Tag Archives: Paris

Taken [2008] Taken [2008] 4 star

September 6th, 2010 by surlaroute

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Somehow I missed this one on its original release but read many comparisons to it in reviews of one of my early favourites of this year, Edge of Darkness, so I was quick to check it out when it appeared on TV. In light of how much I liked Edge, I have to admit I wasn’t too open to this one being anywhere near as good, which I guess is just the opposite situation to those who avoided or dissed Edge for being “just another Taken…”

I was kind of pleasantly surprised. There’s a brevity to the introduction of characters prior to the total disruption of their lives here that I just adored. We see Liam Neeson dithering over a karaoke machine in an electronics store, making sure it’s absolutely the right one, then we see him giving it to his daughter at her 16th birthday party – but not before Famke Janssen, her mother, gives him sh*t for being a bad father, which he evidently is not, and though the daughter appreciates the karaoke machine, she’s quickly distracted by her new stepfather, who has bought her a pony. A simple shot of Neeson looking dejected after this scene is all we need to care about him (and anything he might care about) for the rest of the movie. The wraparound story here concerning the daughter’s ambition to sing (and Neeson being a bodyguard at one point to one of her idols) is just a little corny, it has to be said, but I kind of settled into it like a nice blanket around the otherwise awful brutality of the rest of the movie.

The rest of the movie is comparable to Edge of Darkness, not to mention a dozen other movies before both of them (I’ll throw in Trade as one you might not have seen) – but it’s one of those stories that, as long as it’s done well, never really gets old. The good news here is that with Liam Neeson in the lead (even if he’s just playing Liam Neeson yet again), this is most certainly done well. I didn’t find his anger quite so convincing as Mel Gibson’s in Edge, or to pick one of those dozen others, Denzel Washington in Man on Fire, and the action doesn’t sting quite so much either. But at 90 minutes who’s complaining. If you like this genre you’ll have no problems with this one.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets National Treasure: Book of Secrets 3 star

May 13th, 2008 by surlaroute

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As with the first movie, this is clearly “Meh-” material: as Mark Kermode put it I think, it passes the time until Indy 4 well enough. But as with the first movie, it must be said that it’s mostly a good “meh-”. It’s bookended by a build-up and finale that are almost identikit copies of their original counterparts (“it’s a little gold man …” anyone?) but it has its moments like a chase down the tiny backstreets of London, a foray into Buckingham Palace, a nice scene around Paris’ Statue of Liberty (which reminded me I really must remember to see that next time I go).

It’s a Bruckheimer movie, so you should expect plausibility to go entirely out of the window, and that it certainly does around the point where Nicolas Cage manages to kidnap a President who seems almost willing to be kidnapped – even that’s a fun sequence, though, I’ve gotta admit. Likewise the stuff with Helen Mirren and Jon Voight as “mom and dad” feel often hideously like pandering to the older audience, but, y’know, it’s Mirren and Voight, it’s hard to complain. If you don’t watch movies often then it’s the last thing you want to waste your time on; otherwise, knock yourself out.

Mr. Bean’s Holiday Mr. Bean’s Holiday 4 star

March 24th, 2008 by surlaroute

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“Oui! Oui! Bean! Sabine! Russ! Cannes!”

LOL :-D

I don’t think there’s much to add to the first review of this but to say that the whole spectrum between the bad and the good parts of this widened exponentially for me on a second viewing. When it’s unfunny, it’s really pretty excruciating – the restaurant scene at the start, the “amuse the boy” scene on the train shortly thereafter, and the “falling asleep at the wheel” scene towards the end being amongst the most painful; but when it soars, like pretty much from the scene where Bean wakes in the middle of the movie set, the yellow mini approaching, and thereon to the end with him walking down to the beach – yes, even the sing-a-long – I found it even more joyful and beautiful than I did before.

I think the one disappointment most people will have over the movie is that, like the first movie in fact, it’s not just straight-up laughs like the TV show, and because of how bold they’ve been in doing it the same way (it only just struck me this time how many subtitles there are given this was a total Easter holidays movie last year for kids), there are unavoidably moments where it feels awkward (there are even moments like this in Mel Smith’s only slightly better first movie). If you come to it just wanting to smile at France, though, you really can’t go wrong. The boy’s tooo cute when he dresses as a girl too (sorry but I have to say these things sometimes – ok, all the time – lol) :)

May 16th, 2007:

I was sort of desperate to like this not only because I loved, really loved, Mel Smith’s Bean, but also ‘cos I’ve been informed my favourite cousin Fiona laughed her way all the way through this new installment over the Easter holidays. The reviews weren’t too promising, though …

The movie couldn’t begin better, it’s almost like it’s trying to win me over – Bean stops over and gets led astray in Paris and we get quite a nice video tour of the place – but after an excruciating restaurant scene (in which at least two old gags from the TV series threaten to resurface, and some business with mussels ends up just being plain unpleasant), I honestly thought I was going to go the way of Mark Kermode and wind up really being let down by the rest. But then Bean meets the boy, and there’s a scene on a train platform where he starts to mimic Bean, and what can I say, it just won me over in about 30 seconds.

Sure, you can look at the set-up and in this horrible world we live etc and say, ooh, creepy. Alternatively, you can see a simple-minded, foolish but harmless man and a young boy who ultimately thinks the world of him running around France getting in hijinks. I think there’s something really almost classical here, and if it doesn’t fit in with your dark view of the world, it’s a real shame I think. Rowan Atkinson and the kid work beyond adorably together, Howard Goodall’s music and Steve Bendelack’s direction really lift the whole thing and you can’t help coming out in the end feeling warm and fuzzy inside. Keep watching after the credits, too, btw, there’s a little bit of added cuteness.

Yes, the humour tires towards the end, but as with Bean, there is really more to this than the laughs. There’s this real sense of the camera trying to find the humanity in Bean, and when it finds it, it’s always kind of startling how easy it was. He’s a beautiful character when dealt with correctly, and this movie really didn’t let me down like I thought it would. The more I think about it, the more I want to see it again.

2 Days in Paris 2 Days in Paris 5 star

November 26th, 2007 by surlaroute

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“Hey. This man’s talking about fascist vaginas.”

I was really looking forward to seeing this, especially as I ultimately did alongside Ethan Hawke’s The Hottest State. Especially in that context, it’s kind of hard to talk about this movie in particular without comparing it to Richard Linklater’s Delpy/Hawke starrers Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, and I’ll admit that my biggest fear about 2 Days in Paris was that it would, if anything, be too much like that masterful pair.

The similarities are absolutely there. Julie Delpy – who writes, directs, stars, edits, composes, probably caters – is very focused on relationships; on the little things that are actually big things that make and break them.

But what won me over and eventually utterly slayed me here was the humour. I don’t think I’ve laughed louder at a movie all year. Marion’s character’s father – played by Delpy’s father – keying the cars parked on the Paris curb; the strange man on the Metro and the way Adam Goldberg attempts to stare him out; the poor American tourists at the end; the “fairy” in the fast food restaurant.

What it comes down to is the final scene where Delpy realises (in her character and literally on film) that moment in a relationship where “you can’t face another break up, and you love their sneezes more than anyone else’s kisses.” It’s so corny in a way, but these two characters are every bit as believable as Jesse and Celine were in Linklater’s movies, and it works beautifully. I was astonished by how tolerable and even sympathetic Adam Goldberg turned out to be – his frustration at not being able to understand the French language is all at once annoying, funny, and sad. Delpy is able to show warts and all both male and female “sides” of the story (not a me thing to say, I know – but I don’t know, Delpy does it in a way that’s somehow acceptable to me, it all comes from individual character rather than for the sake of it), and her ability to portray Marion’s nastier side so nakedly is truly admirable. Definitely one I’ll revisit just as much as the Jesse/Celine story, and if you’re a Paris nut like me I’m sure you’ll love it too.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame [1996] The Hunchback of Notre Dame [1996] 5 star

November 12th, 2007 by surlaroute

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I guess I’ve changed since my last review. You can’t overlook the overwhelming darkness of this movie with the usual, cynical, “oh, they so totally Disnified it,” comment on the ending. This is probably the darkest children’s movie ever made, referring so frequently as it does to the very bowels of hell, sins of the flesh, ugliness, blood and fire, all to the almost Omen-esque tones of Alan Menken’s score, one of his very best, and Stephen Schwartz’ irresistible lyrics. Even the lightest song referred to below, “Guy Like You,” contains an image of hanging marionettes. It’s thick with the grisliest aspects of humanity and if all Disney needed to do to justify all this was let Esmerelda live, then so be it as far as I’m concerned now.

December 27th, 2004:

This is a way better movie than a lot of Disney’s stuff that came later, but no where near as good as I originally thought. It does have scene after scene of haunting music and images: from “The Bells of Notre Dame” to “Out There” to the ultimate bad guy showstopper, “Beata Maria / Hellfire”, Alan Menken’s score and Stephen Schwartz’s lyrics are a treasure, overlooked at the Oscars (not even a song nomination, it’s sacrilege). Even the standard ‘Hakuna Matata’ ish “A Guy Like You” is fantastic (how can you not love a song that begins, “Paris, the city of lovers, is glowing this evening – / True, that’s because it’s on fire, but still there’s l’amour…”)

Where Hunchback stumbles, aside from comparisons to the classic 1939 movie which is simply irreplacable, is perhaps a result of all the gloriously heavy scenes. I guess, being a Disney movie, they had to balance it with something for the kids. I actually don’t mind some of the humour, it’s not too bad sometimes, but it’s too much of a contrast, I’d rather have an all-out gothic madness fest. And of course, Esmerelda doesn’t stay dead, which bugs me a lot – and I’m somebody who didn’t mind the absurd alterations Disney made to The Little Mermaid etc. It’s not necessarily the fact she doesn’t stay dead – it’s more the fact that it looks like she’s going to, and then it looks like somebody at Disney said, “Well, we can’t have her re-animated with a kiss, that’ll be just like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and oh, everything that worked… so how can we get her back in action?” and some cleaning lady or vending machine filler passing by suggests, “She could just stand up in the background?”

However, after the disappointment of this PC gloss-job, Disney do have at least one superb emotional pay-off at the end. I never fail to cry when that little girl comes out of the crowd and the ‘camera’ pans so slowly around them as Quasimodo finally sees a glimmer of hope in the world around him.

Ratatouille Ratatouille 4 star

October 16th, 2007 by surlaroute

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I really wasn’t too excited about this one following the less than engrossing Cars. Even though I love food, I love cooking food, I love watching people cook; it seemed like an even stranger start-point for a Pixar movie than the last one. However, for at least the first hour here, I was completely enraptured by the smoother-than-ever animation, the truly humble voicework; and when the food started being thrown around, in the gorgeously rendered digital Paris? Let’s just say this one certainly has more than its share of moments that more than match the best parts of the Toy Stories, Finding Nemo, and Monsters Inc.

It’s not without its flaws. I didn’t really buy the whole Remy-controlling-Linguine thing, it got a little annoying at times. And I don’t mean like, I have problems suspending my disbelief kind of way – it’s just, alongside the much more subtle, even beautiful, way the unlikely pair first communicate, it’s just that bit too farfetched by comparison. Like Cars, too, it’s certainly a little overlong, and there’s a good slog in the second half that had me squirming a little for something to happen.

But then there’s all the good. I loved the vertically challenged head chef – everytime he thought he’d seen a rat he totally reminded me of Herbert Lom in the Pink Panther movies, and a quick Google search tells me I’m not alone in noticing this. Michael Giacchino’s score is sheer perfection, way better than his work on The Incredibles which I personally wasn’t as overwhelmed by as some.

Overall, this is a step up for Pixar following Cars, that’s for sure. It’s a movie I will certainly watch more than a few times again, and I think the highest praise from me must be that I won’t be too crushed if it beats out Meet the Robinsons at next year’s Oscars for the Best Animated Feature award. I only wish there’d been more of the digital Paris. They could’ve almost just had a virtual camera roaming the streets of that model for 2 hours to Giacchino’s music and I would’ve been in heaven.

Paris, je t’aime Paris, je t’aime 5 star

August 6th, 2007 by surlaroute

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In short, this movie is everything I expected and more (incidentally, I apologise to the universe for not getting around to watching it sooner). Sure, the “more” is sometimes a little unnecessary – I really think the movie would work better at 90 minutes than 2 hours, and I can think of specific arrondissements that could be taken out (the Bob Hoskins one springs most immediately to mind, and the Alfonso Cuarón one is surprisingly forgettable too) … then, you wouldn’t get the sense of completeness the movie has. For the very few times my attention slipped, though, there is an abundance of wonder that will take many more viewings to take in – just as the city itself requires more than one visit. The Tom Tykwer and Coen Brothers segments are really worth watching it for alone – but the biggest surprise is saved for the end, in the shockingly beautiful vignette by Alexander Payne, whose work has never really previously grabbed me as much as it has others. I’ll have a lot more to say about this movie in the future.

Amélie Amélie 4 star

October 27th, 2005 by surlaroute

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There’s not much left to say about this movie, and I’m surprised I’ve not reviewed it before. It’s visually among the most beautiful movies ever made. Audrey Tautou is like Hepburn brought back to life. The predominantly piano-based score by Yann Tiersen goes up there with Michael Nyman’s The Piano and Ennio Morricone’s Once Upon a Time in America on the “why the eff didn’t they even get nominated for an Oscar??”

All that said, I have to admit that for some reason the second half of the movie has disappointed me both this and the last time I saw it. I don’t know exactly why that is, possibly just a personal mood thing. Whatever the reason, I do tend to tune out over the last half hour, but it remains one of my all-time favourites because the startling glimmers of beauty – like Amélie guiding the blind man through the streets of Paris, her disruption of the mean old grocer’s day, her goldfish gazing up at her from the stream, the simply wonderful opening sequence of her as a young girl – are so frequent and mesmerizing, it’s impossible not to fall in love again every time. I’m gonna be harsh here and give it 4 stars but on a better day and for most people with a heart it’d be an easy 5.