Not long after the end of WW2, Juliet (Lily James) receives a letter from a pig farmer in Guernsey (who’s a member of a local literary club) asking her for the address a good bookstore in London. He got her address from inside a used book she sold before the war and which somehow had made its way to this island near the coast of France. She send him one book for free at the condition that he answers three questions to explain the name of their literary club and the circumstances of its creation. The tale of their ordeal under German occupation intrigues her, therefore, being a writer herself, she invites herself for a reading at their club to make some research in preparation for a newspaper article she was asked to write. Upon arrival she notices that the founder of the club, Elisabeth (Jessica Brown Findlay), is mysteriously absent and the club members seem very secretive about her circumstances. She starts asking questions around and her enquiry will unravel a painful past and make her fall in love with the island. It’s interesting how books can touch people and change their lives forever!

Of course, it is not a perfect movie as you find, for example, many stereotypical characters (like the self-centred and possessive American, the nationalist mean informer, the nosy and religious lodger, etc.). However, it remains a very beautiful movie, that offers a well-written and touching story about the hardship of war — a time when friendship and compassionate sentiments can be quite dangerous! It’s based on the novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Interestingly, since nowadays Guernsey is too touristy, the movie was shot in North Devon with a cast in good part made of actors from Downton Abbey (Lily James, Jessica Brown Findlay, Matthew Goode, Penelope Wilton)! It is also noteworthy that the movie is distributed by Netflix as one of its original films (that’s where I watched it). All in all, it’s quite entertaining (critical response of 81% on Rotten Tomatoes) and an excellent movie experience. 

[ Biblio — IMDb — Netflix — Wikipedia ]

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I don’t remember the 1995 version with Robin Williams, besides that it was silly. This more modern version is a little less silly and has much more action. It’s a teen movie so we must not take it too seriously, but it is quite clever in its storytelling. I enjoyed it quite a lot. The play with the characters getting totally opposite avatars in the game (especially the vain girl becoming the fat man [Jack Black]) is quite funny. The Rock (a.k.a. Dwayne Johnson) is really good at comedy and the movie is worth it just to see Karen Gillan again. It’s a good light entertainment that will make you laugh (or at least smile). It was released as a Christmas movie and was rather successful at the box-office (bringing in nearly ten times its cost in revenue!) and was relatively well received by the critics (76% at Rotten Tomatoes). A sequel is planned for next year. 

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This is certainly one of the best DC movies (after Wonder Woman of course). It has plenty of good action, interesting story and a very powerful storytelling. I greatly enjoyed it even if it is a bit long and the Hulk-like final enemy/monster is rather disappointing and irritating — the concept of a monster full of energy who fires death rays feels a lot like Godzilla, so no extra point for originality here. I guess you get the best drama when you put emotion at play (or someone’s mama) while pitting super-heroes against each other. I only wish I would have watched this movie before its sequel, Justice League! They also made Lex Luthor into a Batman-type vilain, making the genius albeit evil boy into a simply mad genius — I am not sure if that was a good or a bad thing… Once again,  Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot offer good performances. Anyway, with this movie you get a great (somber) ambiance and epic battles that make it worth watching. As often, Rotten Tomatoes disagrees with a critical rating of only 27% ! 

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This movie offers an interesting ensemble of super-heroes (some more known than others, like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, other less known like the Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg). I like Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot in their super-heroes roles. Unfortunately, the bad guy, Steppenwolf, reminds me too much of the Thor movies… As it starts slow and never really takes off, Justice League provides only average action and storytelling, and is overall just good enough to keep you interested (and entertained) into seeing how it ends. The good thing is that you can still “enjoy” the movie even if, like myself, you have not read any of the comics or seen the previous movies introducing the plot and the new DC Extended Universe (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) or its characters (Man of Steel, Wonder Woman, and, lets not forget the bad guys, Suicide Squad). In the end, it doesn’t feel very original. Yawn… Rotten Tomatoes agrees with a critic rating of 40%, although the fans liked it (audience score of 74% !) 

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That movie had been hyped so much that when I finally got to see it I was almost disappointed. It is what is now the average super-heroes movie with a thin storyline and lots of special effects. Superficial but with just enough storytelling to be interesting and a plethora of action to be entertaining. The originality of this film is that it offers a cultural super-hero — which bring a breeze of fresh air into the genre. Maybe we’ll see some offshoot of this concept, creating a new trend (the Maori super-hero or the Navajo super-hero or the Mexican Quetzalcoatl-man?) — as long as they don’t push it too far… 

The movie was very successful (97% on RottenTomatoes and returned six times its cost with a box office of $1.3b!). The acting was excellent and I liked very much what they did with the African accent of the characters (I wonder what was their inspiration for it?). It reminded me of the south african-style accent for the Belters in the TV series The Expenses. So, excellent idea to revive this super-hero (he appeared first in 1966 in the comic Fantastic Four #52), average action movie and, all in all, a good entertainment. Let’s see now what more they will do with this character. 

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Based on a book by Shrabani Basu, this movie is the fictionalized account of the extraordinary friendship between Queen Victoria and an Indian-muslim servant named Abdul Karim (a.k.a. the Munshi) that broke her boredom and loneliness, reviving a little her days for the last fifteen years of her reign (1887-1901). Of course, such movie is always largely made of fiction — how could we really know what happened between them? — but the fact remains that they spent lots of time together and Victoria gained an interest into the farthest corner of her empire. Amusingly, it makes of this movie some sort of a sequel to Mrs Brown (1997) where Dame Judi Dench first portrayed Victoria. However, the major aspects of the story must be somewhat truthful as it is based on the memoirs of Ponsonby, Victoria’s private secretary, published in 1951 and on Abdul’s own diary and some of his correspondance that were discovered in 2010. This little historical insight into Victoria’s reign, the excellent acting and the light tone — almost comedic — of the movie makes it being quite enjoyable and entertaining. 

[ Amazon — Biblio — Google — IMdB — Official — Wikipedia — Youtube ]

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Once again a movie that was widely trashed by the critics (16% on Rotten Tomatoes ! — although it did well at the box office and the audience score is at 46% — the overall critical response being that it is “incomprehensible to newbies and wildly unfaithful and simplistic to fans of King’s books”) but which I greatly enjoyed. Despite not having read Stephen King’s series, I had no problem following and understanding the story. The storytelling was well paced and I found the background of the story quite interesting: what’s not to like about a universe that mixes dark fantasy’s wizards and western’s gunslingers! The acting is rather good, and, although the story itself is not exceedingly great (it feel like an relatively ordinary YA movie), it is quite entertaining. A sequel is considered and a TV series is in production at Amazon. 

[ Amazon — Biblio — Google — IMdB — Official — Wikipedia — Youtube ]

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