Prête-moi ta Main
Fiancée for Hire
After a couple of French friends told me that Prête-moi ta Main was a witty French take on the great American romantic comedies of the 1930s, I decided to give it a try in spite of my low opinion of … Read More
Edited
Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Redecorated Home for Decorative Arts
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs, located in the Louvre’s 19th-century Marsan Wing, has finally reopened after a 10-year closure, during which both the building and its collection were extensively renovated and restored. The immediate impression is spectacular. Visitors enter the … Read More
The Science of Sleep
Stuck in Dreamworld
The new film, the first Gondry has both scripted and directed, stars that young actor the camera (and the audience) just loves, Gael Garcia Bernal. Oozing charm and boyish good looks as usual, he romps his way through this film … Read More
Nos Jours Heureux
Happy Campers
Nos Jours Heureux, directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, is the quintessential summer feel-good movie, recommended for adolescents and anyone who attended a French colonie de vacances (summer camp) in their youth. The critics were lukewarm on this one, … Read More
Ghosts of Saint-Michel
Saints Meet Sinners in City of Light
In his new thriller/murder mystery, Ghosts of Saint-Michel (St. Martin’s Minotaur), Jake Lamar, an American writer living in Paris, has used the sculptures on the city’s Saint-Michel Fountain, which vividly depict a triumphant Saint Michael vanquishing Satan’s forces, as both … Read More
Changement d’Adresse
Moving Lovers
Changement d’Adresse literally begins with postcards of Paris as its hero (Emmanuel Mouret), a young French horn player freshly arrived from the provinces, examines racks of postcards depicting his new hometown. Once he meets the film’s heroine, Anne (brilliantly played … Read More
Musée du Quai Branly
New Parisian Monument Opens
The rest of the collection more than lives up to this highly promising beginning. France’s wealth of magnificent pieces from various cultures of Oceania, Africa, Asia and the Americas – formerly hidden away in the still-existing Musée de l’Homme and … Read More
Dans la Peau de Jacques Chirac
Gueule d’Amour
In Dans la Peau de Jacques Chirac (Being Jacques Chirac), French television personality Karl Zéro and his collaborator Michel Royer have made a mock autobiography of Jacques Chirac by stringing together actual film clips from the French president’s 40-year political … Read More
Zidane: Un Portrait du XXIème Siècle
Feeling Blue
Sometime between June 23 and July 9, Zinedine Zidane will play his last-ever professional football (“soccer” to Americans) match, and an era will end. Zizou, as he’s affectionately known, is perhaps the greatest French footballer to have ever played (Michel … Read More
Musée de l’Orangerie
Sistine Chapel of Impressionism Reopens
The facade of the rectangular building known as the “Sistine Chapel of Impressionism,” located on the Seine side of the Tuileries Garden (and the near-twin of the Jeu de Paume on the north side), has been left intact, but the … Read More