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The Valet
The Valet is another entry in a saga based on a recurrent character François Pignon, an average Joe that French screenwriter/director Francis Veber likes to throw into the most awkward situations, as in The Dinner Game and The Closet.
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Vanilla Sky
One may scrutinize but the horizon is empty in Jerry Maguire in Nightmareland, a new failed attempt to remake a European film with Hollywood sauce.
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Velvet Goldmine
A Todd Haynes film (Safe) fictionalizing David Bowie & Iggy pop's relationship during the Glam Years. While a close up of these two colorful icons should have been interesting, the movie unfortunately is beyound grotesque.
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Vengeance
With Vengeance, Johnnie To delivers one of his better successes since at least Election 1 and 2
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Vibrator
Japanese cinema has offered its share of provocative fare these last few years, mostly from cult iconoclast director Takeshi Miike and Vibrator looked like an entry into the post-Miike era, ready to explore the road-movie genre with a strong dose of provocation.
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Vidocq: Dark Portal
Pitof, a former special effects supervisor on several French blockbusters, directs Vidocq: Dark Portal, the first film entirely shot in digital. The much-anticipated work is disappointing.
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Volver
Eternally in love with women, Pedro Almodovar takes up his favorite topic again in Volver, a minor work, on the edge of the fantastic.
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Waking Life
More than food for thought, Waking Life is a philosophical and visual banquet for the mind. From scenes of immolation, floating and tango, to micro-waved burritos and existentialism, Linklater has created a provocative film.
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Walk the Line
Walk the Line is a part of Johnny Cash's life story, focusing on his long courtship with June Carter and his battle with drugs and alcohol.
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Waltz with Bashir
Waltz with Bashir is an animated autobiographical documentary whose title refers to an Israeli soldier taken under fire from snipers in Beirut.
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The Wandering Shadows
A poetic and cruel fable testing the limits of friendship, Ciro Guerra's La Sombra del Caminante is the poignant debut from a filmmaker whose cinema is in the tradition of the early works of American Indie master Jim Jarmusch with a subtle dose of socio-political commentary in the background.
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Wanted
Writer/Director Timur Bekmambetov is known for two things: his ultra-kinetic filmmaking style and his propensity at recycling scenes and themes from popular Hollywood flicks.
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Wasabi
Luc Besson and Jean Reno are icons in the Empire of the Rising Sun. Just ask young Japanese to mention a French director and Luc Besson's name will be the first to roll off the tongue and then Jean Reno will be the first actor that comes to mind.
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Waterboys
Waterboys is a feel-good film from Japan that made me feel foolish for watching. Yet, as awkwardly trite and light as it was, it still possessed such a spirit of well-meaning that I gave the film its due and did not walk out.
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Water Lilies
Centered around a synchronized swimming team, Céline Sciamma's debut studies the nascent sexuality of three teenage girls struggling with their own desires.
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We Don't Live Here Anymore
A long-delayed adaptation of a couple of short stories by Andre Dubus, We Don't Live Here Anymore plunges the audience into the heart of an emotional spiral that links two couples.
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We Were Soldiers
If you ever wondered what a brave-hearted patriot could have done in Vietnam, you might get an idea in the flat We Were Soldiers, the second directing effort from screenwriter-producer Randall Wallace.
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Welcome to Switzerland
For her first film, Lea Fazer chose self-mockery by drawing up an exhaustive list of all the stereotypes and clichés in force concerning her Swiss compatriots. Too ridiculous to be honest.
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Welcome to the Land of Ch'tis
While the entertaining Welcome to the Land of Ch'tis is the biggest box office hit in France's history, it's unfortunately difficult to envision parallel success here. Or even in Quebec for that matter.
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Where the Truth lies
An adaptation of the best-selling mystery novel by Rupert Holmes, Where the Truth Lies reveals the underside of Hollywood's industry of dreams.
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White Material
Shot with a languid pace reflecting the African heat and the slow death of colonialism, White Material takes on colonialism with a different angle, portraying it as broken dream that shouldn't have happened in the first pace.
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White Noise
In White Noise, a paranormal thriller built around an occurrence known as EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon), a widower who's in contact with his wife in the afterlife gets more than what he bargained for when he gets mixed up with a trio of evil spirits.
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The White Ribbon
With The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke reverses our expectations, delivering certainly his best film, a work that summarizes his oeuvre while being original at the same time.
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Wild Camp
While it is true that these kinds of camps are more appropriate ground for comedy the team behind Wild Camp chose a different angle, going for a dark Lolita-take in this love story between an older and unattractive man and a beautiful wild teenager.
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Wild Wild West
Inspired by the famous TV show from the 60's, the 99 version of Wild Wild West, far from recreating the atmosphere of the serie, attempts to reuse the formula for success of Barry Sonnenfeld's precedent movie in this Men in Black in the West.
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The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Director Ken Loach would like to cause a storm, but he's caught in the wind with a film which revisits themes from Hidden Agenda.
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Windtalkers
In his latest film, the most ambitious to date, John Woo substitutes great heroic battles for the stylized urban shoot-outs that made his reputation. If Windtalkers is a conventional and violent war film, it is however equipped with a true emotional dimension that seems to have escaped the Hong-Kong director since The Killer.
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Woodchipper Massacre
Another amateur-looking 80's gore film, Woodchipper Massacre focuses on a group of kids who find a new source of entertainment by throwing bodies through a woodchipper.
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The Woodsman
With a taboo subject like pedophilia, it would have been easy to assume that The Woodsman would be a provocative film. On the contrary, the filmmakers have crafted a subtle film about second chances given by society.
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The World is not Enough
The World is not Enough, the 20th installment of the James Bond franchise, scores high in Bond's favorite ingredients but fails because of a lame plot and poor acting.
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The Wrestler
With his hearing aid, his long dyed hair and a face which has been disgraced by one too many punches, Mickey Rourke's rough and selfless incarnation of a washed-out wrestler called Randy the Ram could easily be seen as a metaphor for the actor's career.
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Wristcutters
A story such as Wristcutters, in which one desperate soul transcends the boundaries of death in search of another, isn't new.
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X2: X-Men United
The adaptation of comics has become a sub-genre of its own in American fantasy cinema. The success of X2 lies in its capacity to build a story which could have held its own place in the X-Men universe.
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XXX
Finally a great comedy about spies. Here come XXX and Vin Diesel, the funniest action hero to hit the big screen since Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal.
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Y Tu Mamá También
Full of life, sex and death, Y Tu Mamá También is a ripe fruit to bite into and savor. And remember.
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Young Adam
The adaptation of a novel by Alexander Trocchi, a figure of the Beat generation, David Mac Kenzie's Young Adam slowly sails on turbid water, carrying in its wake some characters stuck in lives with hopeless futures.
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Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession
While she never met Jerry Harvey, Z's main programmer and central figure of this documentary, director Xan Cassavetes did get to watch Z when she was little and, most importantly, she certainly understands what great cinema is, thanks to her own genetic heritage.
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Zatoichi
After the melodrama Dolls, Takeshi Kitano returns to the Japanese "style", while directing a chambara or Japanese sabre film, crossed with dazzling visuals and narrative.
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Movie reviews
Plume Noire's New Film Reviews 2012 - present
