"Une semaine sur deux (et la moitié des vacances scolaires)" ~ 5/10

A pretty little film with a simple regular story of love and divorce. Although being played by good actors (children and adults), there's a big accumulation of clichés and déjà vus (conflicts between parents and children, use of trendy musics - among which Cat Power's "The Greatest", diary narration in voice-over...).
French cinema could do better. Ought to do better.

"A Christmas Carol" [fr="Le Drôle de Noël de Scrooge"] ~ 5/10

Dickens' story is beautifully represented in this movie. And Dickens' London is shown in a way we would never had hoped to see...
As for Zemeckis, he's now far from his best movies, but that might still be better for 3d cinema to be made by such a good filmmaker ?
Anyway, the best Christmas animation movie ever was (and probably will ever be) "The Snowman", and Zemeckis should stop trying to compete with such a huge masterpiece.

PS : it was good to have Jim Carrey and Cary Elwes together again in a movie !

"Panda kopanda" [fr="Panda Petit Panda"] ~ 5/10

Distributed in France as one feature film with its sequel ("Panda kopanda : amefuri sâkasu no maki"), this movie is one of the early contributions between Takahata and Miyazaki, a long time ago when Studio Ghibli did not even exist.
It is a bit strange to see how *bad* these early works were, full of illogisms and improbable things, in a world were adult reason with children without an ounce of maturity.
Miyazaki's stories have never been realistic at all but his more recent movies have so many other qualities that the screenplays cannot be blamed.

Anyway, "Panda kopanda" is still very interesting as you can see how Totoro got one of his main (self-)inspiration 15 years before it was actually made.
And the music is like a drug for young children.

"Eden Log" ~ 5/10

Not much to say about this pretty little french movie. The style is good, the aesthetic somehow minimalistic (and then full of fractals...), the story simple yet not uninteresting (Pierre Bordage surely has a lot of talent as a science-fiction writer).
Clovis Cornillac, though, is not as good here as he was in other movies.

"Bambou" ~ 5/10

Bourdon's style is still good, and the other actors (Consigny and Arditi !) obviously show some skills. Yet it isn't much more than a good regular french comedy, maybe a bit (necessarily) childish of course.
But the use of music (amongst what, Syd Barrett's "Golden hair") is sometimes, obsessively, great.
Of the three Inconnus (Didier Bourdon, Bernard Campan, and Pascal Legitimus' comic group that gained a huge success from the eighties to the nineties in France) it looks like Bernard Campan now has the best career in cinema, even if Bourdon seems to be "higher" (ailleurs ?) in this big french cinema family.

"Duplicity" ~ 5/10

After very good screenplays for the Jason Bourne trilogy and a rather good first feature film ("Michael Clayton") as a director, Tony Gilroy makes a new charming movie without much suspense nor tension. The opening battle scene between Wilkinson and Giamatti is a masterpiece of acting, and slow motion, though.

"Frost/Nixon" [fr="Frost / Nixon, l'heure de vérité"] ~ 5/10

Ron Howard's attempt to make a new great biopic like "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" fails when it only copies Clooney's "false documentary" style without bringing anything new to it. Sam Rockwell's acting is always the same (and therefor I don't even know why I like him so much ?). Langella and Sheen are very good, though.