(Le Plaisir de chanter, 2008) French novelist-filmmaker Ilan Duran Cohen’s exuberant “anti-romantic comedy” is a musical, thriller and spy movie as well. Like many musically inclined French features of the past decade, it’s pleasingly bonkeroo. (But it still can’t top “Wild Grass,” the insolent new film from 87-year-old Alain Resnais, out in spring 2010.) To describe its sexy, funny turns would spoil much of the fun. A singing class rife with spies? Clandestine lovers who are spies? A widow’s secrets? A lighthearted joy, indeed. With Marina Foïs, Lorànt Deutsch, Jeanne Balibar, Julien Baumgartner, Nathalie Richard, Caroline Ducey, Guillaume Quatravaux, Evelyne Kirschenbaum, Frédéric Karakozian, Dominique Reymond. 99m. (Ray Pride)
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
RECOMMENDED
