jean-no

An excellent animated TV series about an occupied village's life during World War II, in Normandy, as told by children who witness and endure terrible events. Two of the main characters are Ernest and Colette, who came from Paris during holidays and had to stay in the countryside all the war long. They make a gang of friends called "les Robinsons", who meet in the forest and try to help the Resistance. The kids adventures are based on a collection of true stories. This show has all what lacks to the french children TV nowadays : great adventure, danger, sad stories,... The character design is done by comic books author Emile Bravo. Each episode is followed by a short animated story where a young director illustrates the actual testimony of someone who lived those times.

There is always "something" in a John Carpenter movie. In this one, the great "something" is a really great nonsense humor. Lots of sequences are, in my opinion, unforgettable. Like the moment when the invisible Chevy Chase manipulates a guy he knocked to use a taxi. I love the way the CIA guys do every mistake possible (acting as treaters and villains) or the way Nick Halloway tries hard to have a quiet and normal life - no invisible man had wished that before, I think. It is definitely not a great movie and even not the average John Carpenter movie, but it still is fun. The french-subbed dialogs are very funny, I don't know how accurate they are to the original dialogs.

Abdellatif Kechiche did very well with his previous movie "L'Esquive". But here we have even better. The story is simple : I'd say it is mostly about dignity, sacrifice and family love. The acting is brilliant. Habib Boufares is perfect, the young Hafsia Herzi is astounding, especially for the end of the movie. The actors are mostly non-professional people but the script is very well written and the characters are well defined, so this "amateurism" does great and helps the audience's immersion. The cinematography is very special (but never disturbing), with a lot of very close close-ups. The camera is "natural" as with Casavettes, but not "drunk", it is not a pain to watch and you don't get sea sick. The whole movie reminded me the Italian neo-realism and also a little of Renoir. Some people mention Pialat. It's a quite long movie but you don't feel it while watching, you just realize it after.