In the House (2013)

I wonder what it is about Kristin Scott Thomas that the French like? That cold almost frigid character she always plays, is that what foreigners think the English Rose is? I have known women who come across cold and frigid, they always marry foreigners, I suppose anyone else would realise they are socially awkward, to the foreign eye they are just English.

Anyway, I like KST ok, she's fine but I found the way she delivered her lines was too English, surely the French audiences noticed this? She delivered her lines with the sarcastic intonation in the wrong places, right if you're speaking English, but weird if you're French. Vis the plot, again it was like people raving about Tim Roth in Broken, she was just a bit part in the background, it was all the French actors, her husband, the creepy boy and the family he gets involved with, they were the film, it wouldn't have mattered if she'd been there at all! 

But it was a good film, I think I'll make my dad rent it when it comes to the Library.

2 Days in New York (2012)

I'd seen 2 Days in Paris (2007) but didn't remember or realise this was the sequel until after the film, trying to figure out where I'd seen Julie Delpy before. The first film I now vaguely remember she took her New York Jewish boyfriend to Paris to meet her family and he was horrified to find out she had slept with practically every man in France. I thought he was good but could do better.
In this follow-up by writer/director/star Delpy, she has a new partner (Chris Rock) who is horrified to find out her family are douchebags when they come to stay. The thing is that it wasn't just her family who were ghastly, she was just as bad, and like the Jewish boyfriend in the first film, radio show host boyfriend is much better off without her, for fucksake, she cost him an interview with Obama! Not her badly behaved family, HER.
This is one of those cutesy quirky culture-clash films that you're supposed to like, Julie Delpy must be exactly like her character, self-centred and lacking empathy and humility to not understand that a woman like that is not charming or funny.
It's a cold day in hell when Chris Rock is the least bad thing in a film.

Midnight in Paris (2011)

YES. A Woody Allen film made just for him like his good ones were, but without him, and with a charasmatic and handsome leading man, but still playing the Woody Allen part and it working.
Brillianly nerdy and indulgent and intellectual but at the same time not really, and above all affectionate, romantic and beautiful but not sexy and never trying to be. Just lovely.
What I loved most about Midnight in Paris was that the present day bits could have been any time really in the past forty years. There was nothing topically specific, rich republicans have always been like that and always will be. It wasn't ever about a time really, just a place. Predictable ending, but what a nice film. And the opening sequence of just views of Paris was great too.

Le Placard (2001)

Please allow me to now talk about my favourite film of all time. On watching it again, for probably the third time in 12 months (as I always do) I think perhaps it is better than Withnail & I and Some Like it Hot, and has taken over gaining first place in my personal film chart.
The Closet is perfect, it's the right length, it has a Shakespearean plot full of people pretending to be what their not and other people pretending that other people are pretending etc and it has the perfect cast.
Daniel Auteuil is an insignificant nobody, his ex wife and his teenage son aren't interested in him and he is about to get fired. How does he fix this? He pretends to be gay. No, he pretends nothing, he is the same as always, but he lets everyone believe that behind his shy and quiet exterior he is a raving queer. He can't get fired, that's discrimination, but he becomes somehow interesting to everyone all of a sudden, his co-workers, his ex and his son.
It is played beautifully and it is the Malvolio of the piece Gerard Depardieu who brings the most wonderful performance, the homophobic pig forced to be nice to the gay man when he is tricked into thinking his job is in danger, it goes far too far and Depardieu has a breakdown and thinks himself in love with Auteuil, when rejected he goes nuts and ends up in the looney bin.
Brilliant.

Les Emotifs Anonymes (2010)

Romantics Anonymous.
The ending falls flat but the other 80 minutes are super lovely and great.
I really REALLY liked this film.
If you are or have been in your past a socially awkward person unable to tell someone how you feel about them, as I am or have been or am, you should like it.
Also, if you like scenes of great sexual tension played by actors so normal looking but playing characters who are so endearing you find them both extremely attractive, you should like it.
He owns a chocolate factory that it going bust and she is a talented chocolatier hired under the misaprehension that she is a saleswoman. He can't touch anyone and has never been on a date and she is overwhelmed and brought to tears if anyone even asks her a question. When they kiss it is so hot.
I think the reason why it is so hot is that they are both 40+ and normal looking. There is nothing more bland than seeing Kristin and R-Patz make out, Isabelle Carré and Benoît Poelvoorde on the other hand was one of the best movie smooches I've ever seen on the big screen.
I look forward to buying the dvd.

Les Aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010)

I imagine if I had read the comic, rather than just looking at the collection of cards that my dad has taken from the comic strips (he's a fan of the artist Jacques Tardi- French comic artists are way better than American), I might have known to expect such a weird film. There were no pictures of the pterodactyl in my dad's cards! Just Adele with her tits out!

Anna thought it was terrible but I enjoyed it, if it wasn't for the hatpin incident, the tits (French film) and the Egyptian mummies it would have been a good kids' adventure film! Anyway, I liked her. Her face was great.

The Eighth Day (1996)

Daneil Auteil is a top salesman and a shite dad who's not allowed to see his adorable 1990s girls, he decides to end it all one day and closes his eyes while driving in the dark hoping that he will hit a tree and die. Instead he hits care-home escapee Pascal Duquenne's dog and has to bury it in his back garden, take the lost boy into his home and try and figure out just where the hell he's come from and who the hell he belongs to.

Very sweet gentle sad French comedy with some bizarre dream sequences, I enjoyed Luis Mariano turning up all the time to sing his song about his mum.

Green Card (1990)

A question: Andie MacDowell or Bebe Neuwirth? Personally I'd go Bebe every time; her voice, her skin, her hair, those eyes, argh! She's gorgeous. I watched that episode of Cheers a couple of weeks ago where she and Frasier go on the psychology chat show and practically have sex with their eyes, it was the HOTTEST thing I'd ever seen! Unfortunately Bebe wears a stupid hat in Green Card so I'd probably go for Andie, who instead wears a variety of stupid hats.

Green Card was one of my favourite films when I was younger, it's what I thought romance was, and I guess I still do because I saw it again yesterday for the first time in years and I thought it was lovely! It's got a gentle silliness and it's full of sexual tension, what more do you need?

Who is the Andie MacDowell of nowadays? We don't have one. It's a shame, she is mostly shite and annoying but she's in four great films and she's perfect in those films as the stuck-up, beautiful woman. Green Card, Groundhog Day, Four Weddings and yes, I'm going to say it, Michael -I liked it!

Danton's Death by Georg Büchner (National Theatre)

Tobes was his usual handsome, charming, brutish self as Danton but the real stand out performance was creepy, calculating, repressed Elliot Levey as Robespierre. Man, he was horrifyingly cold!! He even got booed at the end when the actors took their bows, which luckily he found quite amusing.

Great production- terrifyingly real guillotining at the end!

Mr Bean's Holiday (2007)

I went to see Mr Bean's Holiday at the cinema when it came out and I loved it, it was just so French! It made me desperately want to go to France.

I saw it for the second time a couple of days ago, it was very sweet, I still liked it. Mr Bean is unique, he is in a genre of his own; he is a silent movie- universally accessible. It's ridiculous that no one else has picked up on that. I should think it's made Rowan Atkinson a lot of money over the years.

I lie though, the French have a lot of stuff like this going on in film, that's why France was the perfect holiday for Mr B. The French still go for mime and physical comedy, that film Micmacs that I wrote about a couple of months ago, I don't know if I mentioned it but the lead character hardly says a word throughout... And of course Mr Bean in this film- harking back to the original series rather than Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie(1997) (which I also love)- has a vocabulary of about 6 words, one of them being "Bean".

Micmacs a tire-larigot (2009)

And now by comparison a brilliant and beautifully designed French film!

Now here was a nice surprise from the library. A French revenge comedy that featured an ensemble of homeless circus-freak-types (strong man, contortionist, human, cannonball, etc.) and yet it was not in the least bit grotesque, as sometimes these things can be- I found the freaks in The Vampire's Assistant(2009), a shit American kids film, too much - no this film knew what it was from the beginning, it was a bit of light relief. It was sensitive and sweet and most importantly it was very French; heavy on the traditional slapstick and mime, wonderful assortment of character actors, surreal plot and fabulous design in costumes and mad machines- think Wallace and Gromit but it's real!

Very obviously from the director of Amélie(2001), so if you loved that but you're sick of seeing it now, try this one, it's got one up on Amélie for me, it had a political message: satire on the world's arms trade!

The Misanthrope aka The Keira Knightley play (Comedy Theatre)

Keira has got a big head. Yeah she's got a small body but she has a big head too and that just emphasizes it more so! It's only when you see her head next to someone you know to have a massive head that you realize just how big it is. Next to Nick le Prevost, a thin man with a big head, Keira's head looked bigger. It was quite scary!

So enough about the diminutive starlet's stature. On with the play. I thought the actors all did really well with the parts they had been given, none of them very good parts let's face it, every single actor except Damien Lewis and Keira had hardly any time on stage but all tried extremely hard to make themselves noticed and of course it was the supporting cast who got all the laughs. They all did brilliantly but were not in it enough, however Tim McMullan did the best with his role and I have to say he was definitely noticed.

Yeah, that's Moliere for you, not new adaptations, just Moliere, that main part would have been for Louis IVX hence all the little cameos for whoever else was allowed to act along side the King. Damien Lewis didn't quite cut it for me, something lacking there, he wasn't tres believable. Keira did adequately but my favourite bit was when the sixth form group in front of me started texting each other as soon as La Knightley was not on stage.

La Chambre des Officiers (2001)

There's just something about the French, they really do make spectacularly beautiful films. The Offficer's Ward had wonderful cinematography but more importantly a poignant narrative. That's right, 'poignant', if America tried to tackle the same issues you can bet it would be sentimental, self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, patriotic, embarrassing shit.
This film covered all you'd expect from a story about a young man disfigured at the very beginning of the first world war, but it did it naturally. Nothing was ever discussed obviously in front of the camera no "issues" were "tackled" by "talking about it" (how American). His coming to terms with his disfigurment and guilt was slow and private and ultimately extremely realistic and moving.
I like war films that show the human sacrifice and the horrendous human waste, but I like them to be beautiful and romantic like poetry and this one was.

The Hypochondriac (ETT at the Cambridge Arts Theatre)

Moliere again, Le Malade Imaginaire was his final play. Liverpool poet Roger McGough has adapted Tartuffe in the past but steered clear of The Hypochondriac because he wasn't too keen on the scatalogical. I have to say I wasn't too keen either. Anyway, McGough wrote this translation that was first performed at the Everyman and the silly sod decided to write it in verse.
Yes verse. Rhyming that sometimes got in the way and not like the amusing half-crap-rhymes that were only there for a laugh. The audience was clearly impressed by the rhyming and at first just laughed at the end of every line because amazingly it rhymed with the last. I found that more irritating than the rhyming itself. Anyway, I got into it more than Anna because I do like silliness and I do like rhyme!

But, perhaps because it was Moliere's last play it seemed very very familiar, same old same old. It was a bit disjointed I thought, there were some excellent characters that were only cameos; at the beginning we were presented with the scheming wife's moustachioed lover- he was excellent but then never seen again. The wife herself, once found out was not seen again. The idiot was underused, he was hilarious, instead there was too much of the young (wet) lovers and the sense-talking brother. But Clive Francis and Leanne Best (as the Hypochondriac and his clever maid) were consistently good and Miss Best especially was very funny though at first her very deliberate delivery of the rhyming verse annoyed me I found that in the end it worked best for what was of course just a silly farce.

La Ronde (1950)

"Tournez vous, mes personages."

Creepiest song to have stuck in your head- EVER.

Then add the made-up lyrics: "Je suis Anton Walbrook, j'ai une ronde établi avec des boîtes de coco pops. Et un orchestre de singe..."

shudder!!

Yes, this was the song Anna made up while we let the dog out after the film, we were both in hysterics, it was probably a combination of tiredness and Anna's gift for the ol' French lingo (Though actually I remembered all that up there myself and the only word I couldn't remember was "établi").

The opening sequence; one-take Walbrook, brilliant. Genius. Perfect. (See above for fab opening sequence) The rest of the film; disturbing! Yeah, it opens with Walbrook as your narrator and owner of creepy metaphorical roundabout talking to his audience, walking along the streets of Paris, or is it on a stage? or is it a film set? Wow! That's some good panning and great timing! He takes off his 1950s coat and dons a cape and top hat quipping something or other about how he adores the past and continues to walk until he is in turn of the century Paris by his little carousel, he talks to a prostitute and then sings a song. This was my favourite bit of the film.

Not just because it was Walbrook and I love him, I was much more impressed with the idea, the whole thing being one long shot and the art direction... ok, I was really impressed by Walbrook too, such a good actor, perfect timing, perfect little looks at the camera. And hey, he speaks French too!?

Or does he? Later on we were treated to a dubbed Walbrook and some more dubbed actors. Were their accents and attempts really that bad? Ho hum.

So the theme is love is a roundabout, everyone is connected, sort of like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever it's called, but imagine it's called "Everyone in France has slept with everyone else- except Anton Walbrook." Ten couples, all connected by, uh, each other... Some of the stories were good, but some weren't. And mostly I just looked forward to Walbrook coming in as a waiter or a soldier or a bum and casting disapproving glances all over the shop. I think I'd like to see it again when I'm not so exhausted! I liked the little jokes, very very racy for 1950!! It wasn't really about love at all...

The actress and the Duke settling down to it, her sighing that he wouldn't have to come to the theatre to watch her as they could both watch themselves then the camera pans up to see them reflected in a huge mirror above the bed- Christ!- Cut to Walbrook holding a reel of film and some scissors, he raises an eyebrow: "Le censuré."

La Gloire de mon Père (1990) et Le Château de ma Mère (1990)

The two films are based on the autobiographies of Marcel Pagnol- the author of Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. I enjoyed the films because they reminded me so much of my childhood holidays to France, this sounds ridiculous as it was only the 80s/early 90s, but my fondest memories of holidays were our on-the-cheap-to-France; living in houses which were clearly just old barns, all sleeping in the same room- because there was only one room, lizards, crickets, rats, people's dogs coming in the house, walking around farmland and sneakily stealing corn and apples. This was what France was to me, it was rustic, old fashioned- cheap! The turn of the century France of the films I swear is the same France I holidayed in.

The people who own those holiday gaffs now have cashed in on them, done them up. We can't afford to stay there now, but if

we could it wouldn't be my childhood, there would be television and swimming pools- horror. I don't have much of a memory but I very clearly remember all of those early hols... The films are about the writer's summer holidays as a child (The house they summer in I'd say was much more up-market than the ones my family stayed in!) The colours and the sounds of the film are all spot on to how I romantically think of my first holidays (and all the dining scenes were perfect too! Huge spreads and all the family sitting down, ah! C'est magnifique!)

The plot, there's not much to it, it's a memoir, it's not supposed to be exciting, it's just beautifully made and charming. Wonderful narrative from Pagnol, perfectly identifiable feelings about one's parents, very sweet, romantic and because of the French humor (my favourite) not at all sentimental. The first film is Marcel losing faith in his schoolmaster father for the first time, but it is not lost for long. The Second film is set immediately after, the next day practically, and is the family returning to their holiday home where Marcel discovers girls (a horrible brat he is smitten by! Luckily he is soon disillusioned.) but mostly is about the family discovering a short-cut to their holiday home via a network of private passageways in the grounds of local manor houses.

Yes, I've said it before, the French can make spellbinding cinema about nothing. The films were nostalgic, romantic and beautiful, I fell in love with them. There are some hilarious scenes; attitudes and characters that would not exist in British or American cinema appear throughout and fill me with joy! A particular favourite was the angry gardener who runs up to the family swearing and brandishing a pitchfork shouting: "I'll kill you!" but whispers to the family, "The boss is watching, please forgive me, the old bastard- I hope he dies soon, next time go down by the tomatoes," "If I catch you here again I'll shoot you!!" "You'd better run, make it look good, I'm so sorry, have a nice holiday."

Brilliant.

Jean de Florette (1986) & Manon des Sources (1986)

The first French film I ever saw at the cinema ten years ago was Manon des Sources, stupid really because it's a sequel, well, not even a sequel, it's part two of one story. Finally I've seen Jean de Florette (part one) and then two hours later rewatched Manon.

I remembered everything that happened in part two, I remembered every scene. This might not mean much to you but it proves to me that I must have thought, aged 13, that it was a good story and very beautifully shot, even if I had no idea what was happening and who the bossu was... I say it must mean something because a few nights ago I went out with my pal Lauren who remembered a film we saw four years ago starring Robert DeNiro which I have no recollection of at all- and this was when I was teetotal!- Lauren, Susie and I went to see a lot of rubbish films, I never realised that poor Lauren has the misfortune of a working brain and so she remembers all this crap, I have a brain like a sieve and don't remember any of the DeNiro film, only that Greg Kinnear was in it and I think he looked anxious at one point, also the poster was grey.

I remembered the big secret that is revealed to Yves Montand at the end of Manon, but I didn't remember that he didn't know it from the beginning, so a lot of the time I was thinking "Why's he being such a horrific bastard?!" instead of just; "Why's he being such a bastard?!" I cottoned on eventually that this memory of mine must be the twist! And said nothing to Anna.

Jean de Florette is a film about two men who want to grow carnations but need the land recently inherited by a city hunchback and his family because it is the only land around that has it's own private spring. Yes, the French can make a film with this story and make it a spellbinding classic. Manon des Sources is a film about the hunchback's beautiful daughter getting revenge on the carnation growers.

So why are the French so obsessed with hunchbacks? Anyone see Le Bossu(1997) starring Daniel Auteuil? Yes, the hunchback bits were funny and Auteuil was at his peak of sexiness, but that film is ALL WRONG! Oh my God. You thought The Importance of Being Earnest was wrong ("Hey, that means we're cousins! Thank god! Now we can get married!") Le Bossu ends with father and daughter making out in front of a huge crowd of people- and this is supposed to be a happy ending!!

Anna asked after we'd watched the films tonight "which did you prefer?" They are two chapters of the same story, and the first half of Manon was as good as all of Jean de Florette but the second half was a little slow and I got the feeling maybe Manon was as intelligent as Ugolin as all she did was stare blankly at her supposed beloved with her massive eyes. It was only the introduction of the teacher as Manon's boyf that I think slowed it down, nobody cares about Manon's future, we care about her past and the revenge she's laying out! (Also we care about her goats and that cute noise she makes to summon them.)

Jean de Florette was a wonderful story full of excellent characters, Auteiul as creepy Ugolin and his puppet master Papet played by Yves Montand were really horrible, I hated them, and Gerard Depardieu was absolutely wonderful as the optimistic, enthusiastic and trusting bossu, Jean, he suited that hunch. My mum said that she found him irritating in the end, God she is such a hypocrite!! Jean is a city man who inherits a farm and just wants to live the dream, grow his own food and live a simple country life, the villagers all hate him because he's from the city and none of them tell him in two years that there is a spring practically under his  nose, they watch him suffer and eventually die. My mother moved from London to Yorkshire 20 years ago and people still react strangely to her, country folk don't like townies (or is it that northerners don't like southerners?).

Anyway, I loved Depardieu, I thought he was wonderful and I felt so sorry for him, I, like Manon, wanted to kill those two bastards!! Ah, Emmanuel Beart, so beautiful, yet vacant and kind of creepy in the end... Auteuil, you were so gross in those films, I realise now my first impression of you was probably as an ugly, retarded, pervert, and now you're one of my top pinups. And yet I had a feeling that in real life, off the screen, Beart and Daniel Auteuil probably were romantically linked... HA! They were together for ten years and have a daughter! Sick!!

Le Goût des Autres (2000)

I don't have much to say about it but I thought I'd start with the last film I saw.
I think my mum bought this one at Christmas and we finally got around to watching it on thursday after a hard day of bookbinding, pasting and cutting, etc. Usually we don't watch foreign films after a day of concentration (eyestrain and subtitles? I don't think so.) I think I was just so tired that I couldn't be bothered to protest!
First I'll set your minds at ease: French actress Anne Alvaro is NOT Rebecca Hall's mother despite looking EXACTLY like her. I am a tad disappointed by this, I was hoping Peter Hall had met her on a theatre tour of France, sigh, how romantic!
So the film is about a boring but well-meaning businessman discovering culture late in life. Picture your crass dad, who walks around art galleries laughing, suddenly finding he appreciates a piece of art. Maybe that's just my dad but I have a feeling it's most.
It's a comedy, but not slapstic (the French still make them! See Les Visiteurs and Le Dîner de Cons - both most excellent but often cringeworthy!!), maybe it's not politically correct to laugh at someone's misfortunes, that's why it's a French film not Hollywood, it all ends well for our lead so why not laugh at him on the way? "I don't want to live in a candy shop!!" was the subtitled quote I enjoyed the most, an awful wife is always a nice addition in a French film, for God sake, you want him to leave her to pine over the woman he's fallen in love-at-first-sight with! Off the top of my head I can't think of an American film where you wouldn't give a damn about the wife who's being abandoned!! Such good minor characters! The Chauffeur's life were the absolute best parts of the film for me.
It was a typical and simple wonderful French film about nothing in particular, the French could make a film about walking in the street and it would be fabulous (they probably have!). The first French film I saw at the cinema was a confusing tragedy, the title escapes me as I was only there to hang out with a bunch of cool new friends- who I remember fondly as a bunch of stoners. I do however remember it ending and us all shouting "The Piano!!!" and being thrilled that it ended with a shot of a piano on the back of a truck driving past the body of the dead lead. I think every so often in the film the director cut to an unconnected sub-plot of a little street boy who was a marvelous musician...So when the piano finally arrived after the boring film ended we were all so amazed and pleased that the two stories finally crossed over. The reason I'm writing about this piano incident is that the final scene of Le Goût des Autres is so ingenious, so brilliant that you forget that the film wasn't maybe your cup of tea and you just smile at how clever and ironic it is.