"Invictus" ~ 10/10

Clint Eastwood's brilliance brings to the big screen a story not only of sports and politics, but the very essence of the values and energies conveyed by such a great human adventure as rugby. Particularly the parallel between the rugby's third half time and Nelson Mandela's post-apartheid power of forgiveness.
The director even uses the post-9/11 fear of planes to tell a pre-9/11 story (that is, History, but the way Hollywood would) : the airplane scene did not happen the way Eastwood shows it here, and yet it surely is the most dramatic interpretation that prevails when trying to fill up our chests of real emotions.

"Un prophète" ~ 10/10

2009's best film of the year, THE masterpiece which deserved Cannes' Palme d'Or. Had Isabelle Huppert been impartial as President of the Jury at the Film Festival (she weighted in favor of her friend Haneke so that he could win with an uninteresting movie...), and hadn't a french movie already (unworthily) won the Palm in 2008, "Un prophète" would have got what it truly deserved, and not "just" the Grand Prix.
Abdel Raouf Dafri's story is excellent, the description of life in prison very accurate and realistic. Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Reda Kateb, and the whole rest of the cast of actors, everyone is perfect here.
I did like (Jacques) Audiard a lot, now I consider him as one of the finest directors in french cinema. His use of slow motions, and of partly blinded frames is both aesthetically and metaphorically justified (absolutely exceptional !). Only a genius could make the most intense and beautiful film with only images of a brutal and ugly world, such as life in and out of jail. Except for very few seconds of images showing an airplane's wing above the clouds, and, later, waves on a sandbeach, there are hardly any shots of something _not dull or ugly_ in 155 minutes. And yet I fell in love with every single second of this entire movie.

I've seen it 4 times in theatres, and invited myself 4 people to watch it with me. I now urge you to see it if you haven't yet !

"La domination masculine" ~ 10/10

It is so rare to see feminism nowadays in a movie, and above all in a movie that you can see in theaters. The only way you could not learn, laugh, cry, while watching this masterpiece documentary, would be because you are anti-feminist (and therefore, one of the morons we had a glimpse at, in it). Or worse, you could be Éric Zemmour, who actually tried to stop "La domination masculine" from being shown to the world (how can someone be so proud of their penis when they actually don't have balls ?).

"The Cove" [fr="La Baie de la honte"] ~ 10/10

This movie is not a regular documentary involved in protection of the environment or the endangered species. It is indeed an action documentary (not exactly à la Hara Kazuo but I wanted to use the expression here), with a whole "commando" of (american) men and women trying to show and spread to the world the hideous and hidden truth about a small (japanese) community of animal murderers (that is murderers OF animals), covered by a whole bunch of officials and politicians. Yes, it might sound strange to some of us : this is NOT fiction and yet the good guys are american ! (just kidding...)
Well, in fact, the good guys might be anyone watching this movie and showing the slightest political reaction - something Japanese people are not always very good at, but let's hope they will, this time, actually do something, anything (please...).
And above all, it shows how - only ? - passion can really change things in a world where politics are solely a matter of dispassionate businessmen.

Maybe, if I had to be _nerder_ there, two things lacked in this film - but it does not prevent it from being a masterpiece documentary !
Firstly perhaps, an explanation about the fact that iruka ("dolphin" in japanese) can be written with several chinese ideograms : 海豚 (which means "sea pork"...), or 鯆 (an ideogram that, as the one for "whale", kujira 鯨, is compound with the radical of the fish on the left : 魚, thus classifying those intelligent mammals as mere fishes...).
Secondly, I was wondering how this so-called "tradition" (fishing dolphins by slaughtering them) might be a good thing for yakuza. The japanese mafia is mentioned only once in the movie. Still, aren't those fishermen involved in any criminal organisation bigger than just their little town of Taiji PLUS the japanese government's interests in struggling against the rest of the world ? Tradition and nationalism being a huge part of the yakuza spirit, I just wondered if the film crew did not develop the idea furthermore 1) because this very idea was foolish, or 2) because it would be foolhardy to pursue an enquiry involving the yakuza ?

I would like to add here that, even without recalling the numbers exactly, it seems that the biggest part (like, two thirds or so) of the fish stocks bought everyday for the restaurants in the Consumption Empire of Japan, are just not consumed at all, then dumped daily, consequently WASTED daily, and therefore destroying the planet twice or thrice faster than "normal" fishing...

Finally I would just add, as a good "green" nerd, that this movie is no exception to the rule stipulating that any documentary made after "Koyaanisqatsi" (that is to say since 1982) has to feature a fast-motion scene.

PS : I am actually glad to see that Luc Besson, one of the WORST popular director in french cinema, who according to me wrote only two good movies in his whole career ("Leon" and "Taken"), now seeks to buy himself a consciousness by distributing very good documentaries such as "Home" or "The Cove" with his production company Europa Corp.

"Mary and Max" [fr="Mary et Max."] ~ 10/10

Since 3d animation almost became the only way of making feature films, it is so rare to see a "good old" handmade animated movie. Tim Burton and Henry Selick's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" probably was the biggest success in this category, closely followed by Aardman Animation's productions ("Wallace & Gromit"). Now it seems that a "new" director came to this wonderful world of animated clay and stop motion : Adam Elliot's "Mary and Max" is a masterpiece.
Indeed, it features a whole world of dark (and brown) characters with dark (and brown) ideas ; the hours spent to give those life are not the fruit of a computer's work, but mostly _human_ work.
Moreover, a movie opening with Penguin Cafe Orchestra's "Perpetuum Mobile", following its rythm, and featuring variations of the same piece all along the story, cannot be less than a very good one, and obviously _is_ a truly beautiful piece of art. And finally, the fact that the character played by (the so great) Philip Seymour Hoffman has "aspies" ought to be considered an outstanding boldness.

"Élève libre" ~ 10/10

This movie has, aesthetically speaking, nothing absolutely exceptional.
But the way the subject was treated and unfolded truly deserves all my praises.

And I will not tell more about this film, as I encourage you to watch it without checking anything about it before (but I assure you it can be viewed by anyone, at least from their teens).

"Gake no ue no Ponyo" [fr = "Ponyo sur la falaise"] ~ 10/10

Miyazaki's new movie is a turning point in the master's filmography. Now he choosed to really 'explicit' the major theme of his works : sex, and more exactly "making love". This time, among his other recurrent themes (ecology, gods, children's magic...) comes a new one, directly related to sex : fecondity.

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" ~ 10/10

I had already seen this masterpiece thrice but couldn't resist to a new projection this morning (april the 5th) in France's best theatre ever (MK2 Bibliothèque). When you already know - and worship - this film, the opening scenes (until we first hear Brion and Beck's cover of the Korgis) are simply even better. Gondry, Kaufman, Brion, Carrey, Wilkinson, Dunst, Cross... huge.

"Synecdoche, New York" ~ 10/10

Charlie Kaufman's dreamed theater comes to life on the screen. Personally, I found my most favoured stylistic devices in this movie : setting in abyme, metonymies, synecdoches, and other tropes... My dreams aren't the same, but they really do work the same.
Actors are all great, Noonan is "grand", and my beloved Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman are surprising.

"Gran Torino" ~ 10/10

Might be the best Clint Eastwood masterpiece. No one can make such Hollywood classics nowadays, save Clint Eastwood.