joefhaddad-680-7471 Reviews

The Gendarme and the Gendarmettes (1982)

When You Think It Can't Get Worse Than "The Extra-Terrestrials"...

[3/10 · 17 August 2020]

I thought I had hit the absolute rock bottom of French industrial cinema with "Le gendarme et les extra-terrestres".

I was wrong.

"Le gendarme et les gendarmettes" hits record lows and, contrary to past Louis de Funès bummers, it's not even funny from a "small, unpretentious, low-budget comedy" point of view.

The script is awful. The acting is awful. The editing is awful.

It's racist, it's sexist, it's patriarcal, it's 90 minutes of cultural appropriation as every other "Gendarme" entry and Louis de Funès screams all over the place to try and make you smile to no avail.

Actually, this has always been the problem with de Funès: he wanted his films to be an excuse for him to act. He said so himself: he chose, towards the end of his career, to limit himself to films directed by Jean Girault because he's "only a technician" who butchers his films to let de Funès shine on screen. De Funès acted in 2 films by Édouard Molinaro and swore never to be on set with him again because Molinaro works on all aspects of his films equally.

So, if you still wish to go on with the latest entry of the most successful franchise of B movies, brace yourself for characters that change names midway, troops that change grades midway, a computer that "guesses" you're a hypocrite, a black intern "troop-ette" who does an African dance, another intern "troop-ette" who loses her skirt "by mistake" and 50 cars that collide because a third intern "troop-ette" decided to do a Bollywood dance with an old male troop with a molester smile.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Sporadically Interesting, Constantly Clumsy and Inaccurate

[6/10 · 9 July 2018]

My video store was doing an everything-must-go operation on their music and film articles so I bought a Blu-Ray copy of Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona for 5$ as I remembered that Penelope Cruz's performance was exceptional. When I put it on this evening I couldn't believe how insufferably bad everything else about it was.

The story is pretty simple. It's a soft love/sex quadrangle between a guy and three women with a vague Woody Allen lemon flavor. The first woman (Rebecca Hall) is square, rich and fond of art, poetry and music. The second woman (Scarlett Johansson) is more unstable, not-so-rich but not-so-bad and fond of art, poetry and music. The third woman (Penelope Cruz) is self-destructive, not-so-rich but not-so-bad and an artist herself. The guy (Javier Bardem) is square, extremely rich and an artist himself. Together, they go sight-seeing, develop pictures in their darkroom, paint, write poetry, listen to Catalan guitar, have sex and drink expensive wine. And then everyone goes back where they came from and it's over.

Almost a decade after watching it for the first time, I can say that Cruz's performance holds up in depth and subtlety and that the film is still worth watching for that (the confrontation scene in the kitchen is brilliant). It actually makes up for Johansson and Hall's often-embarrassing screen time. Having said that, it's not their fault; it's the director's. Woody Allen's reputed technique of having his ensemble cast recite his dialogue is responsible for a lot of the film's mediocrity because the lines themselves lack the sarcasm and the grace of his finer work. As for Javier Bardem, he's stuck in neutral gear, trying to temper the monstrous imbalance between Cruz's atomic bomb of a performance and Hall and Johansson's unflavored acting.

One of the most frustrating elements of the entire film is the voice-over that constantly explains what the audience is supposed to figure out on its own if the film is well directed, but for some reason Allen doesn't want you to think. He'd rather have a narrator tell you what the characters are feeling or take you through an ellipsis of questionable subtlety. So for example the voice-over would tell you someone's sad when they're supposed to be sad. Maybe the director doesn't want you to think as mentioned before, or perhaps wants to think for you for ego-related reasons, or maybe tell you what to think for pretentiousness-related reasons. Whatever the case, the audience ends up feeling useless and stupid. I find the use of voice-over in a fiction film very questionable in general, and quite problematic in Vicky. I always have trouble understanding why some directors try to blur the line between cinema and literature. There is no separation between novel language and screenplay language in here. The voice over in Vicky Cristina Barcelona is like an audiobook with optional shots. Not to mention that the characters speak nothing like real people. Woody Allen's really happy having one woman recite another woman's character bible instead of giving the audience the pleasure and luxury of unveiling it. This might have been fun a few times in the past but now it looks like narrative incompetence (which might actually be true). The editing is flaky as well. I can mention several close-ups where I would've liked to see the reverse shot instead of being stuck with the original shot lasting several seconds longer than needed (which, in a feature film, can feel really awkward).

You've asked for a Woody Allen film and you're getting one. You get the color corrector who explodes the yellows to make the film look Spanish, artistic and old. Spain is yellow. You get the aforementioned manipulated acting (if you mute some scenes you'd think Scarlett Johansson is saying "I was told to stand like this!"). You get punk rock explained to you by Woody Allen: a grandfather who refuses to publish his poetry because SCREW THE SYSTEEEEEM. See, Woody knows everything about the Sex Pistols. An excerpt from an unknown black-and-white film also makes its way out of nowhere to accompany a piece of lost voice-over midway into the film. Vicky Cristina Barcelona wouldn't be a Woody Allen film without him lecturing us on cinema. On classical cinema. On what's "good cinema" and what's "bad cinema". And we could go on and on about almost all other artistic disciplines. Classical guitar, for example, is "good music". It's the Catalan version of a standard Woody Allen jazz soundtrack. Taking pictures is also "good art" (with a silver camera, of course, not those decadent digital cameras!). Also, the more sensual scenes of the film beg the question: has Woody Allen ever actually seen a romantic sexual encounter, let alone between two women? I'm speaking for myself but I don't think two people have ever caressed each other's arms for two seconds and started having sex right away without prior signals. Ever. Not even in Humphrey Bogart movies; at least they argued before every kiss. The events that lead to sex in Vicky Cristina are too neutral.

But the worst sin of the film is that its creator has no clue whatsoever who he's catering to. Who are the people who watch romantic comedies? Who are the people who watch sex comedies? Who are the people who watch the romantic sex adventures of Woody Allen characters in Spain? Who are the people who watch comedies, considering that Vicky qualifies as a comedy in Woodyland? "Two university graduates go wine-tasting." "Two BFF's suddenly have passionate sex and fall in love with a wealthy painter (throw in a suicidal ex-lover because otherwise it's a non-story)." "A woman happens to be studying Catalan painting and happens to fall in love with a Catalan painter who happens to still have feelings for his destructive ex who happens to be a Catalan painter." What's the demographic for that? After some thinking, now I know. It's the people who, like Woody, think that only straight, vanilla, female polygamy is cute and acceptable and who worship the director for "shining a light" on that. It's the people who, as much as you criticize a Woody Allen film, will always answer "Hey, it's Woody!" It's the people who refuse to admit that there are very specific reasons why 9 Woody Allen films out of 10 lose money and that "art-house" is not an excuse.

Vicy Cristina Barcelona has its interesting aspects but it perfectly shows you that Woody Allen really lives in his own bubble. Almost all of his movies from the 21st century lack the substance to make up for that and Vicky's one of them. This used to bother the fans, now I don't think anyone bothers anymore.

All in all, the quality of the film is awfully mediocre. Long story short, towards the end, the square girl gets shot by the unstable woman. The square girl tells her husband Doug that her former Spanish teacher shot her by mistake. Doug buys it. That's the movie we're dealing with.

And that's one of the "good" 21st century Allen films. If you want, you can go watch Larry David scream at the camera for an hour.

Miami Vice (2006)

Welcome To Your Bad Action Movie Next Door

[5/10 · 26 February 2017]

You know those movies that are so bad that they're good and you end up liking them?

Yeah, Miami Vice is not like that.

What do you want me to say. It's probably one of the most insipid scripts I've come across lately.

It's full of what-the-f*** musical choices, American good guys and Mexican bad guys (of course), there are many intense existential close-ups of the lead actors in the shower interrupted by horny girlfriends, the color grading guys grained the SH**T out of every single shot to make them look grainy (because Miami is baaaaaaaaaaaaaad). You get to see soaked Naomie Harris and Jamie Foxx stripped to the crotch (hey, they gotta fund their movie).

Let's not be negative here: there's some hope in the script in that one lead character's personal life falls apart while the other guy's personal life comes together and vice versa. Consider it a golden tooth in a messed-up jaw.

And OH MY GOD was that a long movie. I started watching it in fast-speed halfway through it. And i still wouldn't see the end of it.

The Last Supper (1995)

Exactly the Type of BS Material You'll Never Find In a Hitchcock

[6/10 · 22 January 2017]

I have no idea if this movie is pretending to be a great thriller, but if it does, it's a true hit and miss.

Hit because it starts as a guilty pleasure and make you a vicious spectator.

Miss because the character evolution and, most of all, the horrendous ending, are worth a cheap tele-novella.

As a thriller, you can't start out with machiavellic ideas and finish like a textbook Disney flick. It's wrong, frustrating and ugly.

A group of friends comes up with a plan to become serial criminals "for a reason". Their last (missed) victim, however, is isolated for some time, reads between the lines and understands the whole point of his invitation, during which time one of the friends turns his back on the rest of the gang and points a gun at them. Fear no more, audience, because someone is simply going to tell him to "put the gun down" and he will quickly oblige, break down to tears and go back to the table to toast with the intended victim! No, you can't have a group of people coming up with a plan to become serial criminals, and have them toasting ("to health"!!!!!) with their last missed victim!

As for character evolution, that scene where one of the girls touches herself while her boyfriend decides not to join her is supposed to translate as "distance between characters". No comment.

I don't believe in something like "acting saved the movie". It's theoretically impossible. If the material is not believable, there is NO WAY for the actor to avoid "faking it". And, in the case of a crime story, everything must pass as accurate, from situations to emotions to dialogue. And even though Cameron Diaz and Courtney B. Vance are "good actors", I don't think that remaining seated when someone chokes to death in front of you counts as believable acting nor as some unrealistic situation you can blame on art and sarcasm.

In Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, James Stewart understands that his hosts are criminals. However, instead of going straight to the police, of which he wouldn't get any personal satisfaction, he goes back to their place and tricks them! He doesn't play by the rules, he plays the killer's game! Because it satisfies his ego; this is human race! That's an exciting crime thriller! You can't simply put your gun down, go back to the dinner table where your guest (a complete stranger by the way) is waiting for you, and then toast to health with some cheap lines that mean "you know that he knows *wink*!".

Actually, there are Hitchcock references all over the movie. The way Bill Paxton meets the hosts in the middle of a rainy night is, reminiscent of Psycho of course, whereas the backyard part of the story recalls the lesser-known The Trouble With Harry. It may flatter the creators of this movie to allude to Hitchcock, but in the end, it acts against the movie because it invites comparisons, and you can't compare a thriller to the work of the guy who invented the rules of the thriller.

Also, the title "Last Supper" automatically triggers religious connections. Having a replica of Michelangelo's Sixtine Chapel on the ceiling was cheap but straight-to-the-point enough to get away with it.

Script aside, this is a fairly enjoyable movie, apart from the hideous music. It's kind of fun to watch people whose egos are so big that they use their "intellect and wisdom" to decide whose life they can subtract.

If you want to watch a great crime thriller with pretentious people getting all philosophical around a dinner table, watch Hitchcock's Rope. Seriously. It doesn't get better than that.

Fox and His Friends (1975)

Fox And His Friends: When Punks Take Matters In Their Own Hands

[7/10 · 15 January 2017]

Before watching any Fassbinder movie, one should be aware of the fact that this is an artist who used to direct up to six feature films a year. And in Fox And His Friends, boy does it show, everywhere and all the time and in the director's trademark superb low-key f**k you fashion. Does it matter that much to you? If it does, then you might not be watching this film for the right reasons.

A year before Fox, the combo writer-director-cinematographer-editor-actor Rainer Werner Fassbinder portrayed the mishaps of a forbidden and most non-glamorous love affair between an old cleaning lady and a young – Arab – homosexual in the dangerously gorgeous film Ali. In Fox, RW Fassbinder stars himself as a young, big-mouthed, bad-mannered and proud-to-be gay man (that looks exactly like a hybrid between the middle boy in the Von Trapp family and Tintin) and chronicles his endeavors as he falls in love with a guy out of stupidity while the latter falls in love with him for his newfound money. Everything you don't want to mix in a feature film. Yet it works.

You don't "have fun" while watching Fox And His Friends, but you don't struggle that much through it either (at least not the way some people would struggle through, say, Querelle, or a middle-age Goddard). Pace does plunge from time to time but it ends up being an irrelevant issue. Fassbinder knows very well that the audience measures its excitement and boredom on a Hollywood-established scale and he makes it perfectly clear that he doesn't care. He's not trying to annoy you. He's too busy voicing issues that would never get a chance in a corporate-funded film, so he simply couldn't care less.

And speaking of corporate, it feels very satisfying to watch Fassbinder unfold his utter disgust of corporations, as you sit through the perfect recipe of a Hollywood suicide: lighting is terrible, editing is all over the place, nobody was paid to record live sound and don't get me started on dubbing, the narrative proves that the author trimmed holes in his script like squares in a backyard, 95% of the characters are gay, lovers, or gay lovers, the director/main actor walks around naked in half of the film while he congratulates himself on having very questionable hygiene, actors never bother to deliver more than one dimension, the cinematographer sticks to the classic 4/3 academic ratio in a generation where ultra-widescreen formats rule and the film finally performs Hara Kiri in the most non-pretty non-happy ending ever.

A rather intriguing aspect of watching Fox And His Friends in the 21st Century is that it triggers AIDS-related goose bumps as the eponymous character is tested for a mysterious illness, despite the film being released years before the AIDS epidemic broke in the West. When Fox was produced in 1975, AIDS didn't even exist as an unidentified enemy, but homosexuality was a very degrading thing to be, and perhaps this film acts as a voice to this unspoken terror. There wasn't AIDS yet, but there was sexual terrorism. Fox even goes beyond sexual fear and labels and encapsulates the problematic of social identification altogether (the working-class sister who's afraid to confront the world of socialites because of her manners and her drinking problem, the lover who judges Fox's intelligence based on his musical tastes and, later, who forces him to dress, listen and behave like him because he's in denial of social cleavage, the Maitre D who'd rather send white male stewards for prostitution instead of local Moroccan men…). Fassbinder ultimately dresses his film to kill, which reminds you that punks are and will remain a community that refuses to conform, and this ideology is indispensable for a working group of people like Fassbinder and his crew as it allows them to be liberated from any commitment to please, sell or attract and lets them underline such topics as the fear of belonging to a category, be it social, sexual or aesthetic. This anti-masterpiece stinks of artistic merit.

Not even for the sake of academic documentation, but rather for the sake of tolerance, payback to minorities, respect of the punk community, social and sexual awareness and, hell, freedom of speech, I think that every single person in the world should watch at least one Fassbinder film at some point in their life.

Happiness (1998)

It's A Long Way To Happiness

[5/10 · 10 January 2017]

Happiness starts very well, in that it sets up its characters solidly, and ends really, really, really bad because it makes no point whatsoever. What's even worse is that it tries to trick you into thinking that it's a movie "to be taken seriously" because everybody's a sex addict and everybody's miserable and everybody throws up. In case you didn't get it: the title "Happiness" is used for its opposite meaning. What saves this pretentious movie from is essentially its great cast, especially that little boy whose father is a pedophile. He essentially played an un- pitchable child role. What an impressive and mature performance!

The first forty minutes or so are very interesting in terms of character evolution, but there's no use for you to look at your watch, because these are only forty minutes out of one hundred and forty minutes worth of very, very, very pointless controversy wrapped in very, very, very unaesthetic cinematography. Long story short, this is a movie where very promising satire and sarcasm is dumped for explicit material. As a matter of fact, everything that the characters do seems to be for shock value. The grandfather who pours tons of salt on his plate despite his doctor's recommendations (no need to shoot further scenes to elaborate of course). The neighbour who phone-harrasses women and ends up drunk and pukes everywhere. The little boy who, after six laborious months, finally shoots his cum, has his dog eat it and joyfully tells his entire family that he had an orgasm. Please.

Yes, a scene like the one where a father suggests demonstrating masturbation to his son will surprise you, shock you, make you smile, make you laugh, offend you, make you applaud the writer for his unapologetic manners, but once you're past the effect, Happiness will leave no room for you to reflect in any way, for the simple reason that there's nothing to reflect about since everything's done for the sake of spontaneous disgust and/or offence. If you want good sarcasm, taboo topics and impeccable cinematography, check out "Sitcom" by François Ozon, where a mother decides to sleep with her gay son to "cure" him from his homosexuality. It has an irresistibly witty and sarcastic dialogue, an asset that "Happiness" crucially lacks. When you want to be honest with people with topics as delicate as pedophilia, you need something to counter-balance it. Pasolini shot the most shocking sexual scenes in history but he had the most poetic cinematography and sound track to back it up with! It is one thing to push people's buttons to make them reflect on something and a totally different thing to go for shock value. Happiness is not the former.

La La Land (2016)

A Solid Entry In The Dangerous Territory of Musicals

[5/10 · 7 January 2017]

There are good news and bad news.

The good news is that, if you know nothing about musicals, then La La Land is going to tell you all about the creme de la creme: Top Hat, An American In Paris, Mary Poppins, Singin' In The Rain (both in very specific references) and, the most obvious influence of all, especially in terms of characters and narrative, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Not only is the essential history of musicals part of this film, but everything's also impeccably executed. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are both remarkably subtle as well, and for once in a colorful Hollywood romance, none of the main characters steps over the other. Note that there's a Woody Allen sleeping in Gosling's character: a very traditional artist who refuses to open up to other people's tastes and opinions (not sure if mentioning Mr. Allen is a compliment or not). But seriously, even the most skeptics of you about musicals will have a good time.

The bad news is that this is one long, long, long movie that ends a million consecutive times. Don't you hate it when you're watching a movie and you get the feeling that it ends a first time, then it ends again, then again, and again, and again to the extent that you no longer know if it's ever going to end at all? The director Damien Chazelle is also developing his gimmicks that he might be unfortunately mistaking for trademark: fast consecutive inserts, referencing anecdotes about great musicians, building sonic climax and breaking it abruptly... Also, if you're expecting to find some of the tension remaining from Chazelle's previous coup-de-maître Whiplash, you won't because he has moved on to a more contemplative, more harmonious and less scientific place about music and he wants everybody to know it. To sum up the major difference between Whiplash and La La Land in terms of experience as a spectator: you eat Whiplash and you sip La La Land.

By the way, you can thank the producers for approving of a not-so-happy-after-all ending for an A-list Hollywood movie. HALLELUJAH!

You might get bored here and there. However you should be convinced by the likability of the cast, the delicious 40's three-color-strip-referencing cinematography and the shockingly impressive Steadicam work. La La Land will also manage to steal a few good laughs from you.

Kamikaze 89 (1982)

A Superb Display of Orgasmic Incompetence

[5/10 · 27 December 2016]

You really have to be in a very particular state of mind to appreciate the utter katastraüm that is this film.

You can read all over the internet that RW Fassbinder used to direct up to 4 films a year EXCLUDING acting assignments for other directors and it shows perfectly in Kamikaze how little time he had to prepare for an acting job.

I think Fassbinder and the gang only wanted to have a good laugh with 90 minutes worth of jokes that only they would understand.

Remember that this is NOT a Fassbinder film. Like, if you're going through a "Fassbinder Marathon" (if that would ever be a thing), you wouldn't include Kamikaze. It's a punk film - well, it's only a film - in which he acted (if you want to call that acting).

If you're a film fan and/or Fassbinder fan or if you're simply interested in West German indie pop culture, Kamikaze is perfect for you, because it's an orgy of everything and nothing.

If you're studying cinema, this is perfect as well because it breaks every technical rule in the history of everything in the space of less than an hour and tells you exactly what you mustn't do if you want to be a merely competent film technician.

But, seriously, there's only one advice I can give you: don't watch it sober.

Crash (I) (2004)

An Excellent Cast for an Uneven and Over-Dramatic Movie

[6/10 · 21 December 2016]

After watching this movie twice, there's a double frustration, first because one might wonder how such a fantastic cast came together on a picture of such questionable taste, and second because this picture shares its name with a masterpiece directed by David Cronenberg, and what are the odds of having two masterpieces with the same name? The movie tackles ever-relevant social issues, the outcome of which is fairly thought provoking. The intention is there and it's a good and smart one. Applause, again, to the players, who, despite an uneven script, are all in top from, from the principal roles like Terrence Howard's director (magnificent) and Brendan Fraser's attorney (possibly the first intelligent role of his career) to secondary characters like the objectified secretary, wonderfully played by Loretta Devine. This is a portmanteau film, meaning that it comprises several plot-lines of almost equal importance instead of the more frequent plot/sub-plots formula. Each plot-line in Crash intertwines with another one way or another. First, let's point out – and this is not a criticism – that this movie is allegedly happening in more or less 48 hours. Thus, the fact that the scenes are clocked begs a realistic depiction of events, theoretically leaving little room for poetic analysis or open interpretations. The impeccable actors are really doing their best with an overdramatic script that forces them to be equally overdramatic and, worst of all, to take their characters and situations a teeny tiny bit too seriously, the exact extra amount of seriousness to make the movie not fun to watch. Sandra Bullock spends almost the whole movie on the telephone complaining about her stolen car and her Latino maid, later opening up her heart to her frustrations during an emotional phone monologue (close-up), after which she (suddenly) falls down the stairs, in a slow-motion shot complete with Kar-Wai strobe, followed by a wide shot of her crying on the floor (in case you didn't get it, she cries due to both physical AND emotional pain). Let's also mention the catastrophic party pooper that is the Iranian's armed confrontation with the Latino locksmith. Seeking revenge over a robbery he blames him for, the Iranian guy confronts the locksmith in front of the latter's house, in broad daylight (because that's what killers do, but the shots are saturated typical Hollywood-style and, of course, are in slow-mo, so let's call it an artistic choice). They exchange very heated F words at the very second when the Latino's kid daughter jumps up to his arms and at the very second the Iranian happens to shoot after holding fire for a good minute. This is still possible in real life, it would be a horrible coincidence but still, this can happen. However, when you thought the movie couldn't possibly force more fake tears into your eyes, that's when the a cappella aerial soprano music kicks in. This is called emotional masturbation. Mind you, this is not a bad movie; this is simply a very disappointing one. And every time you try to give it a chance there's something there to distract you. The labyrinth-like links between characters are typical of portmanteau's but, in this case, the audience gets lost playing the "That's the brother of the cousin of the woman who was in the car, not this car, the car from the scene before" game. You also get the infamous "it's a bitch but life goes on with funky music" ending. Even Mrs. Doubtfire has a more ambiguous ending. Paul Haggis has proved his screen writing competence with several projects, but for this film (which is his directorial debut for the big screen) he might have wanted the script and the shot- list to help each other. Unfortunately they ended up having the opposite reaction to each other. The movie does stick together. And the fact that such a relevant subject matter is delivered by such a competent cast will keep you interested all the way through. The issue here is artistic, as the movie promises more than it delivers.

Welcome to New York (2014)

Gauche, Uninformed and Exhausting

[4/10 · 21 May 2014]

What is this piece of work? An auteur film? A low-budged shock movie like "La Grande Bouffe" or "Baise-moi"? A porno? Whatever the case, this catastrophic film makes you wonder whether Abel Ferrara has really been directing movies for 40 years. Inconsistent characters, uneven editing and dialogue lines that are laughable at best and disturbingly weak at worst make this this movie a really painful experience, like a great romantic Austrian orchestral piece performed out of tune all the way through. The exhaustingly long and slow vampire of a film that is Welcome to New York begs the questions: has the production been rushed for some troubled reason(s)? is that why it backfires on all technical levels? did they use rehearsal footage? is that why the acting is so all over the place? There are, however, a few interesting moments here and there in the film: Depardieu's monologue towards the end of the film, the lighting reflected on Jacqueline Bisset during a quarrel in the couple's home cinema. They're only details, unfortunately, and they're not powerful enough to save the film from drowning. Abel Ferrara proves that being a "unique" artist doesn't make you a "competent" one and, most of all, that you can't always blame gaucherie on art.