"[Rec] 2" ~ 6/10

This sequel does not have the spontaneity the first opus had, spontaneity which gave the entire flick such a frightening style. Anyway the good point of this second movie was the way they found a good story to follow the - already very good - first one.

"La famille Wolberg" ~ 6/10

Nothing much original in this movie, except the fact that it's the first time François Damiens gets such a non-comical character. And also, the fact that it was out in theaters just 2 weeks after Jocelyn Quivrin's death.
Beautiful actors in a simple family story, and very good choices of music.

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" [fr="Tempête de boulettes géantes"] ~ 6/10

This animated feature film is actually _way better_ than what I thought when first looking at the poster and the french title (the english one is a bit funnier, and more subtle too, and I didn't know the wonderful little children book, back then). The direction is absolutely wonderfully done, following and fitting perfectly the rhythm of comedy, something Chris Miller had already proved to be able of when directing "Shrek 3".
It is so great to find actors such as Bruce Campbell, James Caan and Anna Faris in the voices of the characters !

"Panda kopanda : amefuri circus no maki" [fr="Panda Petit Panda"] ~ 6/10

As the previous "Panda kopanda" short movie, this one is a bit bad, but already shows a lot of inspirations, amongst which Little Nemo and "Goldilocks And the Three Bears". And as its predecessor, one can already note how full of inspiration this movie was for Miyazaki's Totoro.

"Rose et noir" ~ 6/10

The very last plan is what might be called cinema. The rest is only regular anachronical comedy with very few very funny moments, and a few extremely silly jokes. Finally it proves to be a little more intelligent than the regular american comedy, but not that interesting. Only worth watching when you want a light comedy but not something completely "brainless".

"No pasaràn" ~ 6/10

Good actors, funny realistic characters, good direction. Plus, a wonderful message about the taste of real (non fully industrialized) life.

"Jusqu'à toi" ~ 6/10

An original romantic comedy featuring the odd mix of a pretty story and a very good sense of dramatic (and almost psychological) dialogs, giving funny impressions, as comic theatre would do. Mélanie Laurent is still not perfectly good at acting but has many charming expressions.

"Le coach" ~ 6/10

Richard Berry is, as always, a very good performer of himself (even if he does not eat a yoghurt in this feature film ^^). Jean-Paul Rouve is, as always, a very good performer of Jean-Paul Rouve.
The film is pretty funny but did lack coherence a little bit at the end. Nevertheless it cannot match Francis Veber's masterpieces of _duo_ comedy like "La chèvre" or "Le dîner de cons", which obviously were an inspiration here.

"Silk" [fr="Soie"] ~ 6/10

Per una volta la critica la faccio in italiano. Dopotutto, questo film in inglese è l'adattazione di un romanzo breve italiano ("Seta", un'opera assolutamente sublime di Alessandro Baricco), la cui storia si svolge in Francia e in Giappone. Mentre il libro era un bel piccolo capolavoro, diventando un film ha perduto un po l'emozione della scoperta di un paese lontano e misterioso, forse per colpa della musica di Ryûichi Sakamoto che ci allontana troppo dai sentimenti veri dei personaggi.
Ma la storia rimane bellissima. E sopratutto, non è internazionale, ma proprio universale : l'amante che uno ha, l'amante che uno fantasma, l'amante che uno cerca, e finalmente l'amante che uno trova. La storia di Baricco, per quanto è sviluppata nel libro o nel film, è forse una specie di domanda : chi sta capace di riunire tutte queste amanti in una sola donna, e come lo fa ?
La risposta che ottiene il protagonista Hervé Joncour (incarnato da Michael Pitt) non è quella che aspettava ; è meglia.
Un punto positivo del film, paragonato al libro, anche se non è molto, è di avere cambiato il nome del personaggio interpretato da Yakusho Kôji : Hara Kei (perché fu anche il soprannome di un Primo Ministro giapponese).

> For once, I will write the critic in italian. After all, this english speaking movie is the adaptation of an italian short story ("Seta", a sublime work by Alessandro Baricco), the story of which is set in France and Japan. The book was a pretty little masterpiece, but it somehow lost the emotion of the discovery of a mysterious and far country, maybe because of Ryûichi Sakamoto's music which keeps us away from the characters' feelings.
But the story remains beautiful. And above all, it is not international, but quite universal : the lover one has, the lover one fantasizes, the lover one seeks, and finally the lover one finds. Baricco's story, as developed in the book as in the film, might be a sort of question : who is capable of unifying all those lovers in one single woman, and how ?
The answer that Hervé Joncour (impersonated by Michael Pitt) obtains is not what he expected ; it is better.
A good point about the movie, in comparison with the book, even if it is not much, is that they changed the name of the character impersonated by Yakusho Kôji : Hara Kei (as it also was the nickname of a japanese Prime Minister).

"Sœur Sourire" ~ 6/10

Not much to say about this good little film except it was interesting for someone like me who did not even know the very existence of such a popular Belgian artist as 'Sœur Sourire' (whose real name was Jeannine Deckers). Her fervent musical life, and then her discovery of another love than christianity were part of the ordinary life of an extraordinary person.

"Nous resterons sur Terre" ~ 6/10

This French documentary tried to be this decade's "Koyaanisqatsi" by stealing everything Godfrey Reggio invented in the eighties. Mixing 'à-la-qatsi-fast-motion' scenes with interviews of Gorbachev, Lovelock, Maathai, and Morin, did not bring the inventivity this movie lacks. Putting bad music instead of Glass didn't help at all, either.
Still, the subject is utmost important.
Maybe "Home" is this decade's "Koyaanisqatsi" ?

"Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince" [fr="Harry Potter et le Prince de sang mêlé"] ~ 6/10

Since the third Harry Potter movie, "Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban", which according to me was the best of all, the books' plots were thickening too much for the movies to let anybody who hadn't read Rowling's stories understand any of what was going on. The misteries were unveiled too fastly and the action unrolled with no emotion at all. This sixth opus is no exception to all that, but remains probably the best post-Harry Potter 3 movie in the saga (for the books, I must say my favorite is, with the 6th and 7th opuses, the very one which became the worst movie : the fourth).

The main reason of this amelioration in the movie adaptation would probably be that the book itself was a bit shorter ?
Moreover, the beautiful opening scene with the London City Hall and the Millenium Bridge adds a lot of quality to the film (although in the final book we know that the action isn't set after the construction of those recent buildings, but I won't go nerdy about this... ^^). Plus, of course, the special effects and the cinematography, which are absolutely perfect (the smoke effect is particularly terrific !).

Another thing to praise would be the way this entire educational world (Hogwarts teachers of magic) is described while struggling and interacting with dark forces, just as actual Europe's (muggle) educational world is now struggling with political (very dark !) forces.
But I guess it's Rowling's talent here and not precisely the filmmakers' ability.

But despite those qualities - and Alan Rickman (who is, to me, the best actor in the saga, with Ralph Fiennes who wasn't really there for this opus), the movie somehow missed the point, with the (almost) final scene, where one of the most important events of the whole saga happens (don't worry I won't spoil).
While these 3 last movies lacked feelings and were too fast where they ought to be slower and full of emotions, on the contrary, this very scene required speed and coldness, darkness, hardly no emotion at all - just like in the book, where it was truly stunning. Here in the movie it came out to be way too slow and not dark enough (and this is because of the need to explain the existence of the scene itself, as the background had not been enough developped).
It should have been some kind of huge final dark scene like the one with Harry Two-Faces (not Potter) in "The Dark Knight".

Too bad they gave the whole set of final Harry Potter movies to David Yates (and he's probably not the only one to blame here).

"Bronson" ~ 6/10

This movie owes very big time to Stanley Kubrick. But, apart from this huge influence (notably for the direction of actors and for the choice and use of music), and Tom Hardy's great (à la De Niro) impersonation of "England's most dangerous criminal", the movie does not really bring originality.
An other problem would be the subject itself : showing the life of someone who does never know what he wants (or does not want anything at all ?) did not lead very far. Or maybe, by pretending to be the director's acceptance of someone else's failing, this movie does not represent much more than the making of a show of violent battles for 2 hours.
Still, one could dream about what Kubrick would have done with such a theme... Maybe he actually did : "A Clockwork Orange".

"Le hérisson" ~ 6/10

For once, a french "bobo" movie* does not use japanese culture without real knowledge of it. Yet, although the movie itself shows a rather realistic life, it is more a tale where a little girl is the real adult while the adults around are acting like children.
Whilst in the movie Balasko's character is said to be elegant, I'd rather say that Wladimir Yordanoff himself actually is. ^^
A good little movie in the current french production...

(* "bobo" = "bourgeois bohemian")

"Bancs publics (Versailles rive droite)" ~ 6/10

There is a bit of Tati and Bertrand Blier, in this movie featuring a cast almost as huge as the one featured in Laurent Baffie's "Les clefs de bagnole", with some of the best actresses and actors in french cinema's family. Bruno Podalydès really knows how to show the best part (in both acceptions of the term) of all those great actors, particularly his brother Denis (who, btw, and completely unrelatedly, I once met riding a bicycle in Paris ^^).
I somehow felt the very light political touch of the film when finally watching the spinning round of names of the end credits, and vaguely thinking about this year's new form of demonstration in France : the "Ronde Infinie des Obstinés" ; though this round had nothing to do with the subject of this movie, and although the one in the end credits was more alluding to Tati's "Playtime", you can still hear two characters named after french recent Prime Ministers ("Jospin" and "Raffarin"). Still, being "Versailles rive droite" (Versailles' right bank of the Seine), one can wonder where the political ideas really go in that no-so-sociopolitical movie...

"Bellamy" ~ 6/10

A simple yet good "polar" (french police movie) with three good actors (Cornillac, Gamblin, and Depardieu).

"Monsters vs Aliens" [fr="Monstres contre Aliens"] ~ 6/10

Very funny, some good references, and a crazy President of the USA (Stephen Colbert). Not much to say, though, it's a "regular" 3d-animation movie, with great actors for the voices, as any other...