Trailer: Paris

Paris finally came out in the UK, albeit only at one London cinema, a few weeks ago, and I’m hoping to go and see it this week. The cause of my excitement is that it reunites Cédric Klapisch with Romain Duris. My favourite French director and actor last worked together on L’auberge Espagnol, which (quelle surprise!) is my favourite French film… well, joint with Paris je t’aime and The Science of Sleep, anyway. It looks like a brilliant film and I am extremely excited about going to see it, even if I’ll probably have to go on my own and spend at least £10 to do it – it will be worth it not to have to wait however many months it is til the DVD release.

Trailer: The Ten

Adam Brody and Paul Rudd in one film? I’m there!

News

• The wonderful Swedish director Lukas Moodysson is currently hard at work on his first English-language film, Mammoth, and I was extremely excited to hear that it will star the beautiful and brilliant Gael Garcia Bernal! I could hardly dream up a better pairing so I’m bursting in anticipation to find out more and see the film when it’s finished, although it sadly won’t be out until 2009!

• Now out in Europe is the new film directed by and starring the lovely Julie Delpy, best known for the ace films Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. It’s called 2 Days In Paris and is a bit more of a mainstream comedy of culture clashes, but it still looks good and it seems to be doing quite well as well, so perhaps it will help some more people discover her previous work.

• One of my favourite books of all time is Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, and the TV series of it is considered a classic, so the new film version has a lot to live up to. I’m sure Emma Thompson will rise to the challenge as Lady Marchmain, but I’m less sure of Matthew Goode, who was quite wooden in Chasing Liberty and Imagine Me And You, as the lead character Charles Ryder.

Trailer: Broken English

This looks like a really nice film, but it’s not helping with my extreme desire to meet a beautiful French boy to fall in love with. “I hope you find a penis!” made me LOL quite literally, but really there is no lovelier sound than a French man speaking English.

Trailer: Rocket Science

This looks good! A sweet American indie film about a geeky teenager who gets into the school debating team. Sounds a lot like Thumbsucker but I liked that film so I’m sure I’ll like this one too.

Trailers: British Film Special

There are very few British films that I would count among my favourites, and I don’t know if any of these will be joining them, but I do think they’ll be worth seeing:

Atonement

I’ve not read the book but I’ve heard great things about it and that this film is a good adaptation, although quite unsurprisingly the focus has been increased on Keira Knightley’s character. I love James McAvoy but I hated Romola Garai in Daniel Deronda, so we’ll have to see if she can win me over.

Hallam Foe

Now this actually looks like the kind of film I’d normally see – something like Art School Confidential or Thumbsucker, but it’s British. I haven’t seen Jamie Bell in anything since Billy Elliott, so it’ll be interesting to see how he is as an adult actor.

Review: Empire Records

At this rate I’m going to run out of superlatives by the end of the week, because I’ve just discovered yet another favourite film. I can’t believe this film has existed for the last 12 years and no-one thought to make me watch it, when it is so clearly one of the best films of the 90s. I’m not sure anything can oust Clueless as my fave 90s comedy, but it’s definitely up with The Brady Bunch Movie.

I loved all of the characters in this film, especially Lucas, AJ, Eddie, Mark and Gina. Lucas was like Pacey from Dawson’s Creek with a little of Seth from The OC’s humour, so I wonder if either of those characters were inspired by him. AJ was adorably sweet and looked like Kavana did in the 90s, which was a good look (at the time!). Eddie and Mark reminded me extremely of some lovely friends of mine, and Eddie also made me want to watch White Oleander again because Patrick Fugit’s character looks just like him. Gina is played by Renée Zellweger, and while I’m ambivalent about Renée as an adult actress, as a teenage character (although she was actually 26 in 1995) she was exceedingly ace.

Not very much happens in this film – in fact, it’s all set within one day, but it’s the strength of characters and humour which make it brilliant. Personally I prefer films like this, because although a fast-moving, exciting film can be thoroughly enjoyable, I find that a film with great characters and a general good vibe will stick with me and be fun to watch again and again. If a film is just about the plot’s twists and turns, then once you’ve seen it once or twice it’s too predictable and holds no interest. A film like this will never run out, and I am off to buy my copy right away. If you haven’t seen it I suggest you do the same, or just search for it on YouTube because the whole movie is there!

Review: Paris, je t’aime

I have rarely been as excited about seeing a film as I was about this one, so it was a bit of a worry that I might be disappointed, but I’m very pleased to say with absolute certainty that there was not a thing disappointing about this brilliant film project. The idea is that a selection of the best film-makers in France and worldwide would make a short film each about Paris and love and the love of Paris. It is a treat for Francophiles and film buffs alike, as you can spot all the most wonderful Paris landmarks while keeping an eye out for your favourite film stars and directors.

Paris Je T’Aime is an independent/world cinema-lover’s dream. For me almost every section held some excitement, whether it was an actor from or director of one of my favourite films. Just to explain how exciting this was, let me list all the actors and directors I jumped for joy at the appearance of, and the reasons why: Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham), Gus Van Sant (Elephant), Gaspard Ulliel (A Very Long Engagement), Elias McConnell (Elephant), Steve Buscemi (Ghost World), Juliette Binoche (Chocolat), Ludivine Sagnier (8 Femmes), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko), Elijah Wood (Everything Is Illuminated), Emily Mortimer (Bright Young Things), Rufus Sewell (A Knight’s Tale), Alexander Payne (Election), Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) and Natalie Portman (Garden State). Most of those films are in my top picks of all time, so if you are still reading this, can I ask why? If you’re not racing off to buy your cinema ticket or at least pre-order the DVD, this is really not the blog for you.

This film is really a summary of every reason that independent and world cinema is so many millions of times better than the commercial blockbusters. I can’t see why anyone would rather watch the latter when actors, actresses and film-makers like these ones exist. The film is mostly in French, even some of the sections with non-French directors and actors, giving it a properly French feel as opposed to packaging Frenchness for an outside audience. France is probably my favourite country for films (think Science of Sleep, L’auberge Espagnol, Amelie etc.) but it’s even better to have the special French touch mixed in with a variety of the most talented film-makers and actors in the whole world. It’s like a pick and mix of film brilliance, and I couldn’t have made it up better myself!

The unusual format of the film may prevent it from getting all the critical acclaim it deserves, but I hope everyone who even slightly enjoys foreign or independent films will see this, because it will open up a whole world of brilliant but often hidden talent that is so much more exciting than the endless series of remakes and sequels provided by the mainstream film outlets. As a taster, here are some of my favourite sections, which I have found on YouTube:

Faubourg Saint-Denis – beautiful and inspiring! Stars Natalie Portman, playing a similar character to Garden State.
Père-Lachaise – two lovely English actors show how British cinema could be just as great as French if we tried.
Tour Eiffel – I don’t normally like mime but this is hilarious and wonderful.

Bumper Film Review Post

I’ve seen quite a few films lately as it’s the summer and I’m not exactly bursting with busy-ness, but the holidays also have a tendency to make me immensely lazy so I haven’t gotten around to reviewing many of them. I will now rectify this by providing you with my thoughts ‘in briefs’ (and the films will indeed be marked out of briefs, because I couldn’t resist that highlarious pun) on some of the things I’ve seen in the past few weeks…

(NOTE: More briefs are good, not bad in the sense of the film being pants!)

A Good Year
I must admit it was the trailer that made me watch this, because it has Alizée’s gorgeous hit single Moi… Lolita as its soundtrack, and it also stars one of the loveliest actresses around, Marion Cotillard (Love Me If You Dare, Innocence etc.). A Good Year was not a terrible film but it was not a very exciting one either. It did improve towards the end but compared to actual French films (as opposed to this which is only set in France) it captured only the beauty of France and its people, not their spirit. And where was the hot young Frenchman that all French films absolutely have to have? Couldn’t they bring in Romain Duris or Gaspard Ulliel for a cameo, even Guillaume Canet would do!

Hairspray
Being a big fan of modern musicals, as I mentioned in my last post, it was no surprise I loved this film. It was interesting to see it just after Dreamgirls as it’s set at a similar time and covers some of the same issues (for example songs written by black artists being given to white ones) but from a different perspective, as the main characters are white. The music is great and the whole thing is very jolly in a High School Musical-ish way – if you enjoyed that you’ll definitely like Hairspray. My sister thought it was “too weird”, which we now know (since she disliked Dreamgirls) is a very positive sign!

Running With Scissors
I finally got to see the film version of the best book I’ve read this year, and luckily it didn’t live up to my cautiously low expectations. I didn’t expect it to be as good as the book but actually I think it captured Augusten’s unique perspective pretty well and did the book justice as much as possible. I even found myself not really hating Rachel Evan Wood, which was quite a shock, as you’ll agree if you read my review of Thirteen. I would definitely recommend this film, but I recommend the book even more.
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Review: Dreamgirls

My expectations for this film weren’t high as my sister had termed it “rubbish”, but it turns out her taste is even worse than I feared, because this film is excellent! It’s quite long, but needed to be if they were to include all the main songs from the original musical and still have a decent plot. Being a big fan of Motown music, I loved the songs and also enjoyed spotting all of the references to Motown stars such as Diana Ross and the Jackson 5. The characters and plot were good too, unlike many musicals where these aspects aren’t important, and I can understand now why the musical did so well.

I hated Jennifer Hudson on American Idol, finding her truly unlikeable as a person, but she somehow makes a very engaging character of Effie White and her vocals certainly outshine Beyoncé, although that may just be because we’re used to Beyoncé already – I’ve seen her sing live and you could not say her voice was anything but brilliant. The first half of the film is very much from Effie’s perspective but Deena (Beyoncé’s character) takes the lead both in the group and the film in the second half, which was the second act in the stage musical.

This has got me in the musical mood now and I’m off to add all the ones I haven’t seen to my online rental list. Any recommendations would be great. There haven’t been many musical films out in the 2000s that I haven’t loved (The Phantom of the Opera is the only one I can think of that I saw and disliked), so I’ve compiled a top 10 of my favourites:

1. Moulin Rouge
2. High School Musical
3. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
4. Dreamgirls
5. Get Over It
6. Camp
7. Happiness of the Katakuris
8. Save The Last Dance
9. Chicago
10. Bride & Prejudice

Narrowly missing the list were Honey and 8 Femmes, among others. Tomorrow I’m off to see Hairspray so I look forward to seeing how it will rank.