Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (Day 96)
My Opinion: 8.1 || Exciting gangster biopic dominated by Vincent Cassel as the title character. Thrilling performance. Vibrant writing and direction. Engrossing from start to finish.
Category Archive: France
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Certified Copy (Day 92)
My Opinion: 8.4 || An enthralling intellectual treat that also manages to be emotionally vital. Very few movies achieve this level of stimulation, and Juliette Binoche is an enthralling, trilingual knockout. Unfortunately, although the… Continue reading
Le Doulos (Day 90)
My Opinion: 7.9 || Dark, tight crime thriller that plays cat-and-mouse with our loyalties and assumptions. Not a roller-coaster so much as a slow-track ride with trick mirrors and surprising turns. Once we get… Continue reading
La Jetée (Day 80)
My Opinion: 7.3 || High marks for the number of stimulating ideas packed into 28 minutes and for the uniqueness of the vision. But the experimental structure is just as limiting as it is… Continue reading
The Girl on the Bridge (Day 76)
My Opinion: 8.2 || Charming romantic comedy — a delight through and through. The characters are well drawn, the dialogue is witty, and the touches of magic arrive in perfect measure.
La Femme Nikita (Day 73)
My Opinion: 6.5 || Stylish action film that’s spawned myriad spin-offs and imitations. The last act is badly muddled, but the foundation is excellent, the thriller elements are well filmed, and it’s a mostly… Continue reading
Mesrine: Killer Instinct (Day 67)
My Opinion: 6.8 || Good gangster biopic, but the direction and acting are more interesting than the subject matter. It’s the first part of a two-film set, and has a to-be-continued ending that (unavoidably)… Continue reading
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Day 65)
My Opinion: 9.5 || I don’t think I can provide a commentary that will do the movie justice (though I’ll try). It’s perfect.
A Man Escaped (Day 60)
My Opinion: 7.2 || Intellectually absorbing prison film that ignores the usual genre elements to focus on the mechanics of escape. The minimalist approach means that although we spend every minute with the protagonist… Continue reading
Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (Day 57)
My Opinion: 6.1 || A crime drama on the outside, but really a drama about friendships. It’s nothing special as a thriller, but once you stop looking for genre satisfaction and accept the film… Continue reading
