xavier-knoepffler Reviews

Black Summer (2019–2021)

Everything a post apo série needs

[9/10 · 3 August 2021]

Black summer IS simply the best série about zombies ever, at least season1, that i've just seen when i am writing this critic.

Usually i don't find possible to run a show about post apo World, because heroes can't act anymore as Heroes usually do on other series, and because the showrunners need heroes whose spectators are going to attach to.

In post apo world, people don't do heroic things, sometimes betray, and often die. That's the purpose of Black Summer.

The Alcàsser Murders (2019)

Odious treatment for an odious case

[4/10 · 29 May 2020]

I am very interested in crime shows, and I didn't know at all this case, that frightened Spain in the early 90's. Netflix allows us to discover cases from abroad, not only US serial killers or italian mafia. Cases that have touched a country (in France, for instance, Gregory about a very famous case can be found on the streaming platform) 3 girls have been abducted at the same time, They haven't been found in a 3 month period, but when it happens, the perpetrators have been quickly spotted. Thus, this documentary is not interested in the investigation itself (too bad), but in the impact of media on it. That's why he leaves us with more questions than answers.

This doc pretends to denounce the corruption of crimes by media, but at the very end, is corrupting itself these odious murders of three young girls, by using it in a form of propaganda. Completely irrevelant.

Columbo: Try and Catch Me (1977) Season 7, Episode 1

Wondering why this episode is so acclaimed

[4/10 · 8 May 2020]

For me, a good Columbo episode needs 4 ingredients : 1) its usual trademarks 2) a good murderer affrontment 3) a good deduction 4) a perfect crime

And this episode misses completely the fourth ingredient. How a crime mindmaster can elaborate such a weak criminal project? How can she just imagine that the victim won't try to show who's the murderer? How can a man die within the night in a rather big closet? And the story of the car key is nonsense, from the beginning to the end

Still the murderer is quite enjoyable to see (even if her crime is one of the most horrible perpetrated)

Operation Mekong (2016)

this nugget is worth seeing

[8/10 · 5 December 2018]

This movie deserves a better rating for many reasons :

• tribute to old american thriller genre : one can see reference towards The deer hunter, Scarface or the godfather... But this is not a copycat
• not only A Michael Bay type of movie : Yes, there are lots of explosion, and the chinese governement and army were involved in the process, But Dante Lam got more talent.
• Political incorrectness, that left Hollywood
• Deep script, where I discovered the interactions between China, Thailand and Myanmar to fight against their drug issues with the Golden Triangle.
• This movie is built as a videogame : and this is for me a good point.

And finally no, this is not a propaganda movie (that could explain, i guess, the bad rating) the cop methods are not as straight as american ones, and the heroes end jaded for example.

The Hunt (2012)

Unnecessary movie

[3/10 · 8 August 2017]

There are not many movies about child abuse - apart from this one, I remember of 'les Risques du Métier' from french director André Cayatte. Why then are they both built on a lie from the child? Isn't there enough case of child abuse, every year, cases that hardly anyone believes, because it is often done by a close member of the family, in a deafen silence? What does a director want to hide or protect, when he chooses to shoot a movie about child abuse from this viewpoint? I can see the big strings used by Thomas Vinterberg, he obviously doesn't like the people, so eager to lynch the first innocent in the town.

The script is very thin. The actors don't play well (except Clara the girl), they seem to not believe the story. Funny is the fact that former Dogma addict Thomas Vinterberg shot an actor, Thomas Bo Larsen, with a fake beard,

Raw (2016)

inedible

[2/10 · 5 July 2017]

2/10 only for the music the rest is cliché of what french cinema has become : pompous, preachy and marketed -the heroin is an Adele Haenel lookalike, she's playing like many other french actresses that have emerged for 10 years (shouting, dancing and behaving with no reason...) - the script is total cliché : the gay arab, the hazing, "oh, my sister is in the same vet school as me" - weak script, an usual thing in french cinema, since Truffaut killed the screenwriter - all the hype about the gore is completely overrated.

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