Good things come in small packages (or so my wife assures me), and that can certainly be the case when it comes to films. Part of the genius of short films is that when they’re good they are just as entertaining and rewarding as something twenty times the length, and when they’re bad, well, at least they’re over quickly. In all walks of life there’s a satisfying beauty to brevity, and in filmmaking it’s nearly always the case that less is best – as anyone who has sat through Judd Apatow’s self-indulgent snore-fest Funny People can attest (surely Irritating People would have been a better title?).
But I digress – I’m here to praise, not malign, and so below I’ve compiled a little list of what I consider to be among the five best short films of all time. Of course, like a lot...
But I digress – I’m here to praise, not malign, and so below I’ve compiled a little list of what I consider to be among the five best short films of all time. Of course, like a lot...
- 9/16/2011
- by Jez Gee
- Obsessed with Film
The latest Hollywood remake of a brief, moderately inventive French comedy transposes Francis Veber's Le Dîner de cons (1998) from Paris to Los Angeles. In the original, publisher Thierry Lhermitte gets into all kinds of trouble when he conspires to bring a dim, bald, accident-prone accountant (Jacques Villeret) to a club of supercilious sophisticates who compete to bring the most stupid guest to a monthly dinner party. In the French version the guest makes matchstick versions of the Eiffel Tower; in the remake he stuffs dead mice to construct bizarre tableaux of everything from The Last Supper to Munch's The Scream. Roach's crude, tasteless, unfunny movie is even worse than his Meet the Fockers, and sets back the cause of healthy bad taste by a decade.
ComedyDramaSteve CarellPhilip French
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ComedyDramaSteve CarellPhilip French
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds...
- 9/4/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
No, you read this post's title correctly and you don't need to purchase a new pair of glasses. After ridiculing itself in its attempt to remake Asian horror films, Hollywood (I don't remember the last time I saw an outstanding comedy from Hollywood) will try to remake a film that is considered as a classic of French comedy. The film in question is Le dîner de cons (The Dinner Game), a hilarious comedy which won the 1999 César Awards for best screenplay (original or adaptation).
First of all, the Hollywood version of Le dîner de cons will be titled Dinner for Schmucks and directed by Jay Roach (Meet the Fockers). As for the script, it's described like this on IMDb: "An extraordinarily stupid man possesses the ability to ruin the life of anyone who spends more than a few minutes in his company." Moreover, the cast will include Paul Rudd, Steve Carell,...
First of all, the Hollywood version of Le dîner de cons will be titled Dinner for Schmucks and directed by Jay Roach (Meet the Fockers). As for the script, it's described like this on IMDb: "An extraordinarily stupid man possesses the ability to ruin the life of anyone who spends more than a few minutes in his company." Moreover, the cast will include Paul Rudd, Steve Carell,...
- 11/4/2009
- by anhkhoido@hotmail.com (Anh Khoi Do)
- The Cultural Post
Although I've only seen two of Francis Veber's films (Le placard and this one), he's one of my favourite comedy directors. Besides, guess what? You'll be elated to learn that this comedy actually got nominated at the César Awards (the French Oscars) for Best Film! Even though Le dîner de cons didn't win that César Award, it sure deserved its nomination.
Each Wednesday, Pierre Brochant (Thierry Lhermite) and his friends organize a dinner. In this dinner, each organizer have to bring a "cunt" they had met. Afterwards, they let the "cunts" talk and laugh at them all night long by making sure that they don't notice it. Of course, before attending to the dinner, Pierre had planned to have in his appartment a little chit-chat with François Pignon (Jacques Villeret), a "first-class cunt" who likes to build miniature versions of great monuments with matchsticks, in order to know him.
Each Wednesday, Pierre Brochant (Thierry Lhermite) and his friends organize a dinner. In this dinner, each organizer have to bring a "cunt" they had met. Afterwards, they let the "cunts" talk and laugh at them all night long by making sure that they don't notice it. Of course, before attending to the dinner, Pierre had planned to have in his appartment a little chit-chat with François Pignon (Jacques Villeret), a "first-class cunt" who likes to build miniature versions of great monuments with matchsticks, in order to know him.
- 8/13/2009
- by noreply@blogger.com (Anh Khoi Do)
- The Cultural Post
Jay Roach's remake of the 1998 French comedy hit "Le Diner de cons" is finally coming together.
According to Variety, Spyglass Entertainment, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks will team up to develop the film, with Spyglass and Paramount providing the majority of the budget.
Steve Carell and Paul Rudd are on board to star in the project, in which a bunch of friends organize a weekly dinner to which they invite the dumbest people they can find.
The trade says the film will most likely start principal photography in October. "Schmucks" will mark Roach's first big-screen project since 2004's "Meet the Fockers."
Most recently, the filmmaker received a Emmy for his television movie "Recount."
The original "Diner de cons" was directed by Francis Veber and turned into a huge hit. The comedy starred Thierry Lhermitte, Jacques Villeret, Francis Huster and Daniel Prévost. Very funny movie indeed.
According to Variety, Spyglass Entertainment, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks will team up to develop the film, with Spyglass and Paramount providing the majority of the budget.
Steve Carell and Paul Rudd are on board to star in the project, in which a bunch of friends organize a weekly dinner to which they invite the dumbest people they can find.
The trade says the film will most likely start principal photography in October. "Schmucks" will mark Roach's first big-screen project since 2004's "Meet the Fockers."
Most recently, the filmmaker received a Emmy for his television movie "Recount."
The original "Diner de cons" was directed by Francis Veber and turned into a huge hit. The comedy starred Thierry Lhermitte, Jacques Villeret, Francis Huster and Daniel Prévost. Very funny movie indeed.
- 3/6/2009
- by Franck Tabouring
- screeninglog.com
PARIS -- French actress Miou-Miou will star in the new film Les Temps de Porte-Plum (The Time of the Pen-Holder) with actor-director Daniel Duval, a spokesman for Duval said Thursday. Set in the 1950s, Porte-Plume is about a young girl brought up by local social service authorities until she is taken in by a couple of modest means, played by Miou-Miou and actor Jacques Villeret. The largely autobiographical tale will be shot in the French region of Allier, where Duval was raised under similar circumstances. The film, to be released in 2005, reunites the two French stars 24 years after Duval's controversial Memoirs of a French Whore, in which he played the pimp boyfriend of a woman forced into prostitution (Miou-Miou).
- 12/12/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
In the '70s and early '80s there appeared one classic French farce after another, including such crowd-pleasing hits as "Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe," "A Pain in the A--", "Les Fugitives", "Les Comperes" and of course, "La Cage Aux Folles". What all those films had in common was Francis Veber, either as director or writer or both, and his newest offering, "The Dinner Game", is a marvelous return to form.
If the picture, to be released this spring by Lions Gate, doesn't hit the commercial heights of his previous efforts, it will only be because the glory days of French comedies have long passed. The film was recently showcased at the Miami Film Festival, where it was a great success if the nonstop audience laughter was any indication.
"The Dinner Game" uses the classic formula employed by Veber many times in which an unlikely pair of protagonists are thrown together to great comic effect. The duo here is comprised of Pierre (Thierry Lhermitte), a handsome and successful publishing executive with a great apartment featuring a striking view of the Eiffel Tower, a beautiful wife and enough yuppie accoutrements to fill an issue of Vanity Fair; and Pignon (Jacques Villeret), a buffoonish, short, stocky accountant working for the Financial Ministry whose hobby is recreating historical monuments with matchsticks.
Pierre also has a hobby, a rather cruel pastime in which he and his friends get together for parties and engage in a competition in which they try to procure the most idiotic dinner guest imaginable; the one who produces the most laughable contestant is the victor, and the hapless guests have no idea that they are being displayed as objects of humiliation. With Pignon, Pierre feels confident that he has found a real winner.
Unfortunately, they never get to the dinner. Pierre throws out his back and winds up trapped in his apartment, with Pignon at his side. In short order, Pignon, whose actions always seems to produce disastrous circumstances, virtually wrecks his new friend's life, destroying his relationship with his wife, inviting an audit from a rapacious fellow tax inspector and reducing Pierre to a physical and emotional wreck.
This systematic destruction is hilariously rendered in Veber's farce, which reveals its stage origins by its virtual confinement to one setting. Although the dialogue is always witty, what truly produces the laughter are the uproarious characterizations and the expert performances by the two leads. Villeret has the meatier role, and runs with it; his Pignon is a brilliant comic creation who is as endearing as he is silly. Lhermitte, though he mostly plays straight man to his outrageous co-star, is no less skillful, garnering huge laughs with a series of perfectly calibrated slow burns.
As the bulldog tax auditor who turns out to have problems of his own, Daniel Prevost nearly steals the film. Among the film's comic highlights are a dialogue centering on the first name "Just" that plays like a hilarious variation on the classic "Who's on First?" routine, and an adorable, animated opening credit sequence.
Although the material is strictly lightweight and trivial, "The Dinner Game" is a wonderfully entertaining and briskly paced comedy that comes as a blessed relief from the angst displayed in so many recent French imports. As with many of its creator's previous hits, the remake rights will no doubt be snatched up by a Hollywood studio, followed by the inevitable charmless American version.
THE DINNER GAME
Lions Gate Films
Director-writer: Francis Veber
Producers: Gaumont International, Alain Poire
Co-Producers: EFVE, TFI Films Prods., with the participation of TPS Cinema
Director of photography: Luciano Tovoli
Editor: Georges Klotz
Sets: Hugues Tissandier
Color/stereo
Cast:
Francois Pignon: Jacques Villeret
Pierre Brochant: Thierry Lhermitte
Just Leblanc: Francis Huster
Cheval: Daniel Prevost
Christine: Alexandra Vandernoot
Marlene: Catherine Frot
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
If the picture, to be released this spring by Lions Gate, doesn't hit the commercial heights of his previous efforts, it will only be because the glory days of French comedies have long passed. The film was recently showcased at the Miami Film Festival, where it was a great success if the nonstop audience laughter was any indication.
"The Dinner Game" uses the classic formula employed by Veber many times in which an unlikely pair of protagonists are thrown together to great comic effect. The duo here is comprised of Pierre (Thierry Lhermitte), a handsome and successful publishing executive with a great apartment featuring a striking view of the Eiffel Tower, a beautiful wife and enough yuppie accoutrements to fill an issue of Vanity Fair; and Pignon (Jacques Villeret), a buffoonish, short, stocky accountant working for the Financial Ministry whose hobby is recreating historical monuments with matchsticks.
Pierre also has a hobby, a rather cruel pastime in which he and his friends get together for parties and engage in a competition in which they try to procure the most idiotic dinner guest imaginable; the one who produces the most laughable contestant is the victor, and the hapless guests have no idea that they are being displayed as objects of humiliation. With Pignon, Pierre feels confident that he has found a real winner.
Unfortunately, they never get to the dinner. Pierre throws out his back and winds up trapped in his apartment, with Pignon at his side. In short order, Pignon, whose actions always seems to produce disastrous circumstances, virtually wrecks his new friend's life, destroying his relationship with his wife, inviting an audit from a rapacious fellow tax inspector and reducing Pierre to a physical and emotional wreck.
This systematic destruction is hilariously rendered in Veber's farce, which reveals its stage origins by its virtual confinement to one setting. Although the dialogue is always witty, what truly produces the laughter are the uproarious characterizations and the expert performances by the two leads. Villeret has the meatier role, and runs with it; his Pignon is a brilliant comic creation who is as endearing as he is silly. Lhermitte, though he mostly plays straight man to his outrageous co-star, is no less skillful, garnering huge laughs with a series of perfectly calibrated slow burns.
As the bulldog tax auditor who turns out to have problems of his own, Daniel Prevost nearly steals the film. Among the film's comic highlights are a dialogue centering on the first name "Just" that plays like a hilarious variation on the classic "Who's on First?" routine, and an adorable, animated opening credit sequence.
Although the material is strictly lightweight and trivial, "The Dinner Game" is a wonderfully entertaining and briskly paced comedy that comes as a blessed relief from the angst displayed in so many recent French imports. As with many of its creator's previous hits, the remake rights will no doubt be snatched up by a Hollywood studio, followed by the inevitable charmless American version.
THE DINNER GAME
Lions Gate Films
Director-writer: Francis Veber
Producers: Gaumont International, Alain Poire
Co-Producers: EFVE, TFI Films Prods., with the participation of TPS Cinema
Director of photography: Luciano Tovoli
Editor: Georges Klotz
Sets: Hugues Tissandier
Color/stereo
Cast:
Francois Pignon: Jacques Villeret
Pierre Brochant: Thierry Lhermitte
Just Leblanc: Francis Huster
Cheval: Daniel Prevost
Christine: Alexandra Vandernoot
Marlene: Catherine Frot
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 3/22/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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