Film Reviews by CSF

I am all the more disappointed by this film that I love Claude Lelouch and I didn't think for one minute that he could make such a boring film. Why is it boring? A great cast, a great director and a pathetic story. Even the actors seem to make an effort to play someone they don't believe in. The two main characters are spineless and... brainless; I could not manage to feel for them. Still I can't pinpoint the exact reason for being boring. All the ingredients are there but, as my gran used to say, the 'mayonnaise is not working'.

A much better film than I expected. The book, written shortly before the French Revolution, announces the Big Change coming. I didn't expect the ending either, I thought it would have bee more conventional. The actors are sober and play in the right mode, the story is exciting as you feel for the heroine all the time. One must read the book. It is one of these women's treatment that makes me very anti scarf for the Muslim women. Rebellious women are still seen as devilish in some part of our world.

This film is a must because it shows that, at last, someone has realised the danger of plastic and the necessity of Ecology. I didn't know Cousteau was the first to see that. The pictures are beautiful and we see all the sufferings, the fights, the sacrifices behind the glamour.

I am fed up with zombies film and that one was particularly silly. I am very sorry that actors with talents wasted their time and maybe risked their career for that! If Glenn Close needs money, she should try the theatre.

Clever, brilliant, cold, efficient like money. Miss Sloane must have the same features as her enemy to be able to fight them. There should be more films showing the stupidity and the nastiness of legal guns in a nation. I wonder how the film was received in the US and if it was distributed widely. The male escort is one of the most interesting characters despite his brief role.

Woody Allen is good at any genre he attempts. Scoop reminded me very much of March Point and yet it is not the same story at all. Still, both are griping, stylish, silly, exciting. The ending is neither bad or happy, just satisfying.

lt could have been better if the characters were talking or expressing themselves a bit more. The film is good but demanding; you have to guess all the time what the characters are thinking. I know it is an intellectual exercise but not if you are tired or looking for sheer entertainment. It is a 'Dardenne'.

Because of the topic of the film, it ought to be more emotional than that. However, I did enjoy it. Didn't expect to see Annette Benning there. Again, I think the talent of these actors has not been exploited enough. At least the ending is not absurd or stupid like in most French films where the film just stop. I mean, it has an ending.

The film is exciting with clear cut characters, however I felt re-writing many scenes! As for the ending, I don't think I would spoil the film by saying, there is no ending, the film stops.

I expected a lot from this film and I found it like an empty shell. Lots of movements, efforts, so-called Philosophy, in fact... nothing. It has no point, no interest. Everybody pretends but nobody achieves.

How can I write 100 characters on a film I did not understand. I forced myself to watch 20 min, then got the awful impression to waste my time and got bored to tears. I would certainly avoid the films Cinema Paradiso advises me to watch by saying "more like The forbidden Room! How can they put The Lady in the Van in that list? What has it got to do with The Forbidden Room? It's just as appropriate as to compare with a Disney film!!

Of course the film dated, that's its charm. I watch it for the sake of Veronica Lake (poor girl, she had such a sad ending in real life!) Despite the violence the films of this period remain somehow naive and predictable. It was time for Hitchcock to turn up and change this type of films.

However I enjoyed it because it was an easy watch film and I always find it funny how women remain dressed as if going to a royal wedding whereas they are just lingering at home.

One must watch Veronica Lace in My Wife is a Witch, she is adorable.

The soldiers of the film are not the only one to have a long sleep, I had as well. I don't know what more I could say to make the 100 words. The story is like a never ending documentary on the fact that these soldiers have to sleep all the time and nobody knows why so they start to invent fairy tales to explain it: a classic.

A very weird film or shall I say, very original. I thought, to begin with, that it was a naive story with beautiful decor and costumes. Then little by little, very slowly you start to suspect a kind of rot under the silk and the flowers. I would have loved to see a sequel of that film!

I loved the film. I think it makes considerable effort to be fair. Both parties made mistakes, the problems to solve were so difficult that three centuries are not enough to achieve a better civilization, not even 20 centuries...

Religion and fanaticism are usually generated by poverty. The people who try to be 'human' are crushed by the fear or the ambition of the others. Nothing new, we all have been through that situation. The actors were playing right, the story is very convincing and help to understand this part of History. Only films can make mistakes visible and understood.

The film is very exciting because, all along, it makes me wonder how I would have managed, what solution I would have chosen, what I would have done or not done. The love story in the film shows that Romeo and Juliet will exist and repeat for ever in any civilization.