1941 (1979)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1979
	Director: Steven Spielberg (E.T., Jaws, Ready Player One)
	Actors: John Belushi (Blues Brothers), Dan Aykroyd (Ghostbusters), Treat Williams. Christopher Lee (The Wicker Man, The Lord of the Rings), Nancy Allen (Robocop)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, War
	Conditions of visioning: 13.09.2019, VOD, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: A few days after the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan on the USA, panic strikes the west coast. Conscripts as well as civilians struggle to keep a normal life while all around madness grows.
Review: That's really a good description for this movie: mad. None of the characters (and there are tons of them) behave like a normal person would, everything is exaggerated down to the latest details in the background. It's a happy mess. Happy and very noisy. In fact a vast majority of the dialogs is delivered by the actors shouting over other actors, background noise or the soundtrack. The end credits summarize that well: we see the name of many known actors next to a scene where they scream. Shouting jokes doesn't make them more funny. I can't tell if this is deliberate from Spielberg, maybe as an homage to the previous generation of comedies that were a bit like that. This is one of his less successful movies. I do like the story a lot, an exaggeration of the craziness of those times of war. The characters are well-written and played by many great actors. It is just that the constant visual and acoustic noise is quickly tiresome. Some breaks would have been welcome, especially in a 2-hour long movie. The movie contains iconic moments: the girl excited by planes, the scenes with the Japanese sub-marine especially with Sir Christopher Lee, the canon shooting through the house at the end, the quid-pro-quos when the whole city of Los Angeles believes that a single Japanese plane is above them, and any scene with John Belushi. I wouldn't say that it is a bad movie, again it just is tiresome to watch in spite of many good moments.
Rating: 5 /10

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2003
	Director: John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood, Poetic Justice, Shaft)
	Actors: Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson (Death Race, Transformers: Dark of the Moon), Cole Hauser (Pitch Black, Olympus has Fallen), Eva Mendes (Once Upon a Time in Mexico)
	Country: USA, D
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 11.09.2019, Blu-ray, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: Running from the law, Brian O'Conner (Walker) found his place in Miami. Police catches up with him and he is forced to infiltrate the team of a drug lord. He calls upon an old friend Roman (Gibson) for help.
Review: First, huge disappointment that Vin Diesel and his gang (from The Fast and the Furious) are not in this movie. In exchange we get introduced to two new characters that will stay in the franchise for a while: Roman and Tej. So this may compensate for that.  The car chases are a bit more fun because not in straight line, but it is still as ridiculous how the characters keep their cool when they crash or loose their precious rides. We still get some cool tuned cars, buddies, now more guns, groupies... The story is so obviously empty, that's a huge flaw. Even more that in the first movie you very often feel that the actors (already struggling with the script) are left free in front of the camera for extended periods of time. The director's background in video clips shows a lot. Even more laughable is the short movie The Turbo-Charged Prelude provided on the Blu-ray, supposed to bridge the first two movies and of extreme poor quality. For purists and historian like me only. Two days after watching the movie I already barely remember its details. It can only get better with the following ones... I hope.
Rating: 2 /10

The Fast and the Furious (2001)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2001
	Director: Rob Cohen (Daylight, Stealth, xXx, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)
	Actors: Vin Diesel (Pitch Black, Riddick, xXx), Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 10.09.2019, Blu-ray, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: Los Angeles police officer Brian O'Conner (Walker) infiltrates the world of illegal street car racing to try and find a gang of thieves.
Review: I have a lot to say around this movie, maybe not so much about the movie itself. For a while now I have been thinking about watching the whole Fast and Furious saga (8 movies and a spin-off to date). The final push is when I saw a review of the saga by a YouTuber Marcus that had the same idea as me. At the same time, I wanted to start watching less series and more movies, and by movies I mean Blu-Rays and not VOD. So I bought the box-set of eight movies and started from the beginning, slid the disk in my old Blu-ray player that I hadn't used in three years and Waw!, even though I use a medium-quality TV and not my old projector, there is no comparison of image quality between a Blu-Ray and VOD (Netflix) that I am now too used to. Those online services may promise HD (or 4k), it is obvious that the compression has a strong effect on resolution, colors, contrast and depth of the darks. Now about the movie: it is the only one of the saga I had seen before and still is as I remembered it, except that I noticed many more sad details. If you have seen Point Break, you know from the first minute what will happen in this movie so forget about being surprised. Car chases? Yeah but almost only in straight lines as the contenders have to pass first the 1/4 mile line and they do it in less than 10 seconds (but more like a minute in movie time, go figure). I don't see the fun in that, the winner ends up being the one with the most powerful car, and the one that doesn't uses his Nitrogen Oxyde booster too early. But for me that's the extend of the talent one has to have to win... What you do get in this movie are crazy Star Wars-like light-speed effect when they start the booster, that's quite funny. The camera moves are also crazy, making you forget the cheapness of the background effects. And you get to see a lot of colorful tuned cars surrounded by shortly-dressed groupies. The soundtrack is fun (+1 for using a song by the Mexican band Molotov) but totally incoherent: Hip Hop, Electro, Techno, Rock, anything goes. It is nice to see Vin Diesel playing the usual tough guy, Michele Rodriguez overdoing the tough girl, but Paul Walker is quite bad. The story doesn't help, putting him for too long in situations with apparently no acting direction. The one thing that barely saves the movie is how extreme is Brian's decision when it comes to take a side. There for a moment we see some magic between actors, but that's fleeting. And then the movie ends. It was fun to watch for historical reasons, knowing that it will lead to such huge better-done blockbusters, but it is otherwise quite bad. I may revise the rating when I have seen more from the saga.
Rating: 4 /10

The 15:17 to Paris (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino, Space Cowboys, Play Misty for me, J. Edgar)
	Actors: Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 05.09.2019, in-flight entertainment 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: Alez, Anthony and Spencer (themselves) are friends since they are kids. Children of divorced parents, changing school, discovering life... they were always together. Young adults they turn to the military. One day they decide to spend holidays in Europe. Fate will follow them.
Review: One of Clint Eastwood's recent but lesser known movies, The 15:17 to Paris relates the events of the terrorist attack onboard the Amsterdam-Paris Thalys train of August 21 2015. When the movie starts I was wondering how Eastwood would manage to stretch over 90 minutes an event that, from memory, was over before it started. Cleverly, and inspired by the autobiography The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of a Terrorist, he starts by following the main characters from the youngest age. I didn't like that first third of the movie, feeling like exposition after exposition, showing us with regular timing the events that shaped those boys. Also I am not sure about Eastwood's message about guns and religion. Once the characters are adult the movie then feels more like a Documentary but that makes it getting better. You feel that it is inspired by true stories because nobody would have the idea to write such backstories for the main character, in particular Spencer that fails in different branches of the military and is definitely not a super-warrior. I pieced together as the movie went that the three main characters were played by themselves! That explains why the film feels like that and was shot like that. This is in fact the tour de force by Eastwood in that movie: directing non-professional actors in a way that gives realism to the movie and doesn't feel weird like P'tit Quiquin did for example. The third act is a recreation of the attack and its resolution, until an inclusion of the footage of the soldiers received the Legion d'Honneur from the French President. The final touch that makes the movie less flat than it could have been is the emphasis on the hesitation of the group of friends to take that particular train, and the reflections of Spencer on how he feels that life pushes him to a greater purpose. Indeed what are the odds that all the described events happen and lead to the three friends preventing the attack? Any other combination of events would have led to a totally different story, possibly with tens of victims... I can't be too harsh with a movie that leave me reflecting on such topics.
Rating: 6 /10

Cobra (1986)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1986
	Director: George P. Cosmatos (Rambo II, Tombstone)
	Actors: Sylvester Stallone (Demolition Man, The Expendables 1-3, Rocky, Rambo), Brigitte Nielsen (Red Sonja), Reni Santoni
	Country: USA, IL
	Genre: Action, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 30.08.2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: Marion Cobretti a.k.a. Cobra (Stallone) is the cop called for dirty jobs that nobody wants. When Ingrid (Nielsen) is witness to the crime of a band of serial killers, Cobra gets to protect her.
Review: Cobra looks like a comic book version of Dirty Harry with this cartoonesque hero using extreme force to neutralize hordes of criminals, never removing his sunglasses, driving an original car and using customized weapons. I also got some vibes of Death Wish with Charles Bronson, of The Warriors and of John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, because of the hordes of faceless attackers. I liked the 80's way of shooting the movie, the music, clothes and all this nostalgia. Beyond that, the movie and in particular its story are a lot of nonsense. I recommend to watch it only if you like Action movies from that period and/or Stallone.
Rating: 4 /10

Shazam! (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: David F. Sandberg (Annabelle: Creation)
	Actors: Zachary Levi, Mark Strong (Kingsman: The Secret Service), Asher Angel
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 28.08.2019, in-flight entertainment 10" screen.
Synopsis: While looking for his origins, Billy Batson (Angel), a 14-year old street-smart foster kid is called on by a wizard who gives him superpowers. To use them, he turns to an adult body when he shouts the name: Shazam!
Review: Aren't you tired of super-hero movies? In a market dominated by Marvel and its MCU, DC Comics is struggling. After the poor results of Justice League I was not sure they would go on. In fact they will after the moderate successes of Wonder Woman, Aquaman and this Shazam! It follows a different style, a bit like Deadpool for Marvel but while that fourth-wall-breaker is not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Shazam! is part of the DCEU. Many references are made to the events of past movies in that Universe. The fresh location in Philadelphia also makes the movie prone to mention the Rocky franchise. It is quite original to follow the story of that kid with great powers, powers that he uses to make a few bucks or impress people until the bad guy comes along. Superpowers aside, the story reminds a lot of Big with Tom Hanks that I have recently seen, there is even a nod to it with the piano scene in a toy store. There are some funny moments, often brought by the dynamic between Billy/Shazam and his foster brother Freddy. The phase of superpowers tests and youtube uploads (with crazy name attempts for the hero) is pretty good. The Villain is not extremely original and the confrontations predictable, but what makes this movie special and different is that it revolves around family. All the action happening around is just entertainment, but the heart of the movie, it message is about family. I liked the humor in the movie, not too dumb or pushed, and in the end all elements mix well together. A sequel is in the plans. Note that the name Shazam is in fact an acronym, mix of the name of the Gods to which the hero borrows powers. See the snapshot at the end of this post. Don't be confused by the mention to Captain Marvel, DC Comics named this character like that at first but changed it when it made more sense for Marvel's version to keep the name.
Rating: 6 /10

Triple Frontier (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year)
	Actors: Ben Affleck (Batman V Superman, The Town, Paycheck), Oscar Isaac (Star Wars 7-9), Charlie Hunnam (Pacific Rim), Pedro Pascal (Narcos TV-series)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 23.08.2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Loyalties are tested when five friends and former special forces operatives reunite to take down a South American drug lord, unleashing a chain of unintended consequences.
Review: Netflix has put a nice cast together for this movie. Something like The Expendables but with current trendy and beloved actors instead of 80's Action former legends. You can really appreciate the talent of those five guys and in fact nobody else appears for a noticeable amount of time. Their talent saved a movie with an otherwise weak screenplay. Their acting makes you forget about the gaps in the story and weird timing. Except for the scene where those men we have been presented and shown as ultra-professionals neglect basic rules. They are also shown to keep their cool in the whole rest of the movie. At the same time, the unusual story is quite welcome in the modern predictable cinematographic landscape. You brace yourself for the Drama bound to happen in the second act, but it doesn't go the way you would think. That is the kind of risk Netflix takes and it sometimes pays of (not like with Bright). Another great thing about this movie are the landscapes, on both sides and over the South American Andes. They are naturally beautiful and are adequately shot. The journey of those friends through Nature reminds me of Deliverance (also for the way death is depicted), while the mountain crossing could be a nod to Fitzcarraldo (although I have not seen it yet). So I liked it in spite of the weird pace.
Rating: 6 /10

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, The Hateful Eight)
	Actors: Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic, Inception), Brad Pitt (Snatch, World War Z), Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild, Speed Racer)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 17.08.2019, City Kino Munich
Synopsis: The adventures of fading TV Western actor Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) and his stunt double Cliff Booth (Pitt) in 1969. Dalton finds out his neighbors are the talented director Roman Polanski and his pregnant wife Sharon Tate (Robbie).
Review: It is surprising that Tarantino has waited so long to direct a movie about TV and Cinema, its History and Actors. Cinema is often mentioned in his movies and in Deathproof Kurt Russell plays a stuntman already. This is as much as I could tell from the trailer introducing the two main characters on set. I didn't expect at all a revisitation of history like it ends up being, reminding of what the director already did in Inglorious Basterds. It is somehow difficult to get into the movie if you haven't read anything about it and don't know where it is going. It is even harder if you are not so familiar with the cinematographic landscape of that time period (will you recognize Steve McQueen?). And you will miss a big part of the movie's meaning if you don't know that Sharon Tate was murdered and this is what the movie will end up being about. If you are lost, an explanation of the ending is provided by the YouTube channel NewRockstars. The actor and his double are in the end just distractions to that main story, but the way the movie is built doesn't make it very clear. Pitt plays as usual while DiCaprio overplays even more than usual, but in fact in line with his character. As in all Tarantinos, the movie takes its sweet time (2h40) but I usually enjoy such lengths (even when as slows as The Hateful Eight) because they are the opportunity for crispy dialogs about anything, character introduction or background, or just nice shots. In this movie I didn't have that much fun and was pretty bored most of the time, waiting for a purpose that never came, sometimes apparently on purpose to take the audience by surprise. I liked several moments in the movie, especially the extreme ending, but that was not enough to make me forget the boredom. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood is for me at the bottom of the Tarantino movie list, next to Reservoir Dogs. From the beginning of his career Tarantino has said that we would direct only 10 movies, explaining why they are sometimes numbered in their titles. According to my calculations this was the 9th. Will the next in fact be his last one? Was the poorer quality of this one a sign it is time for him to stop? Will his last movie be a Star Trek like announcements suggest? Science Fiction may indeed be the only genre he hasn't touched yet.
Rating: 4 /10

Big, Bigger, Biggest - Seasons 1-3 (2008, 2009, 2011)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008, 2009, 2011
	Director: -
	Actors: John Michie (narrator)
	Country: GB, USA
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: January - July 2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: A series exploring the engineering breakthroughs that have enabled us to develop the largest structures currently in existence.
Review: I liked watching this series, maybe due to my Engineering background but I guess it can be appreciated by anybody as it is rather simplified. The 20 mega-structures covered by the 20 episodes are impressive in themselves, and it is very interesting to learn about their inner working which is the topic of about half the episodes length. Here is the full list of episodes to give you an idea of which kind of structures we are talking about: Season 1: Skyscraper, Aircraft Carrier, Bridge, Airport. Season 2: Tunnel, Submarine, Aircraft, Oil Rig, Dome, Cruise Liner, Space Station, Dam, Telescope, Sky Wheel. Season 3: Canal, Icebreaker, Metro, Prison, Tower, Train. The other half goes through four to eight landmarks and their special feature that has made it possible over time to reach the capability for human engineers to built that largest one we can see today. Each new technique is clearly identified and simply explained thanks to schematic 3D animation, sometimes with a touch of humor. The episodes officially span 3 seasons but can in fact be watched in any particular order, following you personal tastes. I would say all episodes are of the same quality but the subjects covered were of more or less interest for me. For example at the beginning I was into War documentaries so I started with S1E2 Aircraft Carrier and S2E2 Submarine. Then I moved to transportation with episodes like S1E3 Bridge, S1E4 Airport or S2E1 Tunnel. On the contrary, it took me the longest time to watch S2E10 Sky Wheel, S2E5 Dome and S3E4 Prison because I didn't feel that those structures revolutionize our daily life (for the best or worst). Another important episode to mention is S2E9 Telescope because that's a field I know more than a little about, so I could use it to test the scientific accuracy or the series in general. Indeed the succession of landmarks usually seem to follow logical steps and fill in the required gaps to the next bigger structure. But in that episode I realized how a) the Science is oversimplified which means that the Engineers responsible for all the landmarks mentioned in the series deserve even more credit that the series gives them, and b) crucial engineering discoveries were missed, I am thinking Active Optics in the case of that episode so others probably suffer from the same shortcuts. Those are no big complains, as usually the case in Science series intended for a broad audience. After that episode and once I knew what to believe, I watched S2E7 Space Station. All in all a really interesting Documentary series about engineering in spite of its age.
Rating: 7 /10

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 6 (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Creators: Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon, Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly)
	Actors: Clark Gregg (Iron Man 1-3, The Avengers), Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Henry Simmons
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: May-August 2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: The team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents is split on several fronts, one part looking for a missing member in the vastness of Space, the other fighting a new foe on Earth.
Review: That was a short season with only 13 episodes, maybe because it started late in the year to wait for the release of Avengers: Endgame. The previous seasons were spanning over 22 episodes with a big reveal somewhere in the middle to continue with new stakes. This sixth manages a similar effect at the end of the double S6E9-S6E10 Collision Course. Another reason for this shorter season is that the next will also have only 13 episodes. That seventh season will also be the last. It is sad but in the end I think the story ran its course and went over and beyond to deliver the audience an ever-expanding Universe. Indeed the series kept its promise of exploring new frontiers in every season, in this one going full Space Opera, following the lead of the MCU movies like Guardians of the Galaxy. A final note before I review the quality of the season: even though it waited for the release of Endgame, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is now not anymore canon to the MCU, i.e. although it was running in parallel to the movies since many years, it now ignored what happened in them and runs it own course in a different Universe. A bit of a pity but I guess it would have been logistically hard to do otherwise. This also marks a different with the new series that Marvel will release on the Disney+ streaming service (Falcon and Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Hawkeye...) and that are supposed to be fully integrated to the story of the MCU movies. So how did I like it? I found it is the least good season to date, the main reason being that the Space parts look too cheap and not believable: make-up effects, scale, story... the same nonsense that may look fine in Guardians of the Galaxy here looks cheap and out of place. On the positive side it still is a pleasure to follow the characters that we have been following for so long and the season gets better on its second half once the incredible coincidences are explained and the whole thing starts to make sense. Also one can only praise the series for going for a whole new SF sub-genre at every season, increasing the scope to a point borderline ridiculous, but in fact in line with the comics book spirit from which the series is adapted. The characters themselves make fun of it: "Zombies? Sure we haven't had those yet". As I wrote, I find it nice that the series comes to an end on its terms, it is probably a good time and in those conditions they will manage to deliver something to remember, call-backs to previous seasons, return of old characters...
Rating: 4 /10