movie reviews

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Global rating of the product: 5 stars, no contest!

If you like music and here I’m not talking about a specific genre, but the music taken as a whole, you should definitely watch that world acclaimed masterpiece. Les Choristes ( The Choristers) will introduce you into a deep world made of musical dedication and intense feelings. If you ever doubted that one single person can change people’s destinies, then it is really time to believe.

In a cold boarding school aimed at unruly board, Principal Rachin ( interpreted by François Berléand) has put into place a very repressive system, promising to react to any action. For each action, there will be a consequent punishment.

In this context, Clement Mathieu ( brilliantly interpreted by Gerard Jugnot), a former music professor and a musician himself, accepts the position of supervisor. Nicknamed ” Crane D’Oeuf” by the pupils, Clement Mathieu manages to reach them, by inserting more justice into the school system and by communicating them his passion for the music.

He even reaches Morhange ( a boy everybody had given up on)’s heart. Morhange’s beautiful voice will be revealed during the movie.
Clement Mathieu nourishes a secret passion for Morhange’s mom, but to is greatest disappointment, she is engaged to somebody else.

The pureness of the kids’ voices while interpreting Rameau’s work is remarkable. It is touching and will bring most of you back to childhood times (even if yours was different from what shown in the movie).

The movie ends up on a note of hope and melancholy at the same time, as Clement Mathieu gets sacked from the school on a slight mistake.

Years have gone by and at his mother’s death, Morhange opens up Clement Mathieu’s memoirs.

The whole movie is fulfilled with the positive spirit of musical revelation. A must see, Don’t miss that one!

Copyright© by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

Rating of the movie:4 stars

Good Will Hunting is a complex Gus Van Sant movie that came out in 1997.

A lot of people in this world do possess a stereotyped view of geniuses. According to them, geniuses are supposed to be brilliant pupil who pass each exam with an amazing ease and whose path to a brilliant, successful life is already traced.

The reality is often very different. Many real life situations tend to prove that the genius can be hidden behind a guy with no education, the average and ordinary person we won’t even pay attention to.

Will is an M.I.T janitor, an ordinary guy from the Boston hood, who comes from a dysfunctional family. He also has some criminal records at his active, yet he can solve very complex mathematic equations.

The discovery of Will’s brilliant mind could open him the door to brand new perspectives. However, because of his criminal records, Will has to undergo counselling if he wants to be able to work with the professor who discovered his talent.

Through Will’s counselling, the viewer will understand the difficulty of a deeply wounded mind who has been physically abused by his father. Growing up in the hood can leave deep scars into a man’s brain.

As the councelling goes on, Will learns how to understand and to accept his own failures.

He also refuses to turn his back to the place he grew up in, despite the brilliant future his professor promises him-far away from his place.

Matt Damon stars in the role of Will. He unveils for us the true meaning of happiness, which has nothing to do with climbing the hierarchy of social classes, nor does it have to do with I.Q.

True happiness is a matter of acceptance and interior fulfillment.

My advice: watch the movie…it has a lot to teach about real life situations!

Copyright© 2007 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

The story of Mr and Mrs Loving takes place in the Unites States of the sixties, a period during which racism was pretty much alive and people of different racial background barely mixed.

The Southern States, in particular, carried some old fashioned racist laws that went back to the Secession war.

But love is blind or should I say colorblind?

Richard and Mildred are friends since their childhood. Both families from the white and black side as well, appreciate each other.
Even during times of racial tensions Cupid would hit a white man and a black woman s hearts. Both would love each other enough to consider a serious engagement such as marriage.

A marriage between both persons is viewed as a blessing in both families and the wedding leads to an outbreak of joy and happiness.

Mrs Loving, however, is very much unaware of the inhuman Virginian laws when she marries her loving husband.

After a police interrupted honeymoon, husband and wife are put into jail.

The Court of Virginia decides to ban the couple from living in Virginia for 25 years, which breaks both families heart.

Mildred and Richard are heading towards Washington DC, where they will face new difficulties and discriminatory behaviors.

Forced to live in a black ghetto that is full of dirt instead of a pleasant home, Mildred gives birth to her first child, a lovely little boy.

While staying in Washington, Mildred has the brilliant idea to write to Senator Kennedy.

After a failed attempt to return to Virginia, miraculously escaping the police, the couple is back.

Mildred s letter to Mr Kennedy won t be left unanswered. A lawyer accepts to take care of their interracial issue, but he fairly warns the couple that it will take years to be handled.

In the meantime, Mildred has two more children with her husband.

As she sees her kids grow, the Court eventually answers.

The final decision s result is a total dismissal of the old, racial Virginian law.

The poignant story that is brilliantly interpreted by Timothy Hutton as Richard and Lela Rochon in the role of Mildred. The story is based on true facts. The Court case (Loving vs. Virginia) created a precedent and totally fought Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law.

It was the key to a first step for more tolerance about interracial marriages in the USA, in the Southern states in particular.

Like it was said in the movie, a marriage is a matter of persons, not of race. The state should not interfere in such private matters. The movie is a pretty good example to prove that true love doesn t consider race nor does it fade away all over the years.

My advice: watch the movie. It is touching and well interpreted. Black music lovers, also lend an attentive ear to the songs played during the whole movie!

Copyright © 2007 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

Harvey/ movie review

When I first started watching the Harvey movie, I was about to switch programs, because I found it a little bit too old fashioned. In fact, I am glad I didn’t.

Through its actor James Steward in the role of Elwood P. Dowd, the movie raises the theme of madness. There is often a fine line between a so called normal individual and his crazy, original fellow. The definition of the state of madness varies from individual to individual and from psychiatrist to psychiatrist.

Elwood P is an individual who seems to be normal in appearance: he is nice, well behaved, willing to help and is rich of an altruist spirit.

Although he is never shown drinking in the movie, he is supposed to be a compulsive drinker.

In fact, Elwood lives in an imaginary world: his best friend is a pooka, a mythological creature, a 6 feet tall rabbit called Harvey. Does that make a dangerous individual of him? Probably not, but what bothers Elwood P s sister, Veta Louise Simmons (Josephine Hull) is the fact that Elwood P wants to introduce his buddy to her intimate circle of friends.

One day, she decides to take some concrete action and to get her brother looked up into a psychiatric hospital. The irony of the situation is that the doctor strongly believes she is the one who is hiding some big mental problems and decides to have her in his institution as his patient.

After a few misunderstandings and getting to meet Elwood P Dowd, the doctor realizes his mistake. As Veta Louise Simmons walks free from the hospital, everybody from doctor in chief to nurse is chasing Elwood P in order to get him captured.

The doctor is convinced that his case is a real strong mental case that needs to be treated.

Elwood P. is even willing to receive his treatment, an injection that will help preventing him from seeing his imaginary white rabbit. The treatment gets stopped by miracle in the last minute thanks to a taxi driver who makes Veta Louise realize that after the medical treatment his brother will resemble an average, normal individual, probably in all his indifference and coldness towards the outside world.

Elwood P might be a weirdo, he is also a man of heart with an exceptional kindness. His sister doesn t want to see those qualities disappear. She stops the treatment at the last minute and takes her brother home.

She is willing to live her daily life with Harvey, as long as there are no disturbances in the family s happiness. Harvey s invisible presence is now part of the family s history and you can see it in a loving rocking chair at the end of the movie while Elwood P and his sister are playing at the piano.

Elwood P is a touching character, that mostly raises a lot of sympathy among the viewers.

The movie leaves us all with an essential interrogation: is it better to be a cold, rational and ordinary individual that calculates each move in his life rather than a heartfelt, warm person with a widespread imagination and some living fantasies in his mind?

Should Elwood P. be judged as a fool, I d prefer his madness and warmth to the coldness and hypocrisy of many so called normal people to society s standards.
Maybe the morality of the movie is that having heart shouldn t be counted as nothing.

Harvey is an excellent movie, that goes back to 1950. Don t let its old fashioned ways prevent you from watching it, it is really worth it! I recommend it to all of you.

Copyright© 2007 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

Frantic is a French-American movie that takes place in the Paris of the late 80 s.

The viewer will recognize Roman Polanski s specific touch: the movie is suspenseful and full of mystery.

Doctor Walker, an American citizen, comes to Paris with his wife Sondra for a medical conference. While he is showering at his luxury hotel, his wife suddenly disappears, leaving her husband clueless. After some further investigations and the testimony of several witnesses, Dr Walker realizes that his dear wife has been kidnapped.

Facing trouble with the usual administrative slowness and lack of seriousness, Dr Walker decides to proceed to his own investigation. His only clue: the luggage that has been mixed up by mistake and that was supposed to be his wife s. Dr Walker opens it, in search for an address or a phone number, which leads him to the Blue Parrot ( a bar), where he is looking for Dede, the man mentioned on the box of matches contained in the suitcase.

After a quite comical scene during which Dr Walker s words are mistaken and a client proposes him to find the White Lady (another name for cocaine), Dr Walker eventually manages to get Dede s address. But it is too late to talk to Dede: the man is lying dead on the floor, in a bloodbath.

Coming out of Dede s appartment, Dr Walker meets Michelle, the young girl that is indirectly linked to Walker s wife s kidnapping.

Dr Walker and Michelle are bent together for a succession of life threatening adventures, including the recuperation of a little statue of liberty from Michelle s suitcase that accidentally landed on the roof.

The movie has a happy ending with a tragic note: Walker will manage to recuperate his wife, but a bullet will cut young Michelle s life short near the Seine.

Two actors, Harrison Ford in the role of Walker, and Emmanuelle Seigner in the role of Michelle, are excellent in their interpretation. The dramatic dimension of the movie is compensated with some good notes of humor.

Globally, the movie is highly enjoyable.

People who are fluent in English and French will certainly enjoy the French/ American cultural mix up in a Parisian atmosphere. This film is truly a must see!

Copyright © 2007 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

Drug Store Cowboy is a movie that came out in 1989. Directed by Gus Van Sant, the movie tells the story of a young drug addict, Bob, his girlfriend Dianne and their two friends, Rick and his underage girlfriend Nadine.
Like Slim Shady, Bob has tested all kind of drugs. The film starts on a description of a colorful, rich of sensations trip and allows the viewer to travel through Bob s mind. Bob s head is full of floating pills, butterflies and probably looks like bubbles of Champaign moving up and down in a fine cup.
When he enters his world of addiction, he can feel cool and minimize problems.

Gradually, the story becomes a dramatic thriller during which our quattuor s aim is to rob a maximum of pharmacies and drug stores in order to stock and use as many drugs as possible.

Bob s witty mind allows him to get hold of the most dangerous substances he is keen on injecting himself and sharing with his friends. Nadine, who participates to most robberies, is a little bit frustrated and upset, because Bob doesn t allow her to use the same dose of drugs than his fellows. Because of her huge appetite for the forbidden substances, Nadine will pay the high price of her life.

The funny side of the movie is certainly Bob s unreasoned fear of hats. He believes that hats are a curse in his life and that whoever puts a hat on a bed will put a bad curse on him. Ironically, Nadine who wanted to play with Bob s insane superstitions and was eventually found dead and a brown hat was lying on the bed when Bon, Rick and Dianne came home.

As Bob manages to escape from a huge patrol of police at his motel with Nadine s dead body and manages to bury Nadine without being seen by the authorities, he promises God to give up drugs and to amend himself, if the Lord gives him a chance.

Bob accepts to live in a therapeutic appartment and to sign for a methadone program.
However, destiny is a bitch. A former drug dealer finds Bob and shoots him.

On the way to the hospital, Bob feels relieved. He thinks that things are going to be ok, since he “paid his debt to the hat” (the curse has been accomplished).

The movie ends up with an interrogation. Will Bob live? If he lives, will he stop taking drugs?

I liked the movie, because Matt Dillon is very convincing in his role. I also liked the colorful descriptions and multiple sensations derived from taking drugs drawn by Gus Van Sant.
To all of you who like suspenseful thrillers, I d strongly advice you to have a look at Gus Van Sant s movie.

Copyright© 2007 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

Before some negative critics start barking at me, I d like to point out that you will be more likely understand the story better if you have lived or are still living in a French ghetto.

Global rating of the product: 4.5 stars

A man who accidentally fell from a huge building needs to be reassured. He keeps telling to himself all the way during his downfall: everything is ok till now.
Falling is not the most important, but your landing.

This sentence, which starts the movie, summarizes the difficulty of growing up in the ghetto.

Produced by Matthieu Kossovitz, La Haine opens on an overheated youth riots against the police theater. A Bob Marley musical background draws the dramatic context of a story that takes place at the Cite des Muguets, a ghetto near Paris, in the early 90 s, at a time riots, protests, young ghetto people and police violent fights were part of the French history. Because economical and political problems remain misunderstood and unsolved, history likes repeating itself, as the recent French riots tend to prove it.

The youths from the second and third generation of immigrants are often viewed as nuisances, but nobody in the government takes the time to have a realistic look at their harsh conditions of living and their hopelessness.

The poignant drama, La Haine, introduces you into a typical French ghetto, where a young man, Abdel Isha, who had been caught in the middle of the riots and beaten up by the police, is now between life and death at a local hospital.

Three buddies, a young Jewish guy, Vince, his fellow Said, of Algerian origins and their mate Hubert, a young black man, live in the middle of the Cite des Muguets.

All the three of them have accumulated, through the recent events, a great dose of hatred and bitterness. Their already fragile mental stability has been destroyed as well as their environment. Cars have been burnt, sports buildings and schools have been turned into a gigantic chaotic no man s land. Vince is mad at the cops and envisions killing one of them in case his friend Abdel doesn t survive. He even acquired a gun for that precise purpose.

While Hubert whose dream is to become a boxer and Said don t share Vince s extreme views about shooting a cop as a form of retaliation, both nevertheless think that they are the victims of an infernal system.

While the movie also pictures some comical scenes of the young men acting in front of the mirror, mimicking their rage and some interesting break dance and Djing scenes, it also offers a deep reflection about today s youth malaise and difficulties of living in the hood. It draws the police s brutality against young males in the ghetto.

The movie is cut in short sequences that will allow the viewer to follow the story of a day s journey with a dramatic ending.

There are a lot of happenings during the movie that would be too long to summarize within a short review, including an altercation with an awful band of skinheads in the middle of Paris in which Vince renounces to kill the skinhead he and his friends caught while the skinhead was trying to escape from them.

While Said is trying to get his money back ,downtown, in Paris, Said and Hubert will be caught and mistreated by the police. Vince escapes, but will rejoin them afterwards at the train station. The last train has gone and our three boys are condemned to stay in Paris until the morning.

While standing still, watching a last bulletin news at the station, Abdel s picture appears on the screen. He just passed away.

Vince promises vengeance. He is determined to shoot a cop.

But destiny is a bitch. Back in the hood, a dumb policeman catches Vince and plays an insane comedy with the young man pretending to kill him for fun with his- already loaded- gun that shoots a merciless bullet into Vince s head.

Hubert, who watches his friend die in front of his eyes points a gun at the killer cop who is also ready to shoot. The viewer will guess the ending of the scenario easily.

As the movie stops on Said s confused and horrified glance, Hubert s voice will remind you of his own downfall:

A man who accidentally fell from a huge building needs to be reassured. He keeps telling to himself all the way during his downfall: everything is ok till now.

Falling is not the most important, but your landing.

The movie that is pictured in black and white is brilliantly interpreted by Vincent Cassel, Hubert Kounde and Said Taghmaoui who will give the viewer some insights about the youths hope, difficulties and harsh struggles in the French ghettos. It is also a good overture for a deep reflection about the current events- I mean the recent French riots- that made the headlines, but that were often misinterpreted and badly covered by the French and foreign media.

The youths from the French ghettos are nothing else than the products of their environment. They are France s unwanted kids whose parents and grandparents the government welcomed in the 70 s as working forces.

They have the French nationality on paper, but a whole nation discriminates against poor kids with foreign sounding names, who just aim at being treated equally and having fairer chances on the job market.

Instead of dealing with the problem, the French government reinforces strict and often unjustified police measures, making kids in the ghetto feel even more insolated and discriminated against.

I really liked Matthieu Kossovitz movie, because he goes straight to the facts and identifies the problem where it actually lies. His unbiased way of telling the story, the young actors undeniable talent, the good dose of humor that contrasts with the rough ghetto universe makes this film a must see. I recommend it to all of you.

Copyright © 2007 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

Rating of the product: 4 stars

Although one could not really define me as an American football fan, I really enjoyed the movie.

Starring in the role of Paul Crewe, Adam Sandler gives us an excellent interpretation of his role. The movie also features rapper Nelly (who acted great too, if you ask me) and our well known D 12 rappers (not Eminem though) in minor roles.

I think that any viewer can learn a lot from the movie that teaches you about life.

Paul Crewe is a former football player who lives the life of a parasite at his girlfriend s home. He feels bored and spends his time watching football matches on Tv, deeply angering his girlfriend who would like him to attend to her parties.

Paul s life suddenly takes a dramatical turn when he starts stealing his girlfriend’s car and locking her up in the closet.

The police is after him and he eventually gets caught. Not even his great sense of humor will prevent him from being incarcerated into one of those awful Southern American jails.

However and despite one of the guardians disapproval, Paul Crewe gets a request from the jail director to become the leader of the inmates football team. But this team has yet to be chosen. Paul manages to make a friend, brilliantly played by Chris Rock. Both men will be building the team that will play against prison guardians in a big, official match.

A lot of efforts and sacrifices are made. Some members of the team rediscover their passion for sport. Before the start of the official match, Paul Crewe will go through a range of challenges and difficult situations, including the tragical death of his best friend.

The movies teaches about the team spirit and the will to win. In the end, the inmates will reach victory against the guardian which also represents a symbolical victories against the gardians atrocities and misbehaviors towards the inmates.

I liked the good dose of humor and the sense of realness that was displayed in the 2005 released movie. I recommend it to all of you, even if you re not a football fan.

Copyright 2007 © by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved