Category: Movies

Les Choristes on the couch

After a short morning hike through the woods and a delicious  lunch with our friends Shirley and Jim,  along with special guest Grezelda from the village, I’ve finally surrendered to the head cold I’ve been fighting the past few days. Now I’m sniffling through what I hope is a restorative  nap on the sofa, while listening to Les Choristes soundtrack CD, which I bought in Paris for only $1.50.

This 2004 movie is about a new teacher winning-over his students at a brutal French boarding school through music. The Petits Chanteurs de Saint Marc choir supply the on-screen boys’ angelic vocals. Think Dead Poets Society, only the kids wear tight shorts and sing with very high voices (perhaps cause and effect). I joke. The film is excellent. Try it some evening.

‘From the Land of the Moon’ Review: Cotillard Deserves Better

After winning a surprising awards circuit sweep in 2007, Marion Cotillard found herself in a special position. Suddenly, she could command big Hollywood paychecks and also get European art house fare bankrolled just by signing on. Since then, she’s regularly leaped across oceans to do both. While there have been some brilliant movies made in Cotillard’s name, far too many have been like ‘From the Land of the Moon’. This stilted, dull, and often nauseatingly navel-gazing exercise in misery porn exists purely to let Cotillard emote hard and stare out in dull pain even harder. She’s good at it, but it would be nice if the movie surrounding all that acting offered as much to audiences as it did to the actress.Cotillard stars as Gabrielle, a woman who [ . . .  ]

More at ‘From the Land of the Moon’ Review: Cotillard Deserves Better – High-Def Digest: The Bonus View

“The Last Girl – the one that has all the gifts”, film of societal zombies

Colm McCarthy, with “The Last Girl” digs the furrow of the zombies that are everywhere and proliferate on screens, big or small. We were not expecting Glenn Close in a horror film that shoots on a worn-out rope. This would not count on our zombies presented in an unexpected, subtle and effective. [ . . .]
Read More “The Last Girl – the one that has all the gifts”, film of societal zombies

Merci, France!

La Seine a rencontré Paris

A 1957 French short documentary film directed by Joris Ivens from a screenplay by Jacques Prévert. Told from the perspective of a boat trip through the city, it features scenes of daily life along the river. The film won the short film Palme d’Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival.

Charlotte Gainsbourg, Reluctant Icon Of French Chic

By Phoebe Maltz Bovy

 

Charlotte Gainsbourg — daughter of French-Jewish singer Serge Gainsbourg and English actress (and handbag namesake) Jane Birkin — continues the family tradition of combining artistic excellence with Parisian glamorousness. Gainsbourg plays an important role in Joseph Cedar’s new film, “Norman”, and is also (oh to be so chic and part-French!) promoting a makeup line with Nars. And like any self-respecting representative of Frenchwoman style, Gainsbourg shares some beauty rituals but pushes back against the whole French beauty thing.

I want to be immune to the breathless (heh) items about how to look like a Parisienne, but I click, I always click. Even if the answer — as per Gainsbourg, and as per all ten trillion articles of this type — is to wear less foundation if you wish to look more French. Well, not exactly — it’s that French ladies supposedly wear less foundation than their American equivalents. Which may well be, but I have it on good authority (the mirror) that an American woman can eschew foundation and not look even the least bit French.

Source: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Reluctant Icon Of French Chic – The Forward