Bonjour, bonjour, l’amour, Paris !

Today, I had a professional meeting about french cinema

And how people are interested in it overseas or just outside our area.

Well, Love and other disasters said we are the only one to do films showing the plain truth.

In 500 days of summer, a french movie has to be an obscure sad film or a sleuth.

Chuck, Vanilla Sky, Dawson Creek, The Emperor’s Club and Mad Men referred to Breathless

But that’s a fifty years old movie, so what are they saying about our recent movies success?

First, they are doing their own L.O.L., Dîner de cons and l’Arnacoeur,

That’s not the best selection but let’s hope they make them has good or, for some, better.

Then, they apparently appreciated our Artist which shows only good sense.

Finally, they really enjoy french clichés, almost each time, nice or full of romance.

So, it seems they kind of like us even though I’m not sure they really see us in our true face

But who hasn’t a strong opinion about something they don’t really know in the US?

Change of plans

I was, yesterday, at a sort of High School reunion for a charming evening out.

It made me change what this post would be about,

On top of impeding me from writing it on time for its Wednesday usual release.

I, as a matter of fact, realized that these events are a big thing in the US and increase.

I immediately found thousands of “top ten high school reunion movies” on the internet,

Apparently Roby and Michele’s was a high school reunion not to forget.

So many blogs and sites talks about those movies, I feel they are a full division,

Along with the “people getting married” category and the “girls and guns” section.

That sudden awareness discovered my total absence of knowledge in that particular area.

So this next week will probably be a true high school reunions movie feria,

Hoping to get to see what the fuss is all about and if it worth my approbativeness.

Even though pretty much everything gets it, when it comes from the US.

 

Sunday’s Review 26: The Paperboy

Breaking the taboos, the rules, the clichés and expectations can help art to rise. It may also look like a teenager rebellion and disappoint quite a bit. With The Paperboy, Lee Daniels attempts to break everything previously cited, and with those our good opinion of him.

An unfair trial gathers a lost swimmer, a gay journalist, his racist black associate, a psycho presumed killer and a dyed blond kind hearted girl. This standing out Famous Five team might have been embodied in a really fine cast but it seems the actors were all here only to break their image. It really works too! It gets us to forget the high school Zac Efron and the loyal lawyer Matthew McConaughey. We even lost sight of our classy Chanel’s muse Nicole Kidman. John Cusack is the only one we are used to see like that and as he did before, he does the job of scaring us away really nicely.

After moving us all with Precious, Lee Daniels also seems to be reaching for a way to make us forget about it. Is breaking all the successful previous ways a wise strategy to get something good and new? This movie certainly doesn’t prove it. The director decides to hide any ounce of feelings that might have come out of his characters and prefers spreading a nightmare of violence in all ways it could be shown.

Pulling the worst out of every scene, every part of the plot, it seemed hard to get us to appreciate such a film. Adding some cheesy choices of editing and storytelling, he made it definitely impossible, for me at least. The actors’ good acting could be saluted but they made their proofs a long time ago.

Breaking fine art doesn’t always make a Marcel Duchamp; it is, before all, destroying and is a tricky game. Lee Daniels tried to play it and lost.

 

Happy finding a present for your mother’s day

Tomorrow is my mother’s 50th birthday and even though I’m not going to be present,

I’ve been turning my mind upside down to find a proper present.

I could still go and try singing Alice’s merry unbirthday to me and see how it goes

Or argue that I clearly remember her birthday was last year as mother Gothel does.

I have no time to build her Kirsten Dunst genius road trip map from Elizabethtown

I guess I will have to find an idea of my own.

If I don’t want to make her feel like Rachel Green on her thirtieth,

I’d better find an idea as good as Sheldon’s way to get Amy’s forgiveness.

As she may be reading this I won’t go and tell you what it is going to be.

You might think this is only a way to hide the fact that I have no idea

And you might not be wrong but that is something I would never confess.

Now let me end up with this mystery, as anyone would do in the US.

Back to school

Starting a new year usually starts with going back:

Back to school, back to work, back on track.

I’m not going to be gleeclubing you with a pre-school pep talk,

Mostly because you certainly already went back to the old blackboard and chalk.

Robin Williams would certainly make you stand up on your desk for some reason

And Cameron Diaz, if she hasn’t put you in front of a bad movie, would be on the phone,

But I’m more of a Ed Harris’ That’s what I am and I’d make you talk about you;

I’d use a reference that I heard of in US movies and TV shows, yes, that’s what I do.

Someone like Truman Capote, Henry James or J. D. Salinger: quotation that sparks.

People I can name thanks to Save the Last Dance, Notting Hill and Ruby Sparks,

But I already annoyed you with the use of big and little screens for a knowledge-base

Last year. But isn’t repeating all over again what going back is all about, even in the US?