France
Season Two of Braquo released on DVDSunday, 13 May 2012The second series of Braquo, France's hyper-real, dark and violent cops gone to hell drama is issued on DVD and Blu-ray 11 June as a two-disc box set. It’s currently still being aired on TV, but for anyone who has missed out so far this is... Read more... |
Le Quai des brumesFriday, 04 May 2012
“Atmosphère…atmosphère,” the tart played by Arletty barks at her boyfriend-pimp on a canal bridge in Marcel Carné’s 1938 Hôtel du Nord. She was furious with him for wanting to go fishing for a change of ambience, but the famous line – which later... Read more... |
Angel & TonyThursday, 03 May 2012
I have no idea why the original title of this fine first feature from Frenchwoman Alix Delaporte has been changed, from Angèle and Tony to the current one. Apart from the pointlessness, it also suggests the wrong tone entirely, since Angèle is... Read more... |
Interview: 10 Questions for Clotilde HesmeWednesday, 02 May 2012
Earlier this year Clotilde Hesme won the César, France’s equivalent to the Oscars, for “most promising actress” in the excellent, atypical love story Angel & Tony. One wonders if the voters have some kind of collective myopia, or simply don’t... Read more... |
iPads and smartphones go live with hip-hop dancingMonday, 30 April 2012
A new publicly funded UK web channel for performing arts opens tomorrow morning, preparing for a major launch this weekend streaming top international streetdancers to the web audience and publishing John Peel's notes on his record collection. The... Read more... |
Braquo, FXMonday, 30 April 2012
The first series of the French cops gone-to-pot drama ended with Lieutenant Eddy Caplan about to blow the head off his nemesis Serge Lemoine. Offing him was supposed to solve all Caplan and his team’s problems. Unfortunately, Lemoine was fitted with... Read more... |
Le MoineMonday, 23 April 2012
Incest, rape, torture and matricide, as well as an obligatory spot of cross-dressing, all played their part in making Matthew Lewis’s Gothic novel The Monk the scandalous success of its day. But with such stuff the bread and butter of Hollywood’s... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Cumbia Cumbia 1 & 2, Etienne de Crecy, The O'JaysSunday, 15 April 2012
Various: Cumbia Cumbia 1 & 2 Peter CulshawThese totally irresisitible compilations were originally issued as separate albums in 1989 and 1993, and were for many (including me) a first taste of this loping, vivacious sound, which originated... Read more... |
DVD: La Grande IllusionTuesday, 10 April 2012
Although only a couple of shots are fired in Jean Renoir’s 1937 La Grande Illusion, its stature as one of the greatest of anti-war films is unquestioned; perhaps only All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and Paths of Glory (1957) are comparable.... Read more... |
France Remembers Claude FrançoisSunday, 08 April 2012
If you’re not French, there are probably two things you know about Claude François: that he wrote “My Way” and that he died from electrocution when fiddling with a lighting fixture while in the bath. In France, however, he’s been part of pop-... Read more... |
Le HavreThursday, 05 April 2012
“Feel good” is a description applied far too frequently in reviews, often to movies which are formulaic and saccharine in the extreme. However, Le Havre is a film that’s begging to be described as just that, though it’s far from conventional or... Read more... |
The Kid With a BikeThursday, 22 March 2012
There are many directors who profess (or have claimed for them) one sort of naturalistic cinema or another, from Ken Loach in the UK, to Bruno Dumont in France and Lisandro Alonso in Argentina. It’s an odd characteristic of the Belgian brothers Luc... Read more... |
