western.  On a side note, the title is not very clear to me as Sister Sara rides a mule and then a donkey during the movie, but I think the second mule refers to Hogan who is in at least two occurrences compared to the animal for his stubbornness.
Rating: 5 /10

Gérardmer International Fantastic Film Festival 2016 - What to Watch?

JoRafCinema is very glad to be able to participate this year for the first time to one of the most famous Fantastic Film Festivals in Europe, the biggest in France, successor of the famed Avoriaz Festival: The Gérardmer International Fantastic Film Festival.
It will take place between January 27th and 31st in the small ski resort of Gérardmer at the center of the French Vosges mountain range.
As with all the festivals we attend, JoRafCinema will review all the movies seen and provide a summary at the end, but today is just an appetizer to the festival in the form of recommendation of movies to watch.

John Wick (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Chad Stahelski (stunt or action coordinator on the Matrix trilogy, 300, Iron Man 2, Tron Legacy, ...), David Leitch
	Actors: Keanu Reeves (The Matrix 1-3, 47 Ronin), Michael Nyqvist (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 1-3), Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones TV-series), Willem Dafoe (Platoon, Spiderman)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 10.01.2016, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: An ex-hitman (Reeves) comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters that took everything from him.
Review: John Wick looks like it was adapted from a comic book or will be adapted into a video game, but only the latter is true and its look is in fact derived from the influences of the directors that include Mangas, video games but also spaghetti western and Kung-Fu (and they both worked on The Matrix trilogy with Reeves).  I liked the gunfights in this movie although they do look too much like a video game: indeed John Wick consistently shoots his enemies with a few bullets to the chest and one to the head, while those poor bastards don't even manage to wound him even slightly. This is quite unrealistic similarly to what I have already commented on The Expendables 3, but at least in John Wick there is blood, lots of it. But even though, I found the choreography of the gunfights a bit too "organized". The vengeance story is half-way between Cronenberg's A History of Violence and Death Sentence with Kevin Bacon, the first one for the backstory and the second for the motivation for revenge and the urban setting. What disturbed me most in the movie and prevented me from really liking it is exactly that motivation that I found week: the bad guys didn't even kill his wife but only his dog, and what a coincidence that it's the son of his ex-boss (nice Alfie "Theon/Reek" Allen from Game of Thrones) that did it. Apart from that, it is quite a nice energetic Action shooter, with an original atmosphere like in the hotel/bar reserved to gangsters and in which they have to respect some rules. This is the kind of detail that made me think the movie was adapted from a graphic novel. Another nice aspect is the Electro soundtrack composed by Tyler Bates (known for his work on Rob Zombie's Halloween, Halloween II, and The Devil's Rejects, on Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, 300, Watchmen, and Sucker Punch, on Neil Marshall's Doomsday and on Ti West's The Sacrament) and Joel J. Richard or by the DJ Le Castle Vania. Last time I remember liking a modern soundtrack was the one created by the Chemical Brothers for Hanna, without mentioning the one by the Daft Punk for Tron: Legacy of course.
Rating: 6 /10

Tron: Legacy (2010)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Joseph Kosinski (Oblivion)
	Actors: Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski, Iron Man), Garrett Hedlund (Troy, Death Sentence), Olivia Wilde (The Lazarus Effect)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 10.01.2016, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Sam Flynn (Hedlund) inherited the company founded by his father (Bridges) when this one disappeared after having discovered how to enter the Grid, the world inside digital microchips. Twenty years later he will follow is footsteps.
Review: I enjoyed Tron Legacy better this time than when I saw it in the cinemas, maybe thanks to subtitles that helped me understand details of the story told by a Jeff Bridges mumbling under his beard. This visioning confirmed my memory that the movie was visually very well done, even better than I remembered, having a look of futuristic and colorful Space Opera that is too rare nowadays. Some scenes are very beautiful: the bike and plane races of course but also less spectacular moments like when Flynn simply creates his double (the bluffing young digital double of Jeff Bridges must of course be mentioned). This visioning also confirmed that the French Electro band Daft Punk made an incredible job with the soundtrack which I bought right after the movie release. I even found that the action sometimes couldn't keep up with the music, for example during the scene in the club when the DJs (as themselves in the movie) play the excellent piece Derezzed (reminding me of the style in their first album Homework) but the choreography of the action seen almost too slow. This scene and the following one in the elevator are anyway some of the best in the movie, partly thanks to the music. Five years ago I had found the movie too slow and with a poor story. Now I found a new depth to the story and concluded that it is not too bad after all in spite of some gaps. I feared that this story would be even less believable nowadays than it was at the beginning of the digital age when the first Tron came out. In fact in Tron Legacy I saw the Grid in which the hero is projected not as a microchip but as a parallel universe (a bit like in the remake of Fantastic Four), which gives the story a different... dimension. Maybe Tron Legacy is a movie that ages and will keep on aging well. What is sure is that I now want to see the original Tron as soon as possible.
Rating: 7 /10

Best of cinema by Mad Movies. Part 6: 2013-2014

Every year my favorite magazine for action/horror/thriller/SF (Mad Movies) publishes the list of the best movies of the previous year (and the worst ones), according to its editors and an average for the whole magazine team.
I have gathered them for your here with a few comments. Enjoy!
All parts of this article can be found under this link.

Machete Kills (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids, Planet Terror)
	Actors: Danny Trejo (From Dusk till Dawn, Planet Terror), Mel Gibson (Payback, Braveheart), Amber Heard (Zombieland), Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar), Charlie Sheen (Hot Shots 1-2), Sofía Vergara (Modern Family TV-series)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 08.01.2016, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: While Machete Cortes (Trejo) works in team with Sartana (Alba) to unveil a traffic of weapon between the American military and the Mexican cartels, they will discover a conspiracy larger than they could ever imagine. The USA President (Sheen) calls the ex-Federale for help.
Review: As much as I found it a good idea to finally give to Danny Trejo a lead role in the first Machete, this sequel was maybe not necessary especially since director Robert Rodriguez didn't put too much effort in it. It starts as expected with Machete fighting the bad guys in violent exaggerated situations, looking on purpose like cheap 80's action scenes, but as the film goes on it is obvious that it contains less and less good ideas and finally relies only on the physique and acting of its famous cast. In the current wave of 80's action revival with famous cast (I am thinking about Sin City 1 & 2 by the same director and Stallone's The Expendables 1, 2 & 3), the Machete franchise is clearly the one that drops the quickest in quality. It is nice to see those famous actors used in opposite roles as they are used to, and there are a few good ideas (how bad can it be to see Machete ride a rocket!?) and pleasantly violent fights (especially compared to The Expendables 3), but the pace is too slow and the movie feels very long. I found it funny that Charlie Sheen is credited in this movie with his Spanish-sounding birth name Carlos Estevez. And do not miss the fake trailer for the third movie Machete Kills in Space that will probably never be made, leaving this second one on an unfulfilled cliffhanger.
Rating: 2 /10

The Expendables 3 (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Patrick Hughes (Red Hill)
	Actors: Sylvester Stallone (Rocky 1-5, Rambo 1-4), Jason Statham (The Transporter 1-3), Dolph Lundgren (Rocky 4, Universal Soldier 1 3-4), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Terminator 1-3), Wesley Snpies (Blade 1-3), Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones 1-4)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 05.01.2016, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Barney Ross (Stallone) and his team rescue a former member Doctor Death (Snipes) en route to a mission for the government. There they will meet a former foe they thought dead: Stonebanks (Gibson).
Review: After The Expendables and its sequel, I was not extremely motivated but a bit curious to watch this third installment of the franchise started by Stallone in order to re-unite aging action heroes in testosterone-filled movies. And this one is in the line of the two others, only bigger and louder, introducing more established actors like Wesley Snipes and Mel Gibson (after three movies we have pretty much rounded all of them up) and a younger team, paving the way for more movies starting with The Expendables 4 announced for 2017. This new team features in particular the welcome addition of a female member played by martial artist Ronda Rousey. The story is not very original but delivers the action expected by the audience at regular intervals, interleaved with some character development and of course muscle show-offs. I was annoyed throughout the movie (especially at the beginning) by the cheap special effects used very often to show planes or tanks. The fifteen minutes during which Ross is travelling across North America in search for a new team is a bit far-fetched but nicely slows down the pace and definitely reminds of an 80's action classic or a video game. During the whole movie I had the feeling it was trying to beat a record in bodycount and the final half hour confirmed that. It is by far the most exaggerated scenes of the franchise and the death toll is limited only by the amount of dead you can show on film per second! Imagine that it takes place in a decrepit building surrounded by a full army (including tanks and choppers) and our ten men inside show all their talent for killing wave after wave of opponents without getting so much as a scratch. Totally unrealistic but funny to watch. Searching the Internet I could easily find the killcount for the first two movies (respectively 203 and 328 or 221 and 489 depending on the sources) but only one forum has the number for the third one: a whooping 480! The movie nevertheless managed to get a PG-13 rating and not R in the USA because during this whole carnage we don't see a single drop of blood ; people keep on falling under bullets and knifes but they don't bleed. This reminds me very much of what George R. R. Martin (author of the series that were adapted into Games of Thrones) said at the NIFFF2013: that in cinema Action just means bloodless Violence. I have then found a list of the deadliest films of all time by on-screen death counts. It dates from 2013 so The Expendables 3 is not in, but you can see that it would be placed 7th in the top of a list dominated by Fantasy and Historical Peplums.
Rating: 4 /10

The Mummy returns (2001)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2001
	Director: Stephen Sommers (Odd Thomas, The Mummy, Van Helsing)
	Actors: Brendan Fraser (Encino Man, Journey to the Center of the Earth), Rachel Weisz (The Fountain), John Hannah (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sliding Doors), Arnold Vosloo (G. I. Joe), Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (Pain & Gain, San Andreas)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 27.12.2015, French dubbing, 24" TV
Synopsis: Adventurer Rick O'Connell (Fraser) is now married to Evelyn (Weisz) with child, when they unleash a new ghost from the distant Egyptian past: The Scorpion King (Johnson). Meanwhile, another team is trying to resurrect Imhotep (Vosloo).
Review: Sequel to The Mummy (1999) that was supposed to start a period of remakes of the classic Universal monsters movies (like 1932 The Mummy with Boris Karloff), The Mummy Returns re-uses the same successful team (Sommers, Fraser, Weisz, Vosloo, Hannah and Oded Fehr) with the addition of a kid to the main couple and introducing for the first time in a feature film the Wrestling Champion Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, projecting him on the Action Hero career path that we now know. It is a typical "bigger and louder" sequel exaggerating the characters' traits (coward and funny Hannah, heroic Fraser, forgetful Weisz, all-powerful Vosloo, protective Fehr) while adding new ones (the kid) and displaying more action (the fighting mummies, climax of the first movie, are now shown as hors d'oeuvre) and a more complex and less linear story. This was required to keep on entertaining the audience after the rather good surprise that was the first movie. So putting all of that together and if you are not looking for too deep a meaning, I could recommend The Mummy Returns for an evening of Entertainment. At least it is not kid-oriented like adventure movies of the following years, e.g. Voyage to the Center of the Earth (with Fraser) or Race to Witch Mountain (with the Rock), unsuccessfully leaning more towards The Goonies.
Rating: 5 /10

On a retrouvé la 7ème compagnie (1975)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1975
	Director: Robert Lamoureux
	Actors:  Jean Lefebvre (Les Tontons Fligueurs), Pierre Mondy (La 7ème compagnie), Henri Guybet (Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob)
	Country: F
	Genre: War, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 25.12.2015, DVD, 32" TV
Synopsis: After succesfully avoiding being captured by German forces in 1945, three mediocre soldiers (Lefebvre, Mondy, Guybet) will keep on doing so until they eventually get caught and have to use their involuntary escape skills.
Review: Maybe not a masterpiece of French cinema but one known by anybody older than 30 because they probably watched it as kids with their family, as it is replayed on TV once a year since its release already 40 years ago. It is the sequel of La 7ème compagnie (1973) but I decided to watch this one because of the funny escape sequence with the mattresses in the castle. Note that the actor playing Tassin in the first movie Aldo Maccione has been replaced by Henri Guybet (some scenes have even been re-shot for a better transition at the beginning of this movie) and I let you discuss with purists about the best of the two. I have always wondered how could France produce a pure comedy about the second World War only 30 years after it ended. In that movie there is no discussion about good or bad guys, but more comedy about our main characters thrown into various situations, as it could be done with a cop/thief comedy, almost completely ignoring the grand scale of the war. I cannot say that I laughed a lot at watching the movie but its humour (purely French, I don't think it can be appreciated by any other nationality) reminded me of those times when I was watching such 70's comedies with my father. It was followed in 1977 by La 7ème compagnie au clair de lune.
Rating: 5 /10