Reviews by doudouce55

The Characters
- the town mayor
- a teacher
- a scientist
- a crook
- a physiotherapist
Their miserable lives cross paths. All through the film, every character shoes that he/she is unable to face his/her own life, only cares for him/herself (as do most French, sorry for the French people reading this review!).

NOTHING HAPPENS in this film. No, sorry, one thing does, but honestly it was SO predictable that even mentioning it here is NOT a spoiler. The teacher discovers his wife is having an affair with the physiotherapist. Other than this event, that film is pretty darn dull and much too long for what it shows.

Who's Charlie you ask? The physiotherapist's son. He's not even an interesting character. If the movie had been decently written, I like to think that he would have been an essential part of the story. So much could have been written around the story, but I guess the French have lost their touch!

My vote of 4/10 is only for the actors. I love the cast: Lindon is an excellent actor and acting teacher, however lately he's played weird roles in not-so-good movies. Jean-Pierre Bacri and Benoit Magimel are also quite good. However, Poelvoorde has played in so many comedies that it's hard to see him play a more serious role, although his character is probably supposed to be funny (but is not) in this movie.

Even if you're bored with your life, don't watch this. You'll be bored even more. This is a waste of time.

His boat being struck by lightning, and the insurance company refusing to pay because "it's an act of God", fisherman Steve Myers (Connolly) becomes (once again) a lawyer in order to sue the insurance company and the church under the geise of God, defending himself. This accident eventually leads him to a friendship with journalist Anna Redmond (Davis).

The premise is great, even hilarious. However, the accents and the fact that there were no subtitles made the movie hard to watch. Aside from that, the script is filled with flaws and cliches. The script backfires in the end (sooo predictable), but it's still enjoyable.

Also, if you can bear the overly loud soundtrack (compared to the 'normal' dialogue), then I'd recommend watching this comedy.

In this film, the criminal "Lebanese" (Favino) wants to conquer the underworld of Rome: drugs, whores, etc. For this to come in effect, he puts himself in charge of an organized gang. However, the gang soon finds itself with not just Lebanese as its leader, but a couple more, Dandy (Claudio Santamaria) and Ice (Kim Rossi Stuart). Taking place during the 1970s, the gang's story is intertwined with Italy's deep political history: terrorism, kidnappings and corruption in the government. Scialoia (Accorsi), a police lieutenant, is on the gang's trail, trying to bring them to justice.

I enjoyed watching this movie in its original Italian. It's so refreshing to hear foreign languages sometimes, amidst all the Hollywood crap!
The actors were good, although I felt something was missing. These are gang members in the 1970s, that are supposedly violent. I felt the aspect of violence was overlooked in the making of the film. Kim Rossi Stuart never looked better! although I find his character was a little 'cool' with everything going on, in his life as a gangster.
The director did a good job, so did the director of photography.
A good script. Very politically involved, as are many Italian movies.

A good film noir.

(Be prepared to watch the film for about 2h30, if you're renting this, or 3h if you have access to the uncut version. Well worth it.)

Tilo (A. Rai) opens a spice bazaar near San Francisco. She must follow 3 rules as a 'mistress of the spices': never use the spices for her own; never leave the spices; never touch another skin. She has a wide variety of clients who seek her help for various reasons, the most obvious being love, and she attends to them, as best she can. Unfortunately for her, one day she meets Doug (McDermott) and eventually falls in love, although she fights it. Will she leave her spices or will she find love with Doug?

This is definitely a girl movie, although guys might enjoy watching Aishwarya Rai: she is quite beautiful. She certainly can act too.
Dylan McDermott is really good-looking here, and gives a good performance.

The story is very predictable, hence my 6/10 rating. Else, everything was fine. A good script, nice photography, good direction.

I enjoyed the 'tips' on the various spices: cardamom, chili peppers, etc. A lot of fun.

If you like (predictable) romantic movies, this is for you.

The storyline got to me a lot, because, well, my mother's a chef, and I, like Linguini in the film, don't have her talent, so I really related to that! Yes, anyone can cook, but as Gusteau says, not everyone is a great artist.

This is a splendid Pixar film. Great animation, loved those rats! The cute and evil characters are all enjoyable. A very funny picture. Great lines.

All the kids and grown-ups should love it. As an example, my 60-something father has never seen a Pixar picture for different reasons (he's against "animated films"), but when I mentioned I had rented Ratatouille, to my surprise and delight, he said he wanted to watch it. In the end, he loved it!!! So, *everyone* should love Ratatouille, a truly wonderful animated movie.

In California, Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda) is a tv reporter, doing a series of reports on alternative energy sources, with her cameraman Richard Adams (Michael Douglas). While interviewing Bill Gibson at the local nuclear power plant, they witness an accident. Adams and Wells are determined to publicise the incident. They will soon find that there is a conspiracy struggling to be kept a secret.

An excellent film, with some of the best performances ever. Michael Douglas and Jane Fonda truly shine here - so does Jack Lemmon.
Wonderful direction as well.
Great script, that holds the story very well.
Although the film is almost 30 years old, its subject is not outdated at all; and that's what makes it so fun to watch, and never tiring.

One of the best dramatic thrillers.
Highly recommended.

(Special thanks to Prelude76 for having recommended it a while ago!)

Monday morning. Thomas Hastings, the only suspect in the abuse and murder of two children, is chased by an asthmatic photojournalist, Aaron Dougherty. Having caught first-hand the suspect, Aaron becomes the sensation in the newsroom. He then celebrates in a night-club, only to wake up in the middle of nowhere on Wednesday. So what happened Tuesday?

A promising thriller, which turned out much too slow, and which has too many mistakes in the script and in the direction of the actors.
This, possibly, is a direct-to-dvd production ; at worst, a tv movie. I sure hope those actors don't list it in their resume!
Much too predictable.
Stay away from this!

The owner of an IT company wants to sell up and does not want to admit he's the real owner. For the past 10 years, he's invented an owner who lived in the US. So, he hires an actor to become the company's 'owner', "the boss of it all"; that actor will have to meet with the would-be buyers in the flesh.

Hmmmm, well maybe it's because we're so used to Hollywood-type movies that, when a film such as this one comes out, we're disappointed. Honestly, this lacked everything, including a good script and good punch lines. I was told this was hilarious. Well it certainly has some funny lines, but nothing striked me as memorable.
I do admit to this: The editing job was so bad, I just had to stop watching after 40 minutes, and at that point, I just didn't care about how the story ended.

Maximilian Cohen, a mathematician, believes there are patterns everywhere in nature. Because of his studies and research in which he tries to predict the behavior of the stock market, he is chased by a Wall Street company, and by an orthodox Jew follower of the Torah, who believes that these numbers are sent by God.

I can't say the performances impressed me, nor did the directing.
Maybe I'd just heard so much about the film that in the end, it disappointed me because I had much higher expectations?! Who knows!
I didn't and still do not see the point in making such a pseudo-intellectual film, which left me unsatisfied and disappointed.

Aidan Quinn plays a killer, and a lookalike who is hired to find that killer, the infamous Carlos "The Jackal". Kingsley is an Israeli agent, while Sutherland is the recruiting agent.

First, I *have* to comment on the lousy, let's emphasize this, very lousy location scouting. The street shown right at the beginning is Rue St-Paul in Montreal, and the scene after that is a decor of the Eiffel Tower in Paris - huh???? (I know this usually happens in movies, but this is just *too* evident and very badly done. Montreal streets do *not* look anything like Paris'.)

Bad directing. I can't say the actors impressed me, and they're usually all reasonably good. I always like Quinn and Kingsley's performances, and this film is only saved by Quinn's acting - he's the only one good here.

As for the script, it's pretty much a remake of many movies, as this is a boring and repetitive storyline in a badly written script.
Honestly, there are so many of these movies out there, it's no wonder Hollywood people make films to later produce remakes. This movie being yet another remake goes to show how many unoriginal stories are available! This is one of them.

Very cheap Canadian production - very obvious too. Not a recommended film, not by my standards anyway!