Gnome | Cinema Parrot Disco

Today’s IMDB Top 250 Guest Review comes from Mark of Marked Movies. He’s also reviewed Heat (HERE) and Argo (HERE) and The Big Lebowski (HERE) and Trainspotting (HERE). Thanks for all the reviews, Mark! 🙂 Now let’s hear his thoughts on Amélie, IMDB rank 62 out of 250…

There are still some movies up for grabs if anyone wants to do a guest IMDB Top 250 review. You can find the list of remaining films HERE. See the full list & links to all the reviews that have already been done HERE.

Also, if you’d like to add a link to your IMDB Review(s) on your own blogs, feel free to use any of the logos I’ve used at the top of any of these guest reviews.

Director: Jean-Pierre Juenet.
Screenplay: Guillame Laurant.
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Yolande Moreau, Artus de Penguern, Urbain Cancelier, Dominique Pinon, Maurice Benichou, Jamel Debbouze.

Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s collaboration with co-writer/director Marc Caro resulted in a couple of marvellous and inventive films in “Delicatessan” and “The City of Lost Children”. Those two had a dark element to them but now that Jeunet has went his own way, “Amelie” shows that he is the one that possesses the lighter side of the duo.

In the heart of Paris, Amelie (Audrey Tautou) brings joy to her friends, secretly sorting out the sad little problems in their lives. But when she discovers a strange photo album belonging to Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz) she realises that she is in love and has problems of her own to sort out.

I struggle to think of a contemporary film that boasts such richness in detail and creative, infectious enthusiasm as ‘Amelie’ does. It’s playfulness, poetry and emotion are rarely touched upon these days in film and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet deserves applause for his uplifting achievements here. It’s also stunningly shot by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (inspired by the paintings of Brazilian artist Juarez Machado) lending an artistic look to the highly creative and artistic content. Without being overly elaborate though, it finds its art in the simple things in life, observing people’s individual pleasures and pains. Quite simply, the whole film is a complete joy to behold. The performances are also delightful. As much as I’m an admirer of actress Emily Watson (whom the role of Amelie was originally intended) I’m glad the relatively unknown Audrey Tautou got the part. She is absolutely adorable and captures the essence of this wonderful character perfectly. With flair and originality that’s hard to come by these days, ‘Amelie’ is one of the most beautiful pieces of cinema I have seen and will always be one of my favourites.

The humour; the look; the characters and performances; the delightful and fitting music by Yann Tiersen all culminate into the ultimate feel-good film and confirmation of the creativity and inventiveness of French cinema. A heartwarming modern classic.

Mark Walker

Hmm. Not sure where to start with this review.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m of the age where I grew up with and am a lover of 80s teen movies, especially the John Hughes ones. So I’m probably just too old to enjoy Project X. Through the whole thing I kept thinking to myself “Would I think this was the greatest movie EVER if I was a teenager right now?”. Well, I’m sure I’d like it a bit more but I still don’t think it would be a favorite.

I think it’s fair to say that I do still love teen movies. When they’re actually good… My favorite film of 2012 was The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. Since the year 2000, I also liked Juno, Charlie Bartlett, Nick And Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and Scott Pilgrim. Okay – so from that list I obviously don’t go for the ones that are TOO mainstream & vulgar but I have nothing against those if they’re good or at least funny (yes, I like the American Pie movies and, shamefully, Harold & Kumar!). So it’s not because of anything vulgar or the (completely expected) loads of naked titties that made me not able to really get into Project X.

I don’t know where to go with this review now. I think it’s because I find it a lot harder to review “meh” movies than really good or really bad ones. This movie was meh. The characters were bland & I couldn’t relate to a single one of them in any sort of way (the main guy wasn’t too bad but his obnoxious friend was obnoxious in an unfunny and annoying way instead of in an entertaining Stifler way). The “funny” bits weren’t funny (other than maybe the “ball puncher”) and, quite frankly, the vulgar bits probably weren’t vulgar enough. And… This was meant to be a “found footage” film, right? Lol! I think they kept forgetting that they were meant to be filming it in that way.

I’ve spent too long on this. It’s not a really BAD film. I think it would have been much more enjoyable if they’d had better main characters – I think weak characters let the movie down more than anything.

Rating: 6/10

Watch these movies instead – the makers of Project X obviously did:

For a better “destroy dad’s car” movie:

For a better “kick ass flamethrower” movie:

For better “jump off the roof mostly into pools” movies (well, the first more than the second):

For a better drunken “destroy your parents’ house” party movie (the obvious biggest influence on Project X – I kept expecting a missile to come up through the house and for mutant bikers to show up):