Reviews by doudouce55

1912. This film shows the exploits of France's first motorized police brigade.

An excellent film, with a lot of action, wonderful costumes and settings, and a great international cast, from Stefano Accorsi, to Gerard Jugnot, to Diane Kruger. Everyone is truly outstanding.
Beautiful photography and perfect direction.
Parts of the script unfortunately do not quite work, but otherwise the story plays out well though its ending is predictable.

Recommended viewing.

In 1923, Kim Shun-Pei moves from South Korea to Osaka (Japan). The movie shows him becoming a greedy, violent man over the years. One day he decides to build a factory of processed seafood and there, exploits his employees. Kim also abuses his wife and his entire family. After making a small fortune with his seafood factory, he closes the business and becomes a loan shark.

This certainly was well done, the actors were good, Takeshi Kitano as Kim is truly exceptional. The photography is decent and the direction is excellent.
I'm quite sure there are some passages that aren't well translated if at all - some parts of the scripts were not well explained or didn't make sense with the rest of the story.
Also, it is much too long. After more than 2 hours, the violence depicted gets to you, and you want the movie to be over really soon.

Still worth watching once.

A 10 year old piano student shows promising talent and enters a contest, but doesn't win. Several years later, she meets the lady (Catherine Frot) that made her lose. She gets her revenge by becoming her page turner.

Interesting plot. Decent acting. A little slow, too slow at times.
The psychology of the girl isn't explored as much as it could have.
Still not a bad movie. Just don't watch it if you expect a lot of action; there isn't much.

Judith Ralitzer (Fanny Ardant) is a novelist searching for her latest idea, with the help of her ghost writer, Pierre Laclos (Dominique Pinon). Pierre will accidentally meet Huguette on a highway and embark on an interesting journey with her, which will lead to his writing a novel surrounding events he's heard about: a serial killer on the loose, his brother-in-law's disappearance, and finally his life as a ghost writer.

At the beginning, the spectator wonders if Pinon's character is the serial killer, or someone else. Well done! This isn't defined clearly until near the end.
A good thriller where everything slowly starts to make sense, and the pieces start to fit. Nice ending. Good cast. Decent direction by Lelouch.
For a French suspense thriller, I found the script well layered and not deceptive. You just have to get into it, and wait for the story to develop.
It was great to see a movie that didn't need a 200-million-dollar budget, or guns, or everlasting car chases.

An entertaining thriller.

Jean-Pierre (Christian Clavier) and his wife (Nathalie Baye) haven't slept together in several years. He works all day, traveling from one place to another, with the help of his chauffeur (Gerard Lanvin); she goes on a shopping spree every day. One day, Jean-Pierre decides he's had enough: if he gets no sex, she gets no money!

A funny idea, that is well developed. That said, I found the characters very French in their actions & reactions. And their acting was overdone. Great cast though!
Good photography by Jean-Francois Robin.

Funny at times. Entertaining.

Film title: *Le Prix à Payer*

A 43 year old man (Alain Chabat) needs to find a wife to please his 5 sisters and his mother (Bernadette Lafont), but it doesn't have to be a real wedding. He doesn't believe in commitment, and wants to stay single. He will meet a colleague's sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and plan their wedding together. Everything goes according to plan, until...

As always, Chabat overacts. Gainsbourg reminded me of her mother (Jane Birkin) in this film: her hair, her expressions, her clothing... She's good in this film, as is the rest of the supporting actors.
The photography is nice, and the direction is decent enough.
Good script. With great humoristic lines at times.
Enjoyable.

In an unnamed Spanish-speaking country possibly somewhere in South America, the government tortures, assaults, mutilates, murders men, and rapes women before killing them. Soldiers descend on towns, cutting off the rebels from their ammunition. A grandfather Don Plutarco, with his son, and grandson are among the rebels. The son tries to smuggle something that the grandfather doesn't dare mention, but will he succeed? His violin over his shoulder, Plutarco gets a mule, then tries to pass the checkpoint, ostensibly to tend his crop. The commanding officer lets him pass but insists on a daily music lesson. The old man tries to pass the ammunition in his violin case under the soldiers' nose, but will he succeed?

A movie in black and white, it unfortunately ends without a good explanation as to why the old man was given *something* (wouldn't want to spoil the movie for others) and then not use it. Thus leaving an unfinished ending in my eyes.
A good cast.
Not a bad movie at all.

This is a movie about life, love and second chances. It's got a great cast, nice photography, and a good script. A little slow at times, it is worth watching if you don't mind the subtitles :)

The full name of this movie is "La Educación de las hadas" (L'education d'une fee).

Giselle (Amy Adams) finds herself in Manhattan and is befriended by Robert (P. Dempsey) and his daughter Morgan. Meanwhile, Edward's mother (S. Sarandon) will stop at nothing to keep Gisell from ending up with her son. So... will Edward (J. Marsden), Giselle's true love, find her? And is Edward truly Giselle's true love?

A very entertaining romantic fairy tale, with splendid acting from all, especially Amy Adams. She clearly has a lot of talent, in acting and singing. Susan Sarandon is especially vicious as the stepmother. Marsden and Dempsey are fantastic too.
Nice directing. Good photography.
The transition between animation and "reality" was interesting and well done.
The songs are rather kitsch, it is a movie for children mostly, so what else is to be expected?

Enjoyable for all.

Following a car accident, Will Anthros (Bowers) thanks to his surgeon capabilities and technological knowledge, does not lose his girlfriend, Jaime Sommers: instead, she wakes up to find herself with bionics in her body: her right ear, right eye, right arm, and both legs. Will she help the good guys with her fifty million dollars technology?

This is quite obviously a remake of the tv series "Bionic Woman" with Lindsay Wagner, and is in no way any better or worse than the original tv series.

The actors' performances isn't top notch quality. Michelle Ryan is not a bad actress, Lucy Bale's acting got on my nerves (she plays the 15-year-old sister who just doesn't look 15 at all), and Miguel Ferrer is basically the only reason I was interested in watching the show: he is quite good here. As was Chris Bowers, who unfortunately only had a short role that lasted 2 episodes.

It's too bad the series is an Alias wannabe. The team has Sommers and her partners travel from 1 country to the next, and it just feels like a lower quality than Alias.

Still, it's an enjoyable, entertaining series with a predictable ending for each episode. No thrills or surprises.