News From the Planet Mars
Director: Dominik Moll
Writers: Dominik Moll, Gilles Marchand
Cesar award winner Dominik Moll is back with his fifth film, News From the Planet Mars. Twice competing for the Palme d’Or (with his most notable work With a Friend Like Harry in 2005, and with the underrated Lemming in 2005), Moll tends to take five or six years between projects, with his adaptation of Matthew Gregory Lewis’ 1796 Gothic novel The Monk treated to an underwhelming response in 2011 despite starring Vincent Cassel. Reuniting with his regular scribe Gilles Marchand, Moll tries his hand at existential comedy with a tale about a stressed out dad and divorcé working as an executive of an It company and headed towards a mid-life crisis, a situation insisted by the arrival of a new, insane co-worker.
Cast: Francois Damiens, Veerle Baetens, Lea Drucker, Vincent Macaigne, Michel Aumont
Production Co./Producers: Diaphana Films’ Michel Saint-Jean,...
Director: Dominik Moll
Writers: Dominik Moll, Gilles Marchand
Cesar award winner Dominik Moll is back with his fifth film, News From the Planet Mars. Twice competing for the Palme d’Or (with his most notable work With a Friend Like Harry in 2005, and with the underrated Lemming in 2005), Moll tends to take five or six years between projects, with his adaptation of Matthew Gregory Lewis’ 1796 Gothic novel The Monk treated to an underwhelming response in 2011 despite starring Vincent Cassel. Reuniting with his regular scribe Gilles Marchand, Moll tries his hand at existential comedy with a tale about a stressed out dad and divorcé working as an executive of an It company and headed towards a mid-life crisis, a situation insisted by the arrival of a new, insane co-worker.
Cast: Francois Damiens, Veerle Baetens, Lea Drucker, Vincent Macaigne, Michel Aumont
Production Co./Producers: Diaphana Films’ Michel Saint-Jean,...
- 1/9/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine' 1938: Jean Renoir's film noir (photo: Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine') (See previous post: "'Cat People' 1942 Actress Simone Simon Remembered.") In the late 1930s, with her Hollywood career stalled while facing competition at 20th Century-Fox from another French import, Annabella (later Tyrone Power's wife), Simone Simon returned to France. Once there, she reestablished herself as an actress to be reckoned with in Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine. An updated version of Émile Zola's 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine is enveloped in a dark, brooding atmosphere not uncommon in pre-World War II French films. Known for their "poetic realism," examples from that era include Renoir's own The Lower Depths (1936), Julien Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937), and particularly Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939).[11] This thematic and...
- 2/6/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Sophie Lellouche’s love letter to Woody Allen and directorial debut Paris-Manhattan, begins with a homage to the great filmmakers familiar opening titles, with a simplistic white writing against a plain, black background. However they aren’t presented in the same, infamous Windsor font, and it’s this slight indifference which sets the precedence for how the rest of this picture will play out, as although certainly a charming and genial tribute to Allen, it just isn’t quite as accomplished or ingenious as his work.
Alice Taglioni plays Alice, a Woody Allen obsessive who runs the family owned pharmacy, where she believes that classic movies such as Manhattan and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) are the perfect remedy to her customers conditions. However such films can’t cure herself of loneliness, as she struggles to find a partner – despite her father...
Alice Taglioni plays Alice, a Woody Allen obsessive who runs the family owned pharmacy, where she believes that classic movies such as Manhattan and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) are the perfect remedy to her customers conditions. However such films can’t cure herself of loneliness, as she struggles to find a partner – despite her father...
- 7/4/2013
- by Stefan Pape
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Netflix has revolutionized the home movie experience for fans of film with its instant streaming technology. Netflix Nuggets is my way of spreading the word about independent, classic and foreign films made available by Netflix for instant streaming.
Sorry, folks… there are simply too many great films streaming this week to post an image for them all, but that’s a good thing, eh? You’ve got your movie watching work cut out for you, due in great part to Miramax releasing damn near their entire catalog of films on one day!
B. Monkey (1999)
Streaming Available: 05/01/2011
Director: Michael Radford
Synopsis: Good-hearted schoolteacher Alan Furnace (Jared Harris) desperately wants some excitement in his life — and he may just get some. One lonely night at a London bar, Alan spies the raven-haired beauty Beatrice (Asia Argento) arguing with two friends, Paul (Rupert Everett) and Bruno (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers). Beatrice quickly befriends Alan and...
Sorry, folks… there are simply too many great films streaming this week to post an image for them all, but that’s a good thing, eh? You’ve got your movie watching work cut out for you, due in great part to Miramax releasing damn near their entire catalog of films on one day!
B. Monkey (1999)
Streaming Available: 05/01/2011
Director: Michael Radford
Synopsis: Good-hearted schoolteacher Alan Furnace (Jared Harris) desperately wants some excitement in his life — and he may just get some. One lonely night at a London bar, Alan spies the raven-haired beauty Beatrice (Asia Argento) arguing with two friends, Paul (Rupert Everett) and Bruno (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers). Beatrice quickly befriends Alan and...
- 4/29/2011
- by Travis Keune
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
"Le Placard" (The Closet), the latest offering from Francis Veber, is a lightweight comedy lampooning political correctness. Veber brings back to the screen the character of Francois Pignon (Daniel Auteuil), last seen in his highly successful "Diner de Cons" (The Dinner Game). French filmgoers have flocked to see "Le Placard", and the film looks set to mimic the success of its predecessor. In its first week, there were 3 million admissions -- the strongest opening of any French film in nearly a year.
In previous Veber films, we have seen Pignon take several guises. Here, he is a gray, boring accountant in a large company who leads a gray, boring life. The day comes when he learns he's about to be sacked. To avoid losing his job, he starts a rumor that he is homosexual, guessing -- correctly -- that the boss would not dare to fire him for fear of accusations of discrimination.
The film plots Pignon's trials and tribulations, ending with that most loved of film cliches -- a victim who turns into a hero. Not only does Pignon keep his job, he's cured of his obsession with his ex-wife, reaches a new level of understanding with his teen-age son and, at the end of the film, gets the girl.
In the hands of a less subtle director, a film like this risks degenerating into a grotesque parody of how a straight man plays gay. Veber's talent is in leaving Pignon completely unchanged. As one character says to Pignon, it's not what you are that matters but what you are seen to be.
Auteuil excels as the self-effacing Pignon who gradually comes out -- of his shell, that is. But the rest of the cast members, particularly Gerard Depardieu, seem uncomfortable. Depardieu plays Santini, an unreconstructed homophobe forced to befriend Pignon to keep his job. Through his friendship with Pignon, the tough nut discovers that he has a soft center and more -- that perhaps he is himself a closet homosexual. As the macho bigot, Depardieu is good, but the big actor is less convincing when required to show a more sensitive side.
Interestingly, the only homosexual character in the film is Pignon's sympathetic neighbor (Michel Aumont) -- an old man whose sexuality cost him his livelihood many years ago. It's he who suggests that Pignon should pretend to be gay to keep his job.
Is Veber really trying to tell us attitudes have changed to such an extent that being homosexual is now an advantage? Any gay person watching this film must surely ask whether Veber is really in touch with how things are in France, where attitudes toward homosexuality lag considerably behind those in the United States and elsewhere in Europe. Perhaps Pignon's next incarnation will give us the answer.
LE PLACARD
Gaumont
Producers: Patrice Ledoux, Alain Poire
Screenwriter-director: Francis Veber
Director of photography: Luciano Tovoli
Music: Vladimir Cosma
Costume designer: Jacqueline Bouchard
Editor: Georges Klotz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Francois Pignon: Daniel Auteuil
Felix Santini: Gerard Depardieu
Guillaume: Thierry Lhermitte
Mlle Bertrand: Michele Laroque
Belone: Michel Aumont
Kopel: Jean Rochefort
Christine: Alexandra Vandernoot
Franck: Stanislas Crevillen
Running time -- 94 minutes
No MPAA rating...
In previous Veber films, we have seen Pignon take several guises. Here, he is a gray, boring accountant in a large company who leads a gray, boring life. The day comes when he learns he's about to be sacked. To avoid losing his job, he starts a rumor that he is homosexual, guessing -- correctly -- that the boss would not dare to fire him for fear of accusations of discrimination.
The film plots Pignon's trials and tribulations, ending with that most loved of film cliches -- a victim who turns into a hero. Not only does Pignon keep his job, he's cured of his obsession with his ex-wife, reaches a new level of understanding with his teen-age son and, at the end of the film, gets the girl.
In the hands of a less subtle director, a film like this risks degenerating into a grotesque parody of how a straight man plays gay. Veber's talent is in leaving Pignon completely unchanged. As one character says to Pignon, it's not what you are that matters but what you are seen to be.
Auteuil excels as the self-effacing Pignon who gradually comes out -- of his shell, that is. But the rest of the cast members, particularly Gerard Depardieu, seem uncomfortable. Depardieu plays Santini, an unreconstructed homophobe forced to befriend Pignon to keep his job. Through his friendship with Pignon, the tough nut discovers that he has a soft center and more -- that perhaps he is himself a closet homosexual. As the macho bigot, Depardieu is good, but the big actor is less convincing when required to show a more sensitive side.
Interestingly, the only homosexual character in the film is Pignon's sympathetic neighbor (Michel Aumont) -- an old man whose sexuality cost him his livelihood many years ago. It's he who suggests that Pignon should pretend to be gay to keep his job.
Is Veber really trying to tell us attitudes have changed to such an extent that being homosexual is now an advantage? Any gay person watching this film must surely ask whether Veber is really in touch with how things are in France, where attitudes toward homosexuality lag considerably behind those in the United States and elsewhere in Europe. Perhaps Pignon's next incarnation will give us the answer.
LE PLACARD
Gaumont
Producers: Patrice Ledoux, Alain Poire
Screenwriter-director: Francis Veber
Director of photography: Luciano Tovoli
Music: Vladimir Cosma
Costume designer: Jacqueline Bouchard
Editor: Georges Klotz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Francois Pignon: Daniel Auteuil
Felix Santini: Gerard Depardieu
Guillaume: Thierry Lhermitte
Mlle Bertrand: Michele Laroque
Belone: Michel Aumont
Kopel: Jean Rochefort
Christine: Alexandra Vandernoot
Franck: Stanislas Crevillen
Running time -- 94 minutes
No MPAA rating...
"Le Placard" (The Closet), the latest offering from Francis Veber, is a lightweight comedy lampooning political correctness. Veber brings back to the screen the character of Francois Pignon (Daniel Auteuil), last seen in his highly successful "Diner de Cons" (The Dinner Game). French filmgoers have flocked to see "Le Placard", and the film looks set to mimic the success of its predecessor. In its first week, there were 3 million admissions -- the strongest opening of any French film in nearly a year.
In previous Veber films, we have seen Pignon take several guises. Here, he is a gray, boring accountant in a large company who leads a gray, boring life. The day comes when he learns he's about to be sacked. To avoid losing his job, he starts a rumor that he is homosexual, guessing -- correctly -- that the boss would not dare to fire him for fear of accusations of discrimination.
The film plots Pignon's trials and tribulations, ending with that most loved of film cliches -- a victim who turns into a hero. Not only does Pignon keep his job, he's cured of his obsession with his ex-wife, reaches a new level of understanding with his teen-age son and, at the end of the film, gets the girl.
In the hands of a less subtle director, a film like this risks degenerating into a grotesque parody of how a straight man plays gay. Veber's talent is in leaving Pignon completely unchanged. As one character says to Pignon, it's not what you are that matters but what you are seen to be.
Auteuil excels as the self-effacing Pignon who gradually comes out -- of his shell, that is. But the rest of the cast members, particularly Gerard Depardieu, seem uncomfortable. Depardieu plays Santini, an unreconstructed homophobe forced to befriend Pignon to keep his job. Through his friendship with Pignon, the tough nut discovers that he has a soft center and more -- that perhaps he is himself a closet homosexual. As the macho bigot, Depardieu is good, but the big actor is less convincing when required to show a more sensitive side.
Interestingly, the only homosexual character in the film is Pignon's sympathetic neighbor (Michel Aumont) -- an old man whose sexuality cost him his livelihood many years ago. It's he who suggests that Pignon should pretend to be gay to keep his job.
Is Veber really trying to tell us attitudes have changed to such an extent that being homosexual is now an advantage? Any gay person watching this film must surely ask whether Veber is really in touch with how things are in France, where attitudes toward homosexuality lag considerably behind those in the United States and elsewhere in Europe. Perhaps Pignon's next incarnation will give us the answer.
LE PLACARD
Gaumont
Producers: Patrice Ledoux, Alain Poire
Screenwriter-director: Francis Veber
Director of photography: Luciano Tovoli
Music: Vladimir Cosma
Costume designer: Jacqueline Bouchard
Editor: Georges Klotz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Francois Pignon: Daniel Auteuil
Felix Santini: Gerard Depardieu
Guillaume: Thierry Lhermitte
Mlle Bertrand: Michele Laroque
Belone: Michel Aumont
Kopel: Jean Rochefort
Christine: Alexandra Vandernoot
Franck: Stanislas Crevillen
Running time -- 94 minutes
No MPAA rating...
In previous Veber films, we have seen Pignon take several guises. Here, he is a gray, boring accountant in a large company who leads a gray, boring life. The day comes when he learns he's about to be sacked. To avoid losing his job, he starts a rumor that he is homosexual, guessing -- correctly -- that the boss would not dare to fire him for fear of accusations of discrimination.
The film plots Pignon's trials and tribulations, ending with that most loved of film cliches -- a victim who turns into a hero. Not only does Pignon keep his job, he's cured of his obsession with his ex-wife, reaches a new level of understanding with his teen-age son and, at the end of the film, gets the girl.
In the hands of a less subtle director, a film like this risks degenerating into a grotesque parody of how a straight man plays gay. Veber's talent is in leaving Pignon completely unchanged. As one character says to Pignon, it's not what you are that matters but what you are seen to be.
Auteuil excels as the self-effacing Pignon who gradually comes out -- of his shell, that is. But the rest of the cast members, particularly Gerard Depardieu, seem uncomfortable. Depardieu plays Santini, an unreconstructed homophobe forced to befriend Pignon to keep his job. Through his friendship with Pignon, the tough nut discovers that he has a soft center and more -- that perhaps he is himself a closet homosexual. As the macho bigot, Depardieu is good, but the big actor is less convincing when required to show a more sensitive side.
Interestingly, the only homosexual character in the film is Pignon's sympathetic neighbor (Michel Aumont) -- an old man whose sexuality cost him his livelihood many years ago. It's he who suggests that Pignon should pretend to be gay to keep his job.
Is Veber really trying to tell us attitudes have changed to such an extent that being homosexual is now an advantage? Any gay person watching this film must surely ask whether Veber is really in touch with how things are in France, where attitudes toward homosexuality lag considerably behind those in the United States and elsewhere in Europe. Perhaps Pignon's next incarnation will give us the answer.
LE PLACARD
Gaumont
Producers: Patrice Ledoux, Alain Poire
Screenwriter-director: Francis Veber
Director of photography: Luciano Tovoli
Music: Vladimir Cosma
Costume designer: Jacqueline Bouchard
Editor: Georges Klotz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Francois Pignon: Daniel Auteuil
Felix Santini: Gerard Depardieu
Guillaume: Thierry Lhermitte
Mlle Bertrand: Michele Laroque
Belone: Michel Aumont
Kopel: Jean Rochefort
Christine: Alexandra Vandernoot
Franck: Stanislas Crevillen
Running time -- 94 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 2/21/2001
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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