Sunday, May 30, 2010

ROBIN HOOD (2010, Ridley Scott, A+++++)

ROBIN HOOD (2010, Ridley Scott, A+++++)

LES VIOLONS DU BAL (1974, Michel Drach, A+++++)

DÉTECTIVE (1985, Jean-Luc Godard, A+++++)

I LOVE YOU, PHILLIP MORRIS (2009, Glenn Ficarra + John Requa, A+++++)

ROME: A BIT PART AT CINECITTA (2007, Alessandro Cassigoli + Dalia Castel, A+++++)

IP MAN 2 (2010, Wilson Yip, A+++++)

QING MING (2010, Chinnat Nopkam, stage play, A+)

ONG BAK 3 (2010, Tony Jaa + Panna Rittikrai, A+)

LA MAITRESSE DU PRESIDENT (2009, Jean-Pierre Sinapi, A+)

DOUCE FRANCE (2009, Stéphane Giusti, A+)

SCREEN TEST: KAREN ELKIN (2006, Michel Grondin, A+)

CHIRAC (2006, Patrick Rotman, possibly A+)

THE LOSERS (2010, Sylvain White, A)

SHREK FOREVER AFTER (2010, Mike Mitchell, A-)

SAM YAN (2010, Ping Lumprapleung, Yuthlert Sippapak, Jaroenporn Onlamai, A-)

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010, Samuel Bayer, A-)

UN HOMME DE MAIN (2008, Martin Talbot, A-)

THE BOUNTY HUNTER (2010, Andy Tennant, B+)

KITES (2010, Anurag Basu, B)

A CRES PARODY WITH COLONEL ROAST CHICKEN (2010, John Winyoo, no grade)

I gave "possibly A+" to CHIRAC, because I watched only 3/4 of the film, not the whole film. I missed the third part of the film when it was shown on TV.

I would like to give A+++++ to some parts of A CRES PARODY WITH COLONEL ROAST CHICKEN, because these parts are very funny. But I decide to give "no grade" to this Youtube clip, because there are some parts of the clip which are not funny for me, partly because they accidentally remind me of my friends who may lose their jobs because of the fire, and my colleagues whose houses were destroyed by the fire. I cannot laugh at my friends' suffering. But maybe these "seemingly-insensitive" parts of the clip are not meant for laughing. They may be meant for satire or thinking. I'm not sure. You decide for yourself.

LA MAITRESSE DU PRESIDENT is partly about the Dreyfus affair, which I think is very interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair



"The Dreyfus affair (French: Affaire Dreyfus) was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent. Sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly having communicated French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, Dreyfus was sent to the penal colony at Devil's Island in French Guiana and placed in solitary confinement.

Two years later, in 1896, evidence came to light identifying a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazyas the real culprit. However, high-ranking military officials suppressed this new evidence and Esterhazy was unanimously acquitted after the second day of his trial in military court. Instead of being exonerated, Alfred Dreyfus was further accused by the Army on the basis of false documents fabricated by a French counter-intelligence officer,Hubert-Joseph Henry, seeking to re-confirm Dreyfus's conviction. These fabrications were uncritically accepted by Henry's superiors.

Word of the military court's framing of Alfred Dreyfus and of an attendant cover-up began to spread largely due toJ'accuse, a vehement public open letter in a Paris newspaper by writer Émile Zola, in January 1898. The case had to be re-opened and Alfred Dreyfus was brought back from Guiana in 1899 to be tried again. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (the Dreyfusards[2]) and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards), such as Edouard Drumont (the director and publisher of the antisemitic newspaper La Libre Parole) and Hubert-Joseph Henry.

Eventually, all the accusations against Alfred Dreyfus were demonstrated to be baseless. Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army in 1906. He later served during the whole of World War I, ending his service with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel."

2 comments:

celinejulie said...

This is my reply to friends in Facebook:

Personally, last week is the time when I was very happy. I wish this happiness could last forever. I began last week by seeing four films at Central Ladprao—SHREK FOREVER AFTER, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, THE BOUNTY HUNTER, and ROBIN HOOD.

IP MAN 2 puzzles me a lot in that way, because it has the same thing I hate in ONG BAK (C-)—extreme nationalism. I don't understand why I don't feel disgusted by the nationalism in IP MAN 2, but I feel disgusted by the same thing in ONG BAK.

The role of women in IP MAN 2 doesn't correspond to my personal taste. Women in this film seem to be very subservient, but it doesn't bother me much. Theorectically, IP MAN 2 seems to be full of many things I usually hate. Practically, I love this film, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it is partly because the role of the hero in this film is "acceptable" to me. He's a poor, calm man. He doesn't act too macho. He loves peace. He looks "human", like the role Jackie Chan plays in LITTLE BIG SOLDIER (A+), while the heroes of ONG BAK and FEARLESS look like fighting robots, devoid of human souls.

As for me, one of the reasons why I like ROBIN HOOD very much is its grey characters—Robin Hood, Richard the Lionheart, Isabella. They are neither totally good nor totally bad. Before I went to see this film, I had assumed that the film would tell its story in a one-dimension way like the book of ROBIN HOOD I read when I was in secondary school.

movie forums said...

Robin Hood is my favorite of all the movie. I like that character because that is having a soul that attracts everyone.