18 May 2012

Great fun

If you enjoyed the comic whimsy of Amelie, you'll enjoy Micmacs. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's touch is evident in this light-hearted yet moving romp. We are made aware of the random moments that shape our lives and the ways in which people need and support each other as we follow Bazil from childhood trauma to accidental injury to his ultimate victory over the uncaring weapons manufacturers who were responsible for his pain. The little guys meet the big guys head-on and win with unexpected, hilarious and clever antics. I laughed and cheered for the underdog and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

ruiresende84

18 May 2012

cannon ball seduction.

Whatever Jeunet and his team does, i'll want to see. The guy has aunique set of talents that few or no other filmmaker living has. He possesses a unique imagination, which invests and builds each of thecinematic worlds he proposes. Those worlds are quirky, always bizarre,like a Victorian freak show, but where you identify with the freak.This is invested into the characters, and their actions. Here it isalso applied to the physical world. The refuge of out team of odd superheroes is a set you can clearly understand Jeunet spent a lot of timeon. You approach it from the exterior as a mere texture of garbage andundefined objects. Inside it's much bigger than what it looks from theoutside, and it seduces. The tricks, the retro gadgets of the inventor.All great. A great sense of space. Spatiality. People in the space.Action where you entangle the camera, the space, and the actor in themiddle of them. Jeunet is great at this.The theme doesn't matter. It's an ordinary story about some cartoon badguys been taught a lesson by the pure hearted handicapped guys. There'san implicit simple moral lesson (guns are bad, peace is great). We'veseen it, with more or less variations, on hundreds of other films.That's a pity. Not because now we have another film like that. I mean,this one is better than most, more cinematic, better executed, withsome really great things to it. But this is Jeunet, the fact that hetook vacations and gave us this, means that we lost a new grandachievement like we know he can give us. Or maybe he does theSoderbergh thing, and uses the commercial success of this one to raisemoney for a good one. But i think even his good films always raisedenough money to justify the next one. So this film serves no purpose.It's still great as a time filler. I wish every Sunday afternoon filmwas like this. But there's nothing more to it. And it could have.My opinion: 4/5http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

14 May 2012

Wonderful

This review is from: Micmacs [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) Watched "Micmacs" yesterday, having seen Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "City of Lost Children" previously. I liked that one, but "Micmacs" was just wonderful. Very funny, visually fascinating, heartwarming. I can't recommend it highly enough. This is definitely one to have in your movie collection.

13 May 2012

The Latest Favorite

This review is from: Micmacs (DVD) I have been a fan of the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet since I first saw "Delicatessen" and "City of Lost Children" years ago. I confess I fail to understand what his detractors find to hold against his work. "Micmacs" did little business in American theaters. It played so briefly in my town that I missed it entirely and had to wait for the DVD release to see it at all. I rented it, and was delighted with its wacky inventiveness, and the great detail work which I associate with Jeunet. I bought it at once.

07 May 2012

A must-have.. !

I am extremely selective in choosing DVDs for my library. In fact, I own a total of four. When I saw Micmacs at the cinema my friend told me to settle down, I was laughing so hard. The French have done it again, the way only they can...

07 May 2012

Great film making

This review is from: Micmacs (DVD) Cinematic perfection! No doubt a great movie with more imagination than just about anything you will see. Every shoot is planned with such love, creative wonderment, and passion for the craft of cinematography and movie making you can't hardly believe it's all in one movie. If you are a fan of this directors other works than you know what I'm talking about. Bravo Jean-Pierre Jeunet!

Art Snob

05 May 2012

A Jeunet masterpiece -- may be his best yet

I saw 21 films at the 2009 Toronto Film Fest, and while many of themwere good, this one was the best by a wide margin. If you've liked anyof Jeunet's movies in the past, you can put this one down as a surething (provided that your favorite isn't ALIEN RESURRECTION). All ofthe Jeunet elements you love -- colorful, quirky characters (in thiscase, a whole gang of them), other-worldliness, incredible colorschemes, chain reactions, etc. -- in a new concoction that doesn't feelrepetitive or derivative in the slightest. As a sympathetic characterwith a gift for physical comedy, leading man Dany Boon can hold acandle to Chaplin and Keaton. It's simply a masterpiece ... the kind offilm that will keep me coming back to this festival forever.

05 May 2012

Mic is macked to death...

Not only am I a big fan of French film, I am also a big fan of director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Suffice to say, I was really excited about this movie. Sadly, while the tone of the film was certainly in line with what I expected from this modern master of cinematic enjoyment (yes, I said it), I must admit that this film failed to do much of anything for me. It is loud and charismatic and a carnival of sorts, but in the end it just seems like a hodgepodge of mediocrity.Saying that makes me very sad.Don't get me wrong; I love the macabre and the absurd, which are two things that Jean-Pierre Jeunet understands and it is precisely why I love him so much. I mean, I don't have to explain to anyone my adoration of `Amelie', and that is considered by many to be one of his lesser works; so know that I love him THAT much. That said; while `Micmacs' certainly is entertaining and it has that whole `absurd' quality that I love so much, it fails to balance it out with anything substantial. At least `Amelie' knew how to create an absurdity that teetered on emotional complexity; something that felt human and lived in and truly cherished. `Micmacs' feels slightly underdeveloped; like a gimmick tossed on a plate for minimal effect.The film follows a bunch of freaks as they embark on a mission to turn two major players in arms dealing against one another and create major problems for them; all the while helping one particular freak exact semi-revenge on the company responsible for his father's death and the company who produced the bullet that haphazardly found its way into his skull.Get all that?I like the story. It has so much promise, and in the capable hands of Jeunet I'd expect it to be embellished to perfection, but it wasn't. It was just a silly mess that never seemed to go anywhere important, and then when they did try and make some sort of poignant point about arms dealing (that whole ending) it came across manipulative and out of bounds with the rest of the film.I still have faith in Jeunet. Every director is allowed a misstep here and there. Even the greats have had their fair share of failed projects.At least Raphael Beau's score is effectively awesome.

Jason

28 April 2012

Micmacs The charming inventiveness of Jeunet

One wouldn't normally imagine the rich inner worlds created by French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie, The City of Lost Children) as a platform to scathe weapons manufactures. Though, Jeunet's latest 2009/2010 comedy, Micmacs achieves this satirical feat in the director's true fashion of charming inventiveness. Read my full review on Associated Content, Yahoo's newly acquired news site, under my profile "Jason Cangialosi"

dbborroughs

27 April 2012

Sweet

This is Jean-Pierre Jeunet's tale of a man and his adopted family ofcrazies (the director described them as a version of Snow White and theSeven Dwarfs at a Tribeca film festival Q&A) who take on the themunition companies that were responsible for the mine that killed hisfather and bullet that is in his head. Its a sweet little film thatrambles around for about two hours before having a more or less happilyever after ending. I enjoyed the film a great deal (I enjoyed listeningto the director speak before and after the film more), however the filmnever builds to any sort of grand conclusion. Sure the ending is happy,but it kind of leaves you wondering if thats it. I know I, and severalpeople around me at the Tribeca film festival were wondering why Jeunetlikes to watch the last 10 minutes with audiences since it didn'tprovoke much of anything, no laughs, no applause just a sense of thatsnice. Don't get me wrong, its worth seeing with wonderful characters, afew great set pieces and lots of in jokes (there are bill boards forthe film in the film), its just more a diversion than anything else.

24 April 2012

Very French humor

I really liked this movie, very charming .. and the special effects and photography so well done. But it is very French in its humor, its gestures; probably does not appeal to a broad US audience. Just let go and enjoy it.

Unagi

24 April 2012

Scatter-shot charm

I don't begrudge anyone loving this film. If you enjoy gentle clowns, inventive physical comedy, generous doses of whimsy, impossibly sweet circus freaks, and your political revenge narratives served on a makeshift conveyer belt run by a mechanical monkey made of scraps, this film is for you. I liked some of it, but felt the approach was scatter shot. Jeunet throws out sweet, twee, darling, whimsical, far-fetched vignettes in rapid-fire succession and some made me smile and some didn't. I don't begrudge him his originality and charm, it just can't be everyone's cup of tea. It isn't mine, but my friends really loved it. I only loved parts of it and felt the rest, like an aggressive Parisian street clown, was trying too hard to be exquisitely innocently utterly delightful. I felt no chemistry between the elastic girl and the protagonist, or any other characters for that matter. The film didn't feel any need to develop any characters much, focusing instead on the next often delightful little clockwork sight gag. That approach wasn't boring, but the rare flashes when two characters related to one another beyond a surface level felt like guilty revelations that Jeunet realized briefly that a film ought to have some meaningful human interactions.One thing's certain, the film's heart is in the right place as a stunning prank at the expense of despicable arms dealers near the film's close demonstrates. I found the use of Max Steiner scores on the soundtrack totally inexplicable and distracting. At least it broke up the ubiquitous, tired, off-kilter waltzes that made up the bulk of the music. But it seemed strange rather than meaningful. It isn't as though Steiner is some forgotten figure whose music is being returned to public consciousness by the grace of Jeunet.

Eternality

22 April 2012

Jeunet has once again proved that he is one of the few masters of inventive cinema.

The highly-acclaimed director of Amelie (2001) brings fans back to hiswhimsical world of comedy with Micmacs, a fun, entertaining, and cheekyouting that does not have a single dull moment. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, theFrench director of some of European cinema's most stylishly creativefilms, takes rein over a film which has a story that goes like this: Aguy named Bazil (Dany Boon) unluckily gets shot in the head butrecovers to be adopted by an oddball family of "circus freaks".Together, they seek to help Bazil to find, capture, and embarrass thepeople who were responsible for manufacturing that bullet that is stillstuck in his brain.Micmacs is a light-hearted take on crime – the crime of producing andselling weapons to maim or kill humans in wars. So with Bazilspearheading his team, they seek to destroy the egotistical heads oftwo companies that run such an evil, money-churning business. And theydo so in the most bizarre fashion anyone could think of – by playing tothe physical, intellectual, and courageous strengths of each person.There is a contortionist, a human cannonball, a human calculator, ablack who speaks via the art of abstraction, an old man who improvisesand creates things out of scrap metal, and a couple of others.Though the entire film could have been dreamt of by a director likeTerry Gilliam (Brazil, 1985; The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,2009), Jeunet makes Micmacs his own with his incredible color schemes.His trademark use of soft orange and yellow give the film a sort oflively glow that makes it look eye-pleasing. Together with the fluidityof the camera-work, it is difficult not to become engrossed in thefilm's setting and characters. Apart from a couple of sex scenesintegral to the plot, Micmacs could have been a children's movie,though that would be an insult to what Jeunet has accomplished here,despite how silly the film seems to be.Micmacs is playfully-directed, and the manner in which Jeunet tricks uswith some oh-I-didn't-see-that-coming moments would most likely pleaseus and tickle our funny bones. Most of the comedy come from physicalsituations that the characters find themselves in. Special creditshould be given to Boon whose expressive bodily and facial movementschannel the spirit of Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Micmacs isvisually stunning, with Jeunet flexing his creative muscles bysuperimposing moving images of what Bazil is thinking about on hisforehead as he copes with anxiety issues. There is no doubt that withthis quirky effort, Jeunet has once again proved that he is one of thefew masters of inventive cinema.GRADE: A- (8.5/10 or 4 stars)www.filmnomenon.blogspot.comAll rights reserved.

joshua

21 April 2012

Inventive fun

I really enjoyed this film. Whacky and wonderful the visual sensibility does a good job of underpinning the offbeat humor that American critics don't quite seem to get. Go see it.

Biggest_Loser

20 April 2012

It is mostly because of Boons performance that Micmacs, for much of its duration, is a wildly funny film

When he was little Bazil (Dany Boon) was left without his parentsbecause his father was killed by a landmine in the late 1970s and hismother was committed, presumably due to the trauma. In the present,Bazil is a video store clerk able who has watched films like The BigSleep so often that he is able to recite all the lines. One evening hehears a disturbance outside and a bullet is fired straight into hisskull, leaving him in a coma. When he wakes up after a long period hediscovers that all the stuff he owned is gone and that he has beenreplaced at the video store. He is left with no choice but to sleep onthe streets and to try and make money by busking. By chance though,Bazil meets Placard (Jean-Pierre Marielle), a former criminal who hasspent time in gaol and who knows who is responsible for the bullet.Placard offers him shelter within a junkyard where a family of freaksare living. They include a writer named Remington (Omar Sy), Fracasse(Dominique Pinon) who wants to update his world record for being ahuman cannonball, Calculette (Marie-Julie Baup), the daughter of aseamstress who can discover measurements in the blink of an eye, LaMôme Caoutchouc (Julie Ferrier), an extremely flexible woman who livesin a fridge, Petit Pierre (Michel Crémadès) who makes gadgets and toysand Tambouille (Yolande Moreau) who looks over the group like they areher children. It is with their help that Bazil is able to sabotage thework of two rival arms dealers.The imagination of director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has allowed films suchas Amelie and A Very Long Engagement to resonate with audiences becauseof the considerable charm and visual flair with which they wereskilfully made. Micmacs (Micmacs à tire-larigot) is a bizarre andregularly hilarious film but the same quirkiness that worked sosuccessfully for Amelie is in overdrive here and it comes at theexpense of a fully developed narrative. The bulk of the film isdedicated towards Bazil interrupting the arms dealers, meaning thatmuch of the narrative is like a series of admittedly funny sketches.There is not a lot of logic to be found here as numerous scenes onlyexist for the sake of being odd. In one moment Bazil is shown watchingtwo sex workers performing. He then decides to hire them personally toperform in an open window so that they will distract a security guardthat Bazil needs to bypass. There are also a number of running gagsthroughout the film, such as billboards and posters for the movieitself shown in certain scenes, as well as an arms dealer who likes tocollect things from dead celebrities, such as Mussolini's eyeballs andWinston Churchill's nail clipper. This brand of humour carries the filma long way, perhaps more than it really deserves to. Beneath theweirdness is Jeunet's rather simplistic message to arms dealers, thatthey should be publicly shamed for the blood on their hands. To hiscredit, Jeunet is brave enough to attack the current French PresidentNicholas Sarkozy by showing a picture of him in the film shaking handswith an arms dealer, suggesting that he is accepting of weaponsmanufacturing.Given the wackiness and humour of most of the characters through thefilm, it is a shame that the plot does not inspire to do more withthem. The freaks really only seem to exist in the movie for the sake oftheir eccentricities and do not develop by themselves or with eachother in any particularly significant way at all. They are very muchlike the French equivalent of the group from Oceans 11, each with theirown set of skills or quirks for the heist. Despite the limitations ofhis dialogue, Boon is a joy as Bazil because he is extremely adept atthe physical comedy, able to pull all kinds of funny faces and performmime acts too. In one of the film's cleverest gags, he stands on oneside of a pillar as a woman sings on the other and he mimes, pretendingto use her voice to earn some money. Yet regardless of the hilarity oflittle moments like this, it is still disappointing that the charactersare constricted to just being weird or odd for the sake of certainscenes.It is mostly because of Boon's performance that Micmacs, for much ofits duration, is a wildly funny film. Yet given the transparency ofJeunet's antagonism towards arms dealers and the extremely thin plot,this is a highly watchable but slightly disappointing effort. Thecharacters are limited to being odd, simply so that they can beinterspersed into these crazy sequences, whether they make sense ornot. It is because of this that Bazil's adventure is certainly not assatisfying or as completely fulfilling as some might be expecting fromthis director.

19 April 2012

Surreal French fantasy

This review is from: Micmacs (DVD) Almost, but not quite. This lies squarely between Amelie and The City of Lost Children in a number of ways: in warmth, in contact with reality, in believable characters. But, with fantasy of this calibre, you just have to take it in its own terms, whatever the heck those are.This starts with gritty urban credibility. As a boy, Bazil's father is killed by a weapon from one dealer. As an adult, he's nearly killed by a weapon from another. Brain-injured but capable, he finds a new home among an urban salon de refusees - the people refused by the rest of society. The take him in as one of their own and with him, his mission for revenge. From there, Micmacs creates a beautiful assemblage of slapstick, political commentary, personal warmth, and intellectual goofing. Each character (and they are characters) contributes in his or her own way. Early on, though, I glommed onto the contortionist. Really, she has a central spot in all the good scenes. Fun, fantasical, and fairly flaky, I wish this for everyone with a taste for the quirky.-- wiredweird

17 April 2012

One of the best movies Ive seen in a long time.

This review is from: Micmacs (DVD) Funny movie. Good clean fun if you like loveable eccentrics. Hollywood is out of ideas, which is why we see endless remakes. Foreign films provide much needed relief for people like me that love movies but want a fresh story every now and then.Amazon Prime continues to amaze me with fast delivery. They guarantee two day delivery but I often have my orders the next day before I leave for work!

Foux_du_Fafa

17 April 2012

An amusing vigilante story

Jean-Paul Jeunet, director of "Amélie" and "A Very Long Engagement"returns with "Micmacs", the story of a lonely misfit named Bazil (DanyBoon), who after being accidentally injured in a shoot-out, is adoptedby a band of other misfits. Together, they take on a band ofarms-manufacturers whose products respectively injured Bazil and killedBazil's father, by triggering tension between them.As with previous films, Jeunet has produced a world ofslightly-distorted reality, much like a dream. Although it does beginsomewhat slowly, this is hardly a flaw, and the eventual escalation ofthe tension between the two forces of evil is truly winning. Theending, which I won't elaborate upon, is also delightfully funny.There is one slight issue that I did have, which is not too big andactually has little to do with the film itself, but is still worthy ofmention. As someone with a degree in French, I did find that theEnglish subtitles were in some scenes passable yet not excellentreplications of the original. Equally, I found it quite annoying thatthe subtitles provided in the British cinema version were clearly donefor American audiences. I have nothing against American English, but itwould have been nice for us over here in the UK to have had our ownsubtitles as opposed to a loan of the American ones. Yet enough withthat groaning; "Micmacs" is a great near-perfect little film and I canrecommend it wholeheartedly.

jjnoahjames

15 April 2012

Great idea but something went wrong.

MicMacs was very intriguing at first and I was excited to watch JeanPierre's next film. I thought it was going to be another fun,re-watchable, classic. Yikes! Nobody is perfect. There are two hills towalk over first here. First it's confusing. This is a pet peeve ofmine. You have to try hard to follow it. Secondly even though the maincharacter is a great actor and does a phenomenal job here, he isnothing like Audrey Tautou who chemistry wise works great with JeanPierre, matteraffact A Very Long Engagement was a great complex filmthat didn't get as confusing as this.The characters are great, the story is good but the confusion is thebig killer here. Jean please make another classic with Audrey!

Chris L

15 April 2012

Delightful

Jean-Pierre Jeunet does it again - fanciful, fun, inventive, a wonderful view on a world, wit an important message that doesn't detract from the story.