Coco Before Chanel

I love watching French movies and have previously seen Audrey Tautou in other movies notably Amelie which was a fun quirky movie. This movie is a drama based on Coco before she became famous. I thought it was well done and put together well. The acting was good and overall the movie was entertaining.

I enjoyed it and hope you to do too. Cheers!



Netflix summary:

Audrey Tautou stars as legendary French designer Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel in this lively biopic that explores the fashion icon's storied ascension from orphan to seamstress and cabaret singer and ultimately, the queen of Parisian haute couture. Alessandro Nivola plays Arthur "Boy" Capel, Chanel's lover and influential business investor who makes a lifelong impact on the young woman. Anne Fontaine directs this Oscar nominee for Best Costume Design.

Cast:Audrey Tautou, Benoit Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola, Marie Gillain, Emmanuelle Devos, Régis Royer, Etienne Bartholomeus, Yan Duffas, Fabien Béhar, Roch Leibovici

Prête-moi ta main aka I Do: How to Get Married and Stay Single

This was a movie that redeems itself in the end. In the beginning, I didn't care for any of the characters. They were all arrogant, rude, and selfish. However as the movie progresses, the characters become better developed and you start to like them.

The whole storyline is different and completely unpredictable. Of course, the ending was done in Hollywood fashion, so that part was telegraphed. Even so, the movie was entertaining and enjoyable. I think if this was an American made movie it may have just been simply corny.

This is a French movie and requires reading English subtitles unless you understand the language. I couldn't find a preview with the subtitles.

Netflix Summary:

Successful perfume executive Luis (Alain Chabat) is happily single, but his mother and sisters want him to settle down. After they arrange a string of disastrous blind dates, Luis concocts a crazy scheme that will make his family happy without his getting married. All he needs to do is hire a girl to act as his fiancée and then dump him at the altar. But when Luis meets Emmanuelle, the plan takes a turn he never anticipated in this French comedy.

L'annulaire aka The Ring Finger

This was another French foreign movie that I thought would be good. The movie was actually engaging from beginning to end. The acting was fine and the story line was well paced. Not too fast and not too slow.

The problem is there are too many questions left unanswered. There is a picture of the conservator that Iris (the main character) finds from many years ago, but he has not aged since that picture was taken. All the other ladies in the picture have grown old. Is this a conservator trick? Why hasn't he aged? Is he the devil, a spirit, or even a real person? Who is the little boy ghost who keeps peeking out? Why do they even have the sailor character in the movie? Why does it take her a day and half to pick up the broken mahjong set?

They hook up during the movie, and the way they go about it is really awkward. Even the first love scene was surreal. One thrust and it was over. And they start to converse. No kissing, no hugging, nothing. Pretty hard to believe that particular scene.

In the end, there are too many metaphors to determine what happens and why it happens in the end. It isn't a David Lynch type of movie where enough clues allow you to speculate what happens next. It just leaves you with an unsatisfied feeling. It had all the elements of being a great movie, but for me fails in the way it ends.

The music in the movie by Beth Gibbons (of Portishead) was quite nice. My wife found the mp3 for it online. It wasn't one of the 3 songs in the credits.

I would not watch the movie again and so I can't recommend you watching it either.




Netflix summary:

After losing part of her finger in an industrial accident, gorgeous Iris (Olga Kurylenko) takes a job as an assistant to a man (Marc Barbé) running a lab where people bring keepsakes to be preserved -- and enters his strange, slightly disturbing reality. As she becomes ensconced in an odd, sensuous world of fetishes, ghosts and hauntingly silent unclaimed mementos, Iris falls into a steamy, bizarre affair with her boss in this erotic drama.

Lila Says "Lila dit ca" good foreign movie to watch

This was a French movie that I really enjoyed. The subject matter is more of a young love or first love story set in a lower class part of the city. There is also the subject of racism and shows how a person deals with it among his friends and peers.

From Netflix:

Based on a controversial French novel, Lila Says tells the story of a quiet young poet named Chimo (Mohammed Khouas) who develops a crush on the pretty, blond Lila (Vahina Giocante), a girl who recently moved into his Arab ghetto with her aunt. When the leader of a rival gang also falls for Lila, the ensuing love triangle initiates a journey of sexual discovery -- and sets off a chain of devastating events.

Lila Says

stardotstar™ | MySpace Music Videos


I used this particular video because it has the subtitles in English below. All the other ones on youtube seemed to lack them. Of course this doesn't matter if you speak French, but unfortunately I don't. I really wish I could have used a different clip, but beggars can't be choosey.

Bottom line, I enjoyed the film and would recommend it if you enjoy a good French romantic movie that doesn't have a typical Hollywood ending.

Julie & Julia gets an A+

I had low expectations of this movie based on the preview. I know it had some big talent such as Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, and Stanley Tucci. They are all great actors. However, there are many movies with great talent that end up disappointing. This movie did not only deliver but surprised me.

This is the netflix summary:

Amy Adams stars in this truth-inspired tale as Julie Powell, a disenchanted government secretary who decides to enliven her uneventful life by cooking all 524 recipes outlined in Julia Child's culinary classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Based on Powell's book Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, director Nora Ephron's heartwarming dramedy also stars Meryl Streep as legendary chef Child.

It is very accurate in its description, but the execution of the movie was great. The characters are well developed and likable. The storyline has the time frames switching back and forth from the 1940s to the 2000s (after the 9/11 tragedy) which kept the pace of the movie at a good rate and engaging.

The images of France are beautiful and learning about Julia Child was actually quite interesting. I have never seen her cooking shows and knew very little about her. I do like the historic reference to the McCarthyism days in America where everyone was being accused of being a communist.

The images of New York are more closer to reality of present day America. I think it even provides a glimpse of the daily struggles most Americans are experiencing today. This is based on a true story of a new blogger becoming successful at writing.

Overall, I recommend watching this movie. I hope you like it as much as I did.

Both trailers are the same below, but the first one loads up slow. The second one loads up faster but doesn't play outside of America for some reason.

Cheers!

More about this movie

"The Class" gets a D minus

The Class (Entre les murs) is a foreign French movie that had many great raving reviews on Netflix. I watched this movie with high expectations and when I finished I have to be honest and say it was stupid. I know those are harsh words but really it was very annoying.



The school is suppose to be one of those poor ghetto areas where everyone lives a hard life. They used real students and the real teacher this was based on. Well, you don't like the students and the teacher is even worse. No one is likable in this movie. That's a problem.

Then there is the storyline. The teacher character as a teacher sucks. From what they show in the movie, he kind of just rambles on most of the time. He has no structure in the class, and the students are all portrayed as idiots. The teacher offers no motivation to learn, no structure to follow, and constantly belittles the kids as well as call some of them as "skanks" in the movie.

Seriously, for the people who liked this movie, you must have seen something I didn't see. The premise sounded good, but execution and storyline were miserable. I would not recommend this movie even to fall asleep to. That is how bad it is. Yes, I have seen worse movies, but this had potential.

If you want to see a similar movie that is better made, then I recommend you watch the old "Stand and Deliver" with Edward James Olmos and Lou Diamond Phillips. It is based on a true story and very inspiring.

A Girl Cut In Two

This movie seemed to have a lot of potential. The description looked good, the reviews were better than decent, and the trailer was interesting. On top of that, it was a French movie and I just love listening to that language.

What can I say, I watched the movie and it was awful. The actors were good but the characters they played were people you just didn't care for. I hated the characters, the storyline, and the pace of the movie was just a bit faster than a snail. Anyways, don't watch it unless you need a movie to put you to sleep.

A Girl Cut in Two Official Trailer
by ifcfilms