rodolphefleury Reviews

Restless (I) (2011)

Dark and sweet

[10/10 · 16 October 2011]

I thought the acting was excellent, it's not actor studio and it's probably for the best. I never liked people who over act and think they're portraying reality (except James Dean and Marlon Brando in Apocalypse now). Sean Penn in Milk to me was unbearable, flamboyant and irritating. So it was quite refreshing to see Henry Hopper being so vague and timid, I thought he was touching, he looked hurt and lost and that was better to me than "professional acting". Mia Wasikowska was beautiful and charismatic. They were both real to me, they exist. It's no Elephant or Gerry and guess what it's not MOPI or Drugstore Cowboys either. It's Gus Van Sant doing a romantic comedy with his themes death, friendship and teenagers. It's light on the surface and dark below.

A film doesn't work necessarily by his script but by the feelings, the atmosphere and the tone it leaves you with. That film grew up on me hours after I've seen it. It made me think about life, just like Melancholia did (Melancholia felt to some people like a bunch of scenes where nothing happens, well it creates a whole thing, like pieces of a puzzle you gather altogether, it's not easy cinema where everything is explained to you, dully underlined, where you're being forced a message without having to think for yourself, like Paul Haggis's CRASH for example).

Restless is a good little movie, not a big masterpiece. Restless is a deep and arty film disguised as a quirky Rom-com. It has different levels of lecture. It's about questioning the time you spend on earth, what you decide to do with that time and lots of other

Some argue it's too clean in its depiction of cancer? So what? The subject is not cancer but the beauty of life and how death is part of life, and after all it is a romantic comedy so why show an ugly death? Furthermore some cancer don't disfigure people? I known a man who died a week after he got diagnosed, he had a brain tumour.

It's got a beautiful cinematography (Portland in autumn, great lights and beautiful colourful trees), wonderful themes (Life and Death with bugs, hospital, birds, Darwin) and nice soundtrack. It's a very moving film and it worked for me.

Somewhere (2010)

Deeper than you would think

[8/10 · 16 January 2011]

First time I went to see this film I was like wow, this is a very long boring empty films but curiously it kind of stayed with me, after I left the cinema I felt quite sad and some images came back to me, stuff I really like (the pole dancers) and other stuff I was wondering were doing there.

So I went to see it again, and loved it. This film is like a jigsaw, there's more to it than you actually see, there's glimpses of informations here and there, like the beginning where the car is racing in circles over and over, then later on the car stops in the middle of Beverly Hills and the protagonists are stucked not knowing what to do and then towards the end the actor stops outside of LA in the country side and finally knows what to do ... carry on and walk ... this film full of metaphors is also about Los Angeles.

It's not about being famous, but about being an adult and not being able to grow up, about being lost and trap in a routine and as I said a film about LA. Those who thinks Coppola is just a rich kid who makes film about Hollywood are in the wrong. She does films about what she knows. The film could be remade with a factory worker and it would work. And the same people who criticise Coppola would say it's genius.

Coppola is not cold, there's some wonderful scenes of intimacy between the actor and his daughter, the pole dancers scenes are actually surprisingly fresh and the scene of the Château Marmont's member of staff singing with a guitar is really sweet.

If anything this film is a bit clumsy, naive and a bit pretentious but not bad. It's all about feelings and using your brain.

The Kids Are All Right (2010)

awful

[3/10 · 12 December 2010]

I don't what the director's message was in this film but I found myself rooting for the straight character, finding the lesbian couple very conservative and reactionary. I hated this gay couple so much and felt sorry for their kids that I found myself thinking is the message is to gay couple please do not raise your kids like boring straight couples, do not imitate them because you'll end up looking like these pathetic clichéd dikes? I'd really like to know, cos it's also a bit dangerous as well and try to prove some people that lesbians couples are completely abusive and dysfunctional. I mean their kids are alright but their relationship is way messed up, maybe that was the message of the film.

Mark Ruffalo's character was wonderful because he was understanding, free spirit, in good food, good wines and local organic farming, he was patient, a good listener and if he was wrong to have sex with Jules, he at least believed in her unlike the castrating control freak "self righteous" character played by Annette Benning. Annette Benning's acting was amazing but I hated her character so much, she reminded me of a friend of a friend I really dislike. I thought she was very realistic.

This might not be a bad film but I don't get the intentions of the director and I thought some of the humorous bits were sometimes pretty lame and just there to shock.

so 3

The Safety of Objects (2001)

goddamn awful film

[1/10 · 29 July 2010]

OK it's trying to be groundbreaking but the cinematography is dull as hell, it's over sentimental, there's too many characters, a plot that tries too hard to make sense, unbelievable characters although the actors try really hard ... The problem is you can't believe in the characters at all: the worse being the kid in love with a Barbie doll, it's trying to be meaningful, poetic and cute but it's just plain daft. The lawyer who's disappointed because he hasn't been rewarded, once again hard to swallow he wants to help the poor mother trying to care for her disable son and trying to win a car, none of that makes sense, and the film is trying to force you to believe it. Is that suppose to be Realistic suburbia? No way. This film is pointless and trying to pass as deep and dramatic. Sorry this film is just pure sentimentalism with tons of gimmicks, lots of idiotic subplots and a corny ending. A complete waste of time

Making Plans for Lena (2009)

Terrible Film

[3/10 · 26 March 2010]

I always admired Christophe Honoré's films, but Ma Mere (but I cannot watch film about incest, it makes me sick)

but this was dreadful, the acting is strong, the camera work and cinematography are amazing, it's admiringly shot but the story is awful

I understand being a single mum is difficult and your family can be a burden, but 100 minutes of hysterical ramblings does not make a film. I don't care about plots but this film perhaps needed one. This film lasts 100 minutes but feels like 3 hours of sheer torture. Most of the scenes are meaningless and doesn't serve the film. The dialogues sometimes feel like they've been written by a 12 years old Pete Doherty fan.

There's too many things cramped into one film, and it needed to be more simple, to have less dialogues, concentrate on fewest characters. The film despite some great locations was overlong and bored me to death when it didn't' irritate me. I don't think it was mature at all. It just didn't work at all. The film is a mess.

My message to Christophe Honoré; Less is More.

Awake (2007)

An Atrocious Film

[1/10 · 2 January 2010]

I found that film particularly irritating and painful in every way. The acting is not to bad considering the stupidity of the dialogues, but not extraordinary, some of the actors looked as bored as me watching them.

If there is suspense you still can't wait to see the end of the film because of the unnecessary relentless action, some of the scenes are redundant.

Some of the dramatic scenes are so ludicrous I found myself laughing out loud. The plot itself is very difficult to believe, the end is stupid beyond belief.

It's also a very ugly film to watch, bland, no particular style, hideous colours, boring settings and production design, and this despite the presence of the very plastic Jess Alba and Hayden C.

The only good thing about this film is now I feel absolutely terrified of going in an hospital.

Antichrist (2009)

Not Grief

[9/10 · 2 August 2009]

First, to every single moron who branded that film as self indulgent, just get real ... any film made by an author is self indulgent, Bergman, Tarkovski, Pasolini, Godard and Cassevetes are all self indulgent ... it's called style and personality ... so stop using words you read in premiere ... second the film is not on grief nor psychology but on phobia, desire and the incapacity of most men to understand women ... Dafoe thinks he can make Gainsbourg overcome her loss because he see through her and through his talents of therapist, he says she shouldn't be scared of sadness, that pain isn't scary ... but he's all wrong ... sadness is dangerous ... you can't analyse someone you're close to ... and he doesn't know her because he did not care that much ... he thinks she thinks herself a witch ... she looks at him but doesn't say a word ... she knows he cannot understand ... she means men always treat women like witches ... still nowadays ... gynocide she wrote ... the genocide of women ... in China ... in Islamic countries ... how many women die everyday beaten up to death by their husband in occidental countries? At the end of the film Dafoe he surrounded by women with no face ... women he can't see through ... women he will never understand ... Gainsbourg is a slave to her desires ... she's a slave to her husband ... to her son ... that's why she leaves her son to die ... that's why she smashes her husband's genitals and mutilate her clitoris ... she detests her conditions .... she's ashamed of her feelings .... Dafoe just thinks science can resolve everything ... Gainsbourg thinks nothing is that easy, some things can't be explained ... Antichrist is a film about liberation, about being a couple, it has laughable bits I agree (the talking fox, dedication to Tarkowski, the OTT prologue but that's probably LVT trying to irritates his detractors even more

Paris Awakens (1991)

Beautiful

[9/10 · 11 July 2009]

I've got wonderful memory of that film, Judith Godreche lost and sad, Jean Pierre Leaud in one of his best performance, sombre, neurotic in his midlife crisis, Thomas Langmann mysterious and young, the magnificent and dramatic score by John Cale, Judith Godreche ODing in a bush of roses or looking at the Parisian lights over her head at the back of a motorcycle to the sound of Pixies' Debaser. The Squatt party, a vision of Paris immigrants similar to Claire Denis essential films. It's not a perfect film but it's passionate, and as Truffaut said the best films are from being perfect, that's why they're so beautiful, achieved scenes look even better among unachieved ones. It's like a teenage film but romantic and desperate, like an adolescent would have made it. It's one of Assayas most beautiful film.

Match Point (2005)

A truly atrocious film

[1/10 · 6 February 2009]

This has to be the most over rated piece of trash in the noughties with Paul Haggis awful Crash.

I simply cannot believe this film was hailed as Woody Allen's return to form. Everything in this film is awful. The film is a postcard of London which reflects nothing about London's social life, but the character on J R Meyer's wife obsession with being pregnant.

The story is a terrible vaudeville, a bad Patricia Highsmith kind of thriller with idiotic metaphors about tennis and luck. It's so moronic you can't even laugh about it.

Jonathan R Meyer is unwatchable and is so expressionless it's painful to watch. The detectives stupidity and dialogues are beyond belief, a shame in the mouth of usually brilliant Ewan Bremmer. Scarlett Johanson is sure very pretty, but she has not a chance to act and is seen 20 minutes in the film.

Pretending to rank that horrible film with Woody Allen's masterpieces like Annie Hall or Interiors is beyond me.

As a TV movie is wouldn't be to bad to experience, you don't take it seriously and you quickly forget about the mediocrity, but as a Woody Allen film and with all the good reviews it received it's just really annoying. This film does not bear any trace of autheurism, it could have been done by any hawker really.

The Kite Runner (2007)

A very idiotic story

[1/10 · 20 August 2008]

If you see the early reviews of The Kite Runner you will notice their author all say the same, this film has a very silly plot and has a unbearable main character. Then suddenly people are all raving about how good the film is, how powerful it is that's what we call hype.

Why? Because it's ubersentimentalist, an easy tear jerker with a pleasing happy ending. It appeal to the worst feeling in a human soul, I'm not buying that, I won't cry because I'm asked to.

Sorry but I'd rather watch a soap opera than sit through that awful film again

this film contains a disgusting rape scene involving children, this director obviously never heard about dignity, decency and subtleness. The actor involved in the filming of that scene was apparently not told we would be part of that scene and how it would be done and ended up suing the director with his parents.

It also have CGI kites with one of the kite having a face, how ugly and stupid is that!

And the worse is an unbelievable plot where a coward who could not prevent his friend from being raped and fled to America as soon as the Taliban takes control of Afghanistan but returns to save the same friend's son to his worst enemy who happen to be the guy who raped his friend and now rape his son and make him dance in woman clothes. At the end he takes his friend son in the USA to adopt him and guess what? Him and his wife could not have kids.

This story even written by a non American writer has a very Hollywoodian construction and not a very good one.

Go and see Persepolis

The Dark Knight (2008)

Not a masterpiece at all

[5/10 · 31 July 2008]

Saying The Dark Knight is the best Batman is inept because Christopher Nolan do not respect the mythology of Batman and recreates one of his own. The best Batman to me is Batman Returns, the second Tim Burton with Danny DeVito. The Dark Knight has very complicated plots with a big mess of a story (just a good excuse to blow a maximum of cars and buildings), is very self conscious (one of those films that try to explain you everything with dialogue instead of showing it) and sometimes terribly shot. Heath Ledger is a great and sordid Joker but sometimes the camera moves so much you can appreciate his acting. Two Face and Scarecrow are underused and do not have enough gadgets. They're also very realists just like Gotham City (not very Gothic here) and that leads to little imagination. The Honk Kong scenes reminded me of Lara Croft. Bruce Wayne is introspective and moody in the comic book, here he is a bit too happy and cocky. Batman's voice is absolutely ridiculous.

The Joker is an amazing character, nihilist, unpredictable and absolutely mad. The acting is very good, especially the actor playing TwoFace and Eric Robert)

Although some of the framing and the camera movements are really ugly by moments, most of the cinematography is beautiful especially the night scenes. (Grey, Black and lots of mirrors everywhere).

It's good entertainment for sure, the action scenes are breathtaking, the CCI and the make up incredible but I wouldn't place The Dark Knight among masterpieces like The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Pulp Fiction or Star Wars. Funny thing is the Batman costumes still looks like Michael Keaton! What Batman needs is someone like Roberto Rodriguez.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

A Terrible Film

[1/10 · 7 February 2008]

I still do not understand how this awful film is listed among gems like Der Golem, Sunrise, Pandora's Box, Metropolis, Greed, Broken Blossoms, The Wedding March or Intolerance.

First of all it's a particularly ugly film which set was painted by "artists" who were fifteen years late on cubism and fauvism. Unlike DER GOLEM, SUNRISE or VAMPYR it has terribly dated. The story is similar than Faust but without any depth or magic. It's nowhere as creepy as Vampyr or Nosferatu. The score is unbearable and some of the acting is ludicrous. Most of the people who defend this unwatchable film are trying to explain we have to reconsider it was made a long time ago. I still bet than when it was made some people thought it was incredibly silly, ugly and pretentious. Cinema is Cinema and not a mix of theatre and painting, Griffith, Lang, Murnau, Dreyer and Abel Gance understood it unlike Robert Wiene.