French films: 'Frankly tits' ?

[lang rabbie]

You think James Bond is cool? You think Han Solo is cool? You think John Shaft is cool? Well they're not bad, but they're not as fucking cool as Alain Delon in Le Samourai. Highly recommended for a rain lashed October Sunday afternoon, best watched with a jug of black coffee and a pack of Gitanes by your side. Mr fucking ice.

I remember we ran a Delon mini-retrospective at our Uni film society. After showing Le Samourai he was seen as the epitome of cool. But then we showed an ancient print of his 1960 debut in Plein Soleil, and the eruption of lust amongst well brought up home counties gals was unprecedented...

 

[Taxamo Welf]

I remember we ran a Delon mini-retrospective at our Uni film society.

Exactly, now this is what i took 'film society' to mean at a university! A place to do restrospectives of old foreign directors, to celebrate GOOD films for their own sake from all over the world.

I am disillusioned.

 

[MarkMark]

French films are no better or worse than other films, but good ones often get overlooked because we're always pummelled with the run-of-the-mill hollywood stuff.

Anyone ever seen a french docu-drama film called "Etre et Avoir"? It's about a primary school teacher, who is about to retire. One of the best films I've seen in years.

 

[where to]

britain does music,
france does film.

 

[Idris2002]

They've got some good ones: Cousin Cousine comes to mind, as does Chocolat.

That's all I'm going to think up, because it's 6:30.

What did you think of _Decline of the American Empire_ and _Barbarian Invasions_ JC2?

 

[kakuma]

yeah

fuck off

idiot

 

[Idris2002]

La Grande Illusion? A moi, c'est pas mal.

But the reaction of an acquaintance I recommended it was 'this is fecking shite'.

Different strokes, etc., etc.,

Can anyone remember the name of a trilogy of French films that came out last year or the year before, about a Baader-Meinhoff type guy serving life who busts out of jail and tries to hook up with his ex-comrades, not all of whom are glad to see him? Each of the three films was done from the POV of a different character, and in a different style (thriller, comedy, melodrama).

One of the female leads was Ornella Muti, and she could 'lead' me anytime, hur hur.

 

[Idris2002]

He really likes les choristes saying, ''french films are tits, which is why les choristres is such a welcome surprise'' ! That was how this whole thing arose in the first place, in a review of les choristes!

[that thud you just heard was the boy in question hitting the canvas. Sover.]

Ha! Les Choristes was perfectly good for what it was, and I don't regret seeing it all, but for someone who's supposedly at uni to develop his brain to rate it as the best thing since sliced pain. . .

 

[kakuma]

yeah and italian films are shit as well

and german films

we should just watch american films all the time

 

[maya]

Well I've never seen those films, I'm just saying that the French comedies I have seen in the past that were described as 'hilarious' made me want to gouge my eyes out. I think the problem here is that I almost invariably don't like 'hilarious' films

While British humour rely a lot on puns and verbal humour, French humour seems to focus more on slapstick and visual comedy- perhaps because the language is a bit more longwinded and clunky, and not as easily mutated on the spot (this seems to be the case with german humour aswell)

That said, Rowan Atkinson 'borrowed' his entire oeuvre and the Mr. Bean character from Jacques Tati's classic 'Mr. Hulot' films...

A lot of french humour seems a bit corny or old-fashioned to us, exactly because it's got so little to do with language and so doesn't seem as 'clever'...

 

[beekeeper]

Nice one maya for bringing this 2005 thread to my attention.

Maybe someone can help me find a french film I've seen a few years ago at the Riverside about a family dinner where a family is meeting for their yearly coming-together at a restaurant (which is run by one of the family members). As with all families, harmony quickly turns into resentment and pain (not without some comedy moments). - Can't find anything on IMDB.

*lives in hope*

 

[Red Cat]

Nice one maya for bringing this 2005 thread to my attention.

Maybe someone can help me find a french film I've seen a few years ago at the Riverside about a family dinner where a family is meeting for their yearly coming-together at a restaurant (which is run by one of the family members). As with all families, harmony quickly turns into resentment and pain (not without some comedy moments). - Can't find anything on IMDB.

*lives in hope*

Un Air de Famille

 

[miss minnie]

Comme une image sticks in my mind as being a relatively recent French film that I really enjoyed.

 

[Gromit]

A french film thread that hasn't descended into arguing over whether Betty Blue is crap or not crap Gasp.

Though i may just have triggered that....

Just to make sure


p.s. I prefer Spanish and Swedish films to French.

 

[Greebo]

<shrug> Your loss.

 

[beekeeper]

Un Air de Famille

Thank you Red Cat! That is the one!

 

[petee]

"tits" means 'bad'??
because y'know, tits.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Delicatessen and La Haine are in my top ten favourite films ever. I love Truffaut as well. I haven't seen Amelie for the simple reason that everyone loves it and I'm a miserable git who always assumes that something everybody loves must be insufferable shite.

 

[Ceej]

Went to see La Rafle last night at the Everyman in Hampstead - new-ish film about the round and disposal of immigrant Jews in 1942 in the Vichy area. Nothing new, but understated and incredibly moving with the usual can't-get-your-head-around statistics - 30,000 put on the trains, 25 known survivors ...and all at the instigtation of the French government, who used the German occupation as an opportunity to get rid of their undesirables. A glossed-over episode in French history even now. Q & A with the director and producer afterwards.
Pretty good as French films go. And Jean Reno is fab.

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/the-round-up/trailer

 

[miniGMgoit]

French Horror is amazing at the moment.

High Tension
Frontiere
Martyrs
The Horde

To name but a few.
The French own horror at the moment.

Amelie can fuck right off though. That film got me very angry. I hated the character.

And I really disliked I Stand Alone and the one he done after too.

 

[Zabo]

I've lost count of how many French films I have watched or own but there is one thing with which they do have a penchant for and that is: yakking films and pretension regards the arts.

A classic talk-talk-talk film is Parlez-Moi De La Pluie. Wow! Great title, could be a film about Manchester. Let's talk about the rain indeed. As for those about the arts. I wish I had a fiver for every French film I've seen where somebody or other is either studying the piano, turning over the score, playing the banjo or killing somebody with a violin! Even France's own much loved brute, Depardieu, has done a bit of dabbling with his instrument in Tous Les Matins Du Monde.

The most recent of the talk-talk-talk films is Canet's Les Petits Mouchoirs. He should stick to acting because this latest offering is nothing but bourgeois bollox that's been done ad nauseum. Seriously, who gives a monkey's fuck about a bunch of middle class frogs venting their spleen about their worldly woes and anxieties? Not I for sure.

Having said all that I think they make some of the best and original films in the world such as À l'Origine, and anything by Besson, Jean-Jacques Beineix. Jeunet, Claude Berri, Claude Chabrol, Bertrand Tavernier and the loony but gifted Léos Carax.

Add your own to the list avoiding the clichés - e.g. Truffaut and Godard (merde!).

 

[blueplume]

nothing interesting in Besson's cinema: no story or "two balls" stories, fashionable with action, that's all!
in today's moviemakers have a look for exemple at Jacques Audiard, Tony Gatlif, there's a real work

 

[maya]

Les rivières pourpres (the Crimson Rivers) from 2000 is a great french horror/ action thriller I'd recommend to anyone-
with excellent performances from Jean Reno and others, and a great over-the-top pulp plot about sinister goings-on in remote alpine villages and eerie top secret experiments at an isolated elitist university (can't reveal any more without spoiling it for you, but it's the film equivalent of a no-nonsense pageturner)
I came across this film completely by accident, had no expectations whatsoever, and was absolutely blown away...

(There's also a sequel, which isn't as good). Pretty sure this film is available with english subtitles.

 

[stuff_it]

Even the shitty action films are better than some other shitty action films that you get from the states... Balenuie 13 anyone? And the sequel...it is what it is, but it's fucking miles better than most of the shite Hollywood churns out.


Slang lesson: If something is tits it's bad, if it's 'the tits' it's good....

 

[blueplume]

Even the shitty action films are better than some other shitty action films that you get from the states... Balenuie 13 anyone? And the sequel...it is what it is, but it's fucking miles better than most of the shite Hollywood churns out.
...

why are you comparing french and us movies? it's not the purpose, is it?

 

[stuff_it]

why are you comparing french and us movies? it's not the purpose, is it?

Um, well something can't be 'tits' if it's the best available form of the art can it? I was pointing out that even quite cheesy French action flicks are better than their nominally more popular US counterparts. They are generally better than Bollywood action flicks, though with less silliness and singing.

If it were 'are French films tits even though they are the best in the world...in fact is cinema tits in general' I could agree with you, but I didn't notice anything like that in the OP.

 

[Stoat Boy]

To be fair my love of French films came about due to a teenage discovery that if BBC2 where showing a French film on a Saturday night after 10.00pm it invariably showed a fair bit of tit. And usually jolly lovely tit at that.

My own favourite french films however dont really have any tits in them.

'Le Dîner de Cons' and 'L627' are the ones that I return to again and again but I tend to like most of the French stuff that I see. Then again I tend to only watch films that appeal to me in the first place.