Films.

Delicatessen

Amelie is one of my top 3 films. And this is made by the same director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
It's a black comedy set in some apocalyptic 1950's or 1960's France. It is stylish, but dirty, well-acted but with quirks, and has fantastic little touches, like Amelie that make you love it. It's a film about cannibalism. And it's a love story. And those two fit together quite well in a film suprisingly.

This film is hard to describe, much like Amelie, and anyway a description or synopsis would not do it justice. Here is one scene from the film, which was the Trailer for American audiences:

La Haine

This film also has a connection to Amelie as Nino, the guy who is obsessed with Passport size photos, is the director of this film. Its filmed in black and white, and from the mid-90's, and follows 3 youths from France, a French-Jew, a French-African and a French-Arab, who live in one of the projects, and who are constantly hassled and hassling the police. The film starts the day after a semi-big riot, and one of their friends has been hospitilized by the police, and a policeman's gun has gone missing in the melee. It follows these boys as they steadily from one rough area to the next, intimidating locals and scuffling with skinheads. The film is really aggressive, and Vincent Cassels (bad guy in Oceans 12 and Derailed) character Vinz is especially disturbing. Really cool film and very well made.

I noticed loads of annoying things with the subtitles though, which have nothing to do with the quality of the film. Quite often a couple of characters break into rhyme or rap, trying to be cool or insult people, but often the subtitles come off as lame, and you know fine well thats not what they are actually saying. Also, one character is nicknamed Asterix in the film, and you can hear them call him Asterix about 10 times quite clearly, but the subtitles change it to Snoopy, making the scenes more accesible to an American audience. (If you don't know, Asterix is a French Gaul cartoon character, who has been the subject of many films. And Snoopy is Charlie Brown's crappy wee depressed dog.)

American Splendor

I watched the first half of this film about 3 years ago, but for some reason i didn't finish it. It's a great wee film, and a better biopic than most of the ones you see, employing a similar tactic to 24 hour party people, which i have also reviewed, to give us the narrative. The film gives us Harvey Peckar's life story, showing us in detail his life as a file clerk and a comic book writer, and also introducing us to some of his comic book characters who are real-life friends and colleagues of his. Another Paul Giamatti film, and yeah, he is one of my favourite actors.

Watch this film if only to see Toby Radloff (him up there to the right). A great film character.