Christophe44 Reviews

The Company (2003)

Not as good as it should have been

[5/10 · 6 May 2004]

Altman making a movie about the ballet, what a great idea!

Since Nashville and his analyse of the country universe, I'm a big fan. He has the talent to find the perfect point of vue to tell simple (and complicated) stories. But I dont't think he really like the ballet...

Altman is telling us the way of life in a company. If it was done with some kind of subtility, i really think that the banality of this life should be great...but where is the point of vue...where is the analyse...where is the intelligence???

Nowhere, not even in the flat choreographies or in the love story which is filmed as well as the one in Star wars: Episode 2....a reference in itself.

Yes, there is on or two really good moment (Neve Campbell dancing in the rain storm is one of these...a really good scene), but two hours for 5 minutes of happiness....what a mess.

Neve Campbell was dreaming about making a movie in which she can show us that she can dance...this movie is not the good one for her, but one thing is certain, Neve Campbell can dance and she's good. No blame for her, except the fact that she participate in the writing process of this movie.

See it, it's not so bad...but it's not so good as it should have been.

Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001)

A subjective point of vue for an astonishing content, that's the way Jon Harlan tell us the story from Stanley Kubrick.

[7/10 · 1 April 2004]

The presentation of Kubrick's filmic life is chronological; it's a simple and non original method that is compensated by the clarity of the speech and the coherence of the internal structure. This speech is made from a duality which is inherent of Kubrick's social and filmic life. He has been considered as a genius for his director capabilities, but also as a madman for the inaccessibility of his private life.

The documentary begins with a negative approach, illustrated with quotations showing how mad were Kubrick's projects. This negation will soon be compensated with positive contemporary interviews from his family, directors and actors. This double movement will reproduce itself all along the documentary with an alternation between Kubrick's films and his state of mind within and between the shootings. All is presented in the optic to show us that whatever the press has said about Kubrick, he was really a good director who made great movies with great people.

The content of the documentary is as impressive as the art of Kubrick, even if his begins are shortly showed. That's not astonishing because Kubrick himself has never considered his begins worth seeing it (he denied his first movie, Day of the light). His second movie, Fear and desire, and his third one, Killer's kiss, are not detailed, but Jon Harlan makes us understand that Kubrick genius was already there.

A switch in the art of Kubrick is showed from his Spartacus, produced by Kirk Douglas. There, Kubrick understood that sharing responsibilities was a dead end, the producer riding the boat while the director was washing it. Over, from there, Kubrick will made his movies alone..from Lolita to Eyes wide shut.

The documentary shows then his second task: to give humanity to a non-human director. The press said that he didn't like mankind, which was a real paradox because in all his movies, the central interest was the search for humanity in mankind..but nobody understood that point.

The only problem with this documentary is that Jon Harlan has too much orientated his speech; the interviewed actors are just saying how human he was and how good he was..it's a little bit boring a the end (but very interesting as well !!)

We'll expected a better form for the content of this documentary, but Jon Harlan has the merit to make us believe that even if Kubrick was a genius director, he was also a human being. It's a good point.

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

A very entertaining movie....

[8/10 · 30 March 2004]

After two science-fiction films (AI and Minority Reports) who where not exempt from reproaches but also very attractive, Steven Spielberg stays into the realm of entertainment. But, the reproaches that could be made to his precedent movies, the extravagance and the Hollywood tendency from these projects, are not longer there. With `Catch me if you can', we can see another facet of Steven Spielberg. He tend to be just like a young director who's searching new approaches, but with a lot of experience: the cast is perfect, the cinematographer is very good and the well trained compositor (John Williams) has the intelligence of producing some kind of new themes.

Where Spielberg hit the point is in his total mastering of the Abagnale - Hanratty pursuit which, instead of being made in an epileptic manner, works more on the psychological level of the relationship. This pursuit shows the research of a missing father by a missed child who has no other way to prove his existence than to play with the law. Di Caprio shows, once again, his abilities to act the different facets of the tormented teenager, even if for an actor who is almost in his thirties it's maybe the time to change. Tom Hanks is Tom Hanks, he has nothing to prove.

The only reproach we can make is the stereotyped vision that Spielberg has in his representation of the woman. Nathalie Baye is sympathetic in his French wife role, but it's in fact his whole character that poses a problem :the opportunist French wife who doesn't assume his maternal duty. This role makes us believe that for Spielberg, the subtlety is only a man's thing.

Apart from some imperfections, Catch me if you can is a very good movie...if you like entertainment.

Queen of the Damned (2002)

Less good than it's predecessor, but it has the spirit of it's time.

[7/10 · 24 March 2004]

In itself, "Queen of the damned" (QOTD) is not a bad movie; the problem is that it follows "Interview with a vampire" from Neil Jordan. If we make a difference game between the two movies, QOTD end with a lost.

The actors: Tom Cruise will always be the perfect visualisation of Lestat, he had a good comprehension of the evil inside Lestat. Stuart Towsend, even if he has the intelligence to not act as a 'Tom Cruise clone', is fader and he doesn't seem to be an old vicious and experienced vampire.

The directors: Neil Jordan has made a romantic story (in the litterature sense of the word), due to his intense collaboration with Ann Rice. Michael Rymer has made a good video clip for "Lestat Rock Band", it's the MTV style, certainly a consequence of the absence of Ann Rice for the supervision of the script.

The Music: Elliot Goldenthal has made a partition that brought the visual style of the movie to another level. Just listening the music makes you feel the vampiric emotions. In QOTD, close tour eyes and you feel nothing exept that you want to break something.

The visual effects: They seems to be better in QOTD but, if you look at the first movie, you'll notice that they're just visual effects, not supernatural effects. They try to representent supernatural, but they are just fake ones.

BUT, even if QOTD seems to be a less better movie than his predecessor, I think it isn't right to say it's a bad movie. Making an adaptation is making choices, and QOTD is an harder book to adapt that the rest of the Vampire Chronicles, because it's story is more complicated. The principal argument of Interview with the Vampire was that the vampire has to live with the current time, not with past. The adaptation choice results from that: Lestat is no longer a romantic character, he now live in another time, where all is fake and superficial. That's the essence of QOTD, and it's not as stupid as it seems. SEE IT, it's no waste of time, if you like gothic atmosphere...