She's let loose too much by Chabrol, which does great disservice particularly to the build-up to the final scene...
Reviews
17 Reviews
La Cérémonie
(1995)
Splendid BUT for Hupert 's over-the-top performance of an improbable character
28 August 2019
The Exorcist
(1973)
After all these years of mythology, very disappointed
6 February 2019
This film was released when I was a teen, and I was afraid of it. I had read the novel, around the time the movie came out, and found it very scary. Plus a couple of school pals of mine had managed to sneak their way into the theater, saw it, and were blown away by it. So it is that I've always shunned it, even though I love good horror movies. But this one sounded like it was just too much... I watched it for the first time in my life in full last week. The sounds coming out of Reagan are the single frightful element for me. Nothing else at all scared me the slightest and lingered on thereafter in my mind - and I'm impressionable with this kind of stuff!
Most recent naysayers here (the lower votes) summarize the problems with the screenplay and characterization much better than I would.
Reagan is improbable and goes from something too sweet in her normal condition to the very extreme, which looks too much like the more violent tantrums of a spoiled and pampered child...
The makeup job is overdone and poorly used - usually with too much light in the room.
Lots and lots of noise... (And what really is less scary than loud noise?)
"It's the rats"... Really, almost laughably silly! Softer noises in the attic growing in intensity but with subtelty would have been so much more efficient...
Finally, I never got the "Tubular Bells" tune as used for this film. They should have stuck with the other modern classical composers (Webern, Penderecki...) employed elsewhere.
Jo
(1971)
Biggest De Funès fan disappointed with bad filmed theater farce
11 December 2018
Like another reviewer here pointed out, "Oscar" was totally successful filmed theater - a timeless masterpiece of its genre - but "Jo" is a near total failure. All the great actors you'd expect are here though, and in their prime - Bernard Blier, Claude Gensac, Préboist... - but the humor is almost constantly thick, and the plot turns out making no sense at all in the end. All this without the gentle surrealism of "Le Petit baigneur"...
Let's Rob the Bank
(1964)
Brilliant (changed my rating from 8 to 9 upon second viewing)!
25 November 2018
This is a surrealistic comedy, and it doesn't matter that its plot and situational developments are far-fetched. The director here is Jean Girault, who did some of the best De Funès films (and in particular some of the best from the Gendarme series). Fast-paced, brilliantly acted, hilarious...
The banker from the start is guilty of insider trading BTW (which the Storyline here does not mention). This is necessary to make us sympathize at least basically with De Funès in his criminal undertaking to right wrong-doing, with the unlikely complicity of his incredible family. All terrific actors BTW.
The Haunting
(1963)
A near complete waste of production values
25 October 2018
Verbose, lead-laden with psychology, and noisy... (Is there anything in horror movies that's less scary than loud noise?)
Too bad for the very beautiful cinematography, camerawork, angles and set pieces (2 stars). And Julie Harris does a good job (my other star).
The Exchange Student
(1967)
Mostly a failure
18 March 2018
I quite agree with Elmaruecan82's long and excellent review. I will take away one further star because of the treatment and terrible shooting conditions those poor horses in the last scene obviously had to go through. Just for this I would recommend boycotting this movie!
But it's too bad because, as has been observed, the premise is great and a perfect opportunity for a fun, cross-cultural window on 1967, and all the right comedians are in the cast (even Claude Gensac).
It's just mostly bad, over-the-top, comedic stuff, deprived altogether of the quasi-surrealism of the best De Funès entries of his prime years. Even himself plays kind of low-key here... And his verbal fighting scenes with his English antagonist are poorly improvised...
Nicholas on Holiday
(2014)
Just a terrible film, whatever your age is
12 March 2015
The original Nicolas film, still directed by Laurent Tirard, was cute and funny. Its humour relied upon genuine written material forming consistent scenes and situations, and often based on the child's point-of-view, as in René Goscinny's exquisite little stories. "Les Vacances" relies a lot on nods and references to past cinema, and the rest is either disjointed (loose ends - what happens in the end with the tight spot at the nude beach Nicolas' father gets himself into?...) or simply unlikely. Even though the excellent Valérie Lemercier and Kad Merad still play Nicolas' parents, the actors in general, save for Bouli Lanners as Bernique, are insincere in their delivery and reactions and/or poorly directed. The father is supposed to be heartbroken by his wife extending her stay without him at the crazy big-money party, yet his face remains almost expressionless all the while...
Also, one scene suggests that hurting severely a live animal can be perceived as humorous, which I have found particularly tasteless.
Also, one scene suggests that hurting severely a live animal can be perceived as humorous, which I have found particularly tasteless.
Jurassic Park
(1993)
What has aged the worst about JP? The dinosaurs that behave and glance like Muppet characters!
28 November 2014
Animals don't behave and glance like that... That "OK, wise guy, I'll get you anyway!" look on the raptors' face is totally ridiculous... Its human reactions as interpreted by Muppets, instead of natural reactions of wild animals. So the horror factor is all the more diminished for it. Could you imagine "Jaws" giving looks like that? "Jaws" wouldn't work!
How quickly and efficiently the raptors learn to find their way around and use hi-tech kitchen doors and handles is also unlikely and ludicrous. They're not apes for crying out loud!
I never saw any of this when I watched the film at the theater with our kids in 1993, and we had the time of our lives. And while these memories of course are still dear to me, and the pastoral, first view of the park and its inhabitants is still a moving scene, the rest is now just too loud and campy.
How quickly and efficiently the raptors learn to find their way around and use hi-tech kitchen doors and handles is also unlikely and ludicrous. They're not apes for crying out loud!
I never saw any of this when I watched the film at the theater with our kids in 1993, and we had the time of our lives. And while these memories of course are still dear to me, and the pastoral, first view of the park and its inhabitants is still a moving scene, the rest is now just too loud and campy.
Too long at 98 min. At 73 min, would have been THE Columbo classic!
4 August 2014
There lies for me the only problem with this entry: it's too darn long. Leave out the preposterous chopper chase scene (replace it with any other remotely plausible twist you may think of), and one or two of the "funny" bits, and there you have the series' masterpiece.
I will add to the already mentioned enormous qualities and production values of this entry (for a TV show) the cinematography, making nice use of light and shade in several scenes (watch the window transoms throwing "prison bar" shades on Halperin's - the villain - face! ...and another shot also using a single vertical bar shade on his head). And also the camera-work, especially when Columbo gets to his final point of accusing Halperin, when the camera slowly drops down from Columbo to the former's profile in close-up, just as he takes in Columbo's doom - word for fraction of a second: absolutely priceless!
I will add to the already mentioned enormous qualities and production values of this entry (for a TV show) the cinematography, making nice use of light and shade in several scenes (watch the window transoms throwing "prison bar" shades on Halperin's - the villain - face! ...and another shot also using a single vertical bar shade on his head). And also the camera-work, especially when Columbo gets to his final point of accusing Halperin, when the camera slowly drops down from Columbo to the former's profile in close-up, just as he takes in Columbo's doom - word for fraction of a second: absolutely priceless!
Le petit baigneur
(1968)
A great surrealistic comedy from the "Golden Age"!
11 December 2011
It took me years and years (and also some of my wife's persistence) to finally appreciate this movie for what it really is: an almost completely absurd, disjointed and surrealistic comedy, owing a lot to Jacques Tati ("Mon Oncle") and perhaps also to some Laurel & Hardy entries. I am thinking here of those Stan Laurel gags which defy logic, cinematographic or otherwise, which style I recognize here in scenes such as the hysterical one where De Funès "air-plays" some violin bit, which logically only the viewer can hear the in-sync sound of in the soundtrack, then accuses his wife of having actually played this music instead of him, since such things run in HER family
I think that viewers who cannot get or appreciate this kind of humor miss the point with this film because it relies a lot on such absurdity. And it is this absurdity which sets it apart uniquely in the De Funès filmography of this specific era.
The direction and editing superbly serve this style of screenplay – see the scene where De Funès destroys his boats in a tantrum and how he interacts with objects which do not appear to be controlled by any off-camera prop men just by the laws of gravity and the like! The boat chase at the end is also a nice, pleasantly rural/natural relief from the traditional car, plane or chopper chases in some of those other De Funès films, and I love how the gags with the wakes and waves are built and shot!
The direction and editing superbly serve this style of screenplay – see the scene where De Funès destroys his boats in a tantrum and how he interacts with objects which do not appear to be controlled by any off-camera prop men just by the laws of gravity and the like! The boat chase at the end is also a nice, pleasantly rural/natural relief from the traditional car, plane or chopper chases in some of those other De Funès films, and I love how the gags with the wakes and waves are built and shot!
The Gendarme Takes Off
(1970)
Wildly uneven!
3 October 2011
This is an extremely uneven entry from the Gendarmes series, featuring Michel Galabru at a definitive peak (for the series) but De Funès alternating between brilliance and actual boredom (like what his character goes through at first in the film). Maybe this weariness my wife and I detected in his performance here was a foreboding of some of his health issues which will, a few years later, make him stop shooting physical comedy altogether, and will finally take his life so prematurely.
His faithful partner Claude Gensac wrote in her autobiography that De Funès' humour was a logical one. His characters were behaving logically even in their over-the-top reactions. But here when he goes nuts over being pampered and looked after all the time by his rich wife's staff, he insists upon dirtying the car on purpose in order to have a chance to wash it by himself and thus splashes paint all over it only to empty in the process another bucket of paint on top of his own head You would never have seen a gag like this in a classic Gendarmes such as "Le gendarme de St. Tropez" or "Le gendarme se marie", because it does not make sense! That the priest enters into a grimace contest with De Funès in plain view before his wife – however funny some of those face exchanges can be – doesn't make any sense either and is gratuitous! There is also mediocre acting on the part, for instance, of the butler, which doesn't help some of those poorly written, ill-warranted or directed scenes
But when the Gendarmes don their uniforms under the orders of the hilariously perfect (i.e. constantly serious, grave and solemn) adjutant Gerber, we are OK gain, and the situations can get really funny, like the talking whistle bit which another reviewer has described so well!
His faithful partner Claude Gensac wrote in her autobiography that De Funès' humour was a logical one. His characters were behaving logically even in their over-the-top reactions. But here when he goes nuts over being pampered and looked after all the time by his rich wife's staff, he insists upon dirtying the car on purpose in order to have a chance to wash it by himself and thus splashes paint all over it only to empty in the process another bucket of paint on top of his own head You would never have seen a gag like this in a classic Gendarmes such as "Le gendarme de St. Tropez" or "Le gendarme se marie", because it does not make sense! That the priest enters into a grimace contest with De Funès in plain view before his wife – however funny some of those face exchanges can be – doesn't make any sense either and is gratuitous! There is also mediocre acting on the part, for instance, of the butler, which doesn't help some of those poorly written, ill-warranted or directed scenes
But when the Gendarmes don their uniforms under the orders of the hilariously perfect (i.e. constantly serious, grave and solemn) adjutant Gerber, we are OK gain, and the situations can get really funny, like the talking whistle bit which another reviewer has described so well!
The Gendarme Gets Married
(1968)
A REALLY nice one from the Gendarme series!
2 August 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Not 8 stars as classic-film-status-8-stars
But 8 stars as a De Funès at the very top of his game in a Gendarme series film, also featuring none other than Michel Galabru as Adjutant CHEF Gerber, Geneviève Grad as De Funès' daughter Nicole Cruchot, and last but not least, Claude Gensac as Josépha, the Colonel's widow.
It is so sad that apparently many De Funès fans, or De Funès fans-to-be, from the USA do not seem to even have access to this sunny Mediterranean 60s gem, a chock full of belly laughs and fine French comical humor! This is for me the very best of the series (yes, which does include some mediocre entries). Taking for granted that there will be car chases, one or two police helicopter flights and a speeding wheeled nun saving the day, and that the subaltern Gendarmes will basically behave like idiots, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with the rest here! Galabru always steals the screen with his inimitable balance of childlike gullibility and poised, protocolar dignity or stateliness, even being well-read to a point that was not so out-of-place or unrealistic for an officer of his rank in those days... Gensac is as always the epitome of both naivety and elegance, here as Maréchal Cruchot's new flame. Gensac was the perfect female screen companion to De Funès, and if she was available for shooting, DeFunès would not have any other partner. The latter himself gives his all through his own maniacal character, typically obsessed with power and advancement. But he also gets to semi-improvise scenes of complete emotional distress and vulnerability, and also a bit of temporary delirium due to a scuba exercise having gone wrong. And this is where he gets me with his comical genius: when struck with panic and stuttering quasi-logical utterances, or inventing (delirium scene upon waking up from scuba accident) dream-like nonsense This is an aspect of his comic brilliance that goes into more intellectual realms and beyond the grimacing maniac he is too often reduced to.
In many scenes, the direction is also more dexterous and clever than in several other "Gendarmes".
As an aside, the fans of Mr. Bean's old TV show will immediately recognize in the promotion examination scene of this film the direct inspiration of the math exam session, Act one, from Bean's very first episode almost verbatim!
It is so sad that apparently many De Funès fans, or De Funès fans-to-be, from the USA do not seem to even have access to this sunny Mediterranean 60s gem, a chock full of belly laughs and fine French comical humor! This is for me the very best of the series (yes, which does include some mediocre entries). Taking for granted that there will be car chases, one or two police helicopter flights and a speeding wheeled nun saving the day, and that the subaltern Gendarmes will basically behave like idiots, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with the rest here! Galabru always steals the screen with his inimitable balance of childlike gullibility and poised, protocolar dignity or stateliness, even being well-read to a point that was not so out-of-place or unrealistic for an officer of his rank in those days... Gensac is as always the epitome of both naivety and elegance, here as Maréchal Cruchot's new flame. Gensac was the perfect female screen companion to De Funès, and if she was available for shooting, DeFunès would not have any other partner. The latter himself gives his all through his own maniacal character, typically obsessed with power and advancement. But he also gets to semi-improvise scenes of complete emotional distress and vulnerability, and also a bit of temporary delirium due to a scuba exercise having gone wrong. And this is where he gets me with his comical genius: when struck with panic and stuttering quasi-logical utterances, or inventing (delirium scene upon waking up from scuba accident) dream-like nonsense This is an aspect of his comic brilliance that goes into more intellectual realms and beyond the grimacing maniac he is too often reduced to.
In many scenes, the direction is also more dexterous and clever than in several other "Gendarmes".
As an aside, the fans of Mr. Bean's old TV show will immediately recognize in the promotion examination scene of this film the direct inspiration of the math exam session, Act one, from Bean's very first episode almost verbatim!
Carambolages
(1963)
An excellent comédie noire, unjustifiably doomed!
4 July 2011
I will not superfluously add to the excellent technical description of the plot given by nenslo. But I beg to differ on the overall comical content of this comédie noire, which is much higher IMO, not to mention the very high caliber of most of the actors and actresses and the dynamic authority of the camera work. Even though some of the humor lies in physical situations and a bit of slapstick, most of it is in the text, those lines delivered full tilt (subtitles are essential here – even for a French spectator such as me – us contemporary audiences having grown somewhat alien to fast thinking and talking in English and French films!), as well as in some subtle political winks.
The character of commissaire Baudu (played by a young Michel Serrault), ever nostalgic of the Gestapo methods of interrogation from the collaboration days of WWII in France, is probably one of the main reasons why this film, in spite of the major presence of De Funès playing here his typical screen self with much gusto and brilliance, was accursed by the French society of the day, for which the collaboration was still a big taboo, or at least certainly not a pet topic for humor.
"Carambolages" probably owes a lot of its own vision of the modern corporate world and its cinematic treatment of the subject to Jacques Tati's films ("Mon Oncle", etc.). Conversely, the entire opening scene, a conference room projection of a publicity campaign film as seen from the Carambolages spectator's POV, cutting to the boss admonishing the execs over it and vehemently requesting instead something that will make the customers hopelessly, sickeningly addicted to the product, struck me as having been lifted almost literally by Richard Donner's "Scrooged", 25 years down the road, for its own opening sequence! As well, the explosive cigar box gimmick, prepared step-by-step before our very eyes and fiendishly efficient (in a rather terrible scene, including the ensuing panic of the fellow workers), not to mention the perpetrator's reaction to its imminent opening-activation, sure as heck recalls a Columbo entry entitled "Short Fuse", featuring Roddy McDowall!
The character of commissaire Baudu (played by a young Michel Serrault), ever nostalgic of the Gestapo methods of interrogation from the collaboration days of WWII in France, is probably one of the main reasons why this film, in spite of the major presence of De Funès playing here his typical screen self with much gusto and brilliance, was accursed by the French society of the day, for which the collaboration was still a big taboo, or at least certainly not a pet topic for humor.
"Carambolages" probably owes a lot of its own vision of the modern corporate world and its cinematic treatment of the subject to Jacques Tati's films ("Mon Oncle", etc.). Conversely, the entire opening scene, a conference room projection of a publicity campaign film as seen from the Carambolages spectator's POV, cutting to the boss admonishing the execs over it and vehemently requesting instead something that will make the customers hopelessly, sickeningly addicted to the product, struck me as having been lifted almost literally by Richard Donner's "Scrooged", 25 years down the road, for its own opening sequence! As well, the explosive cigar box gimmick, prepared step-by-step before our very eyes and fiendishly efficient (in a rather terrible scene, including the ensuing panic of the fellow workers), not to mention the perpetrator's reaction to its imminent opening-activation, sure as heck recalls a Columbo entry entitled "Short Fuse", featuring Roddy McDowall!
200 Motels
(1971)
Ruth Underwood: fake drummer?!?
15 June 2011
I see that this fallacy (to remain polite) is taken from the credits as they appear in the DVD booklet... Yet ANOTHER thing to be hated about this release!... Ruth Underwood (born Komanoff) is credited by Zappa in the soundtrack album as the player of the ORCHESTRA DRUM SET, and she can be seen playing it and reading her parts on a photo of the album's booklet! So every time you hear a drummer playing along in the highly complex orchestra-only pieces (and not with The Mothers' electric combo), it is she, the highly accomplished virtuoso percussionist!
Yes, it is a poor film, regardless of the format, print and transfer, and I agree with most of the recent reviews here. However, the live music (band, orchestra and virtuoso soprano and bass singers) remains fantastic, even deeply moving in parts, and includes one or two major pieces otherwise unavailable so far on any official recording.
Yes, it is a poor film, regardless of the format, print and transfer, and I agree with most of the recent reviews here. However, the live music (band, orchestra and virtuoso soprano and bass singers) remains fantastic, even deeply moving in parts, and includes one or two major pieces otherwise unavailable so far on any official recording.
Dracula: Dead and Loving It
(1995)
A very funny homage to the Hollywood myth of Dracula
8 June 2011
DD&LI works for me because Mel Brooks doesn't actually make fun of the cinematographic myth of Dracula, HE PAYS HOMAGE TO IT INSTEAD by relying not on ridiculing some of the "technical" shortcomings of the original tale in its various incarnations – which would be easy shots for any modern day wise a@& – but instead by extracting the humorous flavor of some of the situations, including of course the more risqué ones, as extrapolated for the contemporary audience.
Leslie Nielsen seems to take a slightly perverse pleasure at embodying the cinematic Dracula of Lugosi / Oldham, and it shows because Leslie likewise does not ridicule the character: he maintains its commanding stateliness nearly all the way through, including in the delivery of some of the classic lines or variations thereof.
True, some of the language jokes are run into the ground (no pun intended!) a bit, and probably don't survive further viewings. But this shortcoming is certainly balanced, for instance, by the incredibly creepy and funny - almost majestically hysterical at times - performance of Peter MacNicol as Renfield! By some gorgeous sets (REAL sets, as mentioned by another reviewer) and wardrobes! And the duo dance scene with the mirror trick, which is extremely well done (although the spectators in it should have been more startled, and earlier on too), including the casting and direction of the stuntman doing the Count.
Leslie Nielsen seems to take a slightly perverse pleasure at embodying the cinematic Dracula of Lugosi / Oldham, and it shows because Leslie likewise does not ridicule the character: he maintains its commanding stateliness nearly all the way through, including in the delivery of some of the classic lines or variations thereof.
True, some of the language jokes are run into the ground (no pun intended!) a bit, and probably don't survive further viewings. But this shortcoming is certainly balanced, for instance, by the incredibly creepy and funny - almost majestically hysterical at times - performance of Peter MacNicol as Renfield! By some gorgeous sets (REAL sets, as mentioned by another reviewer) and wardrobes! And the duo dance scene with the mirror trick, which is extremely well done (although the spectators in it should have been more startled, and earlier on too), including the casting and direction of the stuntman doing the Count.
King Kong
(2005)
A COMPLETELY stupid remake!
9 March 2011
CGIs go for video game epics
Exactly what you would expect from a video game created on the theme of "King Kong" and not from a FILM, let alone a film remaking a masterpiece! The animals (dinosaurs and giant ape) used to be the stars of this film. How come here they had to act so stupidly and unrealistically? Animals are SMART creatures; that's why, given the right conditions, whole chunks of them can survive millions of years! Can't anyone from those modern day script and CGI teams understand or TRY to understand how animals BEHAVE? How can someone accept for a second that a Tyrannosaurus in free fall, landing hundreds of feet in some lianas - let alone that it didn't get his back or neck broken by its huge mass in the process - would actually be preoccupied with snapping little appetizer-sized Ann Darrow swinging by back and forth, INSTEAD OF WITH ITS OWN STRESSFUL, DESPERATE POSITION?... That titanic Brontosaur stampede those little running human characters make it through?
I could go on and on
Like another reviewer rightly observed, the scale of Ann Darrow against Kong just keeps shifting
And why is it so hard for those CGI animation people to understand the basic principles of DYNAMICS VS. SCALE in those huge monster movies (
apparently EVERY SINGLE ONE of these)? (In two words, an ant will perfectly survive a fall off a 6 ft height, but an elephant probably will NOT survive a fall only ten times its own height.) I am not a very smart person, but it always seemed to me that a child would get that, even if just instinctively! THINGS ARE SCARIER WHEN MORE REALISTIC,thus generating BETTER BOX OFFICE REVENUE! Bah
Give me old cinema,when they TRIED to do something right!
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