Film Reviews by CSF

The subject was great but the whole thing was clumsy. It looks as if it was made by a 1st year student. The actors didn't play, they pretended. Doesn't the director know that blood does not splash like that? If it was not so tragic, it could be a cartoon!. I put 2 stars for the idea.

Two mega stars in an uninteresting film. The whole film is a cliché or/and a déjà-vu. Lots of padding scenes and a sad waste of talent.

The topic was good, the idea was good. However I can't believe Clint Eastwood directed it. He made a disastrous attempt to be original. He should have tackled the story in the same style as the good old Western Spaghetti...perhaps. I did not recognize his signature or his style. I notice that when American directors try to make a so-called European film it is always a failure. Pity.

The film is slow with padding scenes, sometimes confusing. Quite often films going between the past and the present are a successful trick but not in this case. Perhaps it is due to poor editing.

An ideal film for the holidays. The actors are well known on the continent and they are often better than films. It's what British people call a 'feel good movie'. Rich versus poor, a classic cliché but with a lot of humour. Bound to be comic if you show that whether we are rich or poor, we have the same prejudices between social classes. Of course the characters are not like anybody, they are a bit special, let's say original. But that too is what makes the film enjoyable.

Tornatore's films used to be either a masterpiece or a cult film. This film doesn't show an honorable exit. Like Hitchcock's 'Family Plot', '1900' is the one too many. It is also a very frustrating story with the typical Italian ending; as if the happy ending was for cheap films only. The idea is great, the actors are great, the filming is great and poetical BUT the story leaves you as frustrated as in the beginning.

A sweet and sour film on mental illness (just madness). Very original. It is never what you expect next. The characters are endearing and very annoying. Is madness wanting to find happiness at any cost? To have a monstrous selfishness? The answer is in a film, not in the wind.

No characters react the way you would expect. Worse the way you want them to react! A great film made out of nothing or made out little things in life. And yet, 'badies and goodies' are so engaging that you are not sure who to support! A strange, strange film but worth seeing.

It is very interesting to compare Nanni Moretti and Pedro Almadovar's vision of their mother. I found it quite typical of their culture. I do recommend to see both film. 'About My Mother' by Almadovar with intense emotion and Moretti's My Mother, light, sweet and sour.

I am all the more disappointed by this film that I love Claude Lelouch and I didn't think for one minute that he could make such a boring film. Why is it boring? A great cast, a great director and a pathetic story. Even the actors seem to make an effort to play someone they don't believe in. The two main characters are spineless and... brainless; I could not manage to feel for them. Still I can't pinpoint the exact reason for being boring. All the ingredients are there but, as my gran used to say, the 'mayonnaise is not working'.

A much better film than I expected. The book, written shortly before the French Revolution, announces the Big Change coming. I didn't expect the ending either, I thought it would have bee more conventional. The actors are sober and play in the right mode, the story is exciting as you feel for the heroine all the time. One must read the book. It is one of these women's treatment that makes me very anti scarf for the Muslim women. Rebellious women are still seen as devilish in some part of our world.

This film is a must because it shows that, at last, someone has realised the danger of plastic and the necessity of Ecology. I didn't know Cousteau was the first to see that. The pictures are beautiful and we see all the sufferings, the fights, the sacrifices behind the glamour.

I am fed up with zombies film and that one was particularly silly. I am very sorry that actors with talents wasted their time and maybe risked their career for that! If Glenn Close needs money, she should try the theatre.

Clever, brilliant, cold, efficient like money. Miss Sloane must have the same features as her enemy to be able to fight them. There should be more films showing the stupidity and the nastiness of legal guns in a nation. I wonder how the film was received in the US and if it was distributed widely. The male escort is one of the most interesting characters despite his brief role.

Woody Allen is good at any genre he attempts. Scoop reminded me very much of March Point and yet it is not the same story at all. Still, both are griping, stylish, silly, exciting. The ending is neither bad or happy, just satisfying.

lt could have been better if the characters were talking or expressing themselves a bit more. The film is good but demanding; you have to guess all the time what the characters are thinking. I know it is an intellectual exercise but not if you are tired or looking for sheer entertainment. It is a 'Dardenne'.