THE PARIS LETTER: Claire's Best Films of 2011

So, Saturday night Matt and I were invited to a French movie premiere – pretty good first date out after baby, right? Though really, what I should say is that Matt and I were invited and then FAILED TO ATTEND a French movie premiere, which is probably a more typical first date out after baby.

But I don’t want you to think this was from lack of trying. Even though I toyed with the thought of having our date be “sleeping in our bed while Matt’s parents look after Sophia”, which sounded like the best date ever to me, Matt vetoed my impulse to be a homebody and I actually put on contacts and makeup and we left the house. I was feeling pretty good about myself – so what if I still apparently look pregnant enough for men to offer me their seats on the metro?

Anyway, so the movie we were invited to was another one produced by my friend Eugenie’s husband Michael, a real rising star in the world of French cinema. Last year he produced Julie Delpy’s latest film LE SKYLAB, which I went to the premiere of in September, and now following on the heels of that, he’s got this high profile film called L’AMOUR DURE TROIS ANS, or Love Lasts Three Years, based on a book by Frederic Beigbeder. Never heard of him? Don’t worry, neither had I – though he is a HUGE deal here in France, kind of a literary bad boy along the lines of Jay McInerney, but with real writing chops. Plus, he DIRECTED this adaptation of his book himself, making the whole thing even more highly anticipated.

Now, I have been to many premieres in the US as part of my job, and they’re usually decently organized – you’ve got a red carpet/ press line area for the important people – the actors, the people who worked on the film, etc – and then another line for the industry peons like me, where we can quietly get into the theater and get checked on the RSVP list by some bored PR flak without being in the way.

Not so, apparently, at this French premiere – More on this, plus my top films of 2011, after the jump.

THE PARIS LETTER: Dating My Husband

Hello there folks -

Montmartre - Follow him!

It's a rainy Sunday here in Paris, and the Claire Lundberg-Matt Valley household is being really lazy as a result. In fact, Matt is still sleeping over there in the bed -though it's almost 2PM ! In fairness, we did have a nocturnal visit from two friends who had a twelve hour layover here in Paris on their way back to New York from Russia. Armen and his brother Grisha showed up last night around 11:30, and we hung out drinking the Belgian beer Matt brought back from Bruges a couple of weeks ago, and then Matt and the guys left to find fun and excitement (or more beer and food) before they had to head back to the airport at around 5:30AM. Matt discovered a 24-hour Belgian beer bar right on Place de Clichy - about 7 blocks from us! Matt said they had a great beer selection but that it was also full of about 5 or 6 bachelor parties all eyeing each other seeing if they'd have to fight later. I should mention that this part of our neighborhood is pretty close to the Moulin Rouge and Pigalle districts, so these dudes were probably either coming from or going to that area. All in all, a good find but one that resulted in him getting back home around 5AM.

THE PARIS LETTER: A sort of long letter about the job hunt, plus some phonetics

Hello everyone -

Matt's parents were in town this week, so I didn't have time to write the post last Sunday, but I'm BACK today with a few more Parisian updates.

After several months of rev-ving the job search engine like an old car on a winter morning, it seems like it's coughed to life a little bit and I'm starting to take more meetings and even work a little bit - At the same time, I feel like I'm trying to start about 6 different businesses at once. My general look-for-work philosophy has been to knock on every door and try every angle, and then see what ultimately works out, but that often results in a middle period -like right now- where you are kind of going down several different paths and not sure what will ultimately happen.

For my own sanity, I will try to outline for all of you all the different things that are happening - this might help me keep them straight, actually. Then we can do an AMERICAN IDOL type voting and you can tell me which things you think sound the best:

THE PARIS LETTER: Berlin

Hello and viva la revolution! -

Berliner Dom and Graffiti

Though I am writing from Paris, this letter will be all about Berlin - which seems appropriate, given the protests sweeping the world this week, from Bahrain to Madison Wisconsin. And also since that's where Matt and I spent last weekend - a first time in the city for both of us. We were only there for three days, and we clearly tried to do too much - it's a huge place with centuries of history and lots to see and do, and even with my best planning we barely scratched the surface.

But, here are some general things I can tell you about Berlin - let's start with that:

BERLIN IS BIG - Really big, man. Like, London-big. Remember when I told you that you can basically bike across Paris in an hour? That the metro stops are usually less than a 10 minute walk apart? Well, imagine the opposite of that, and it's Berlin. BUT it's also fairly dense (like London), so, you are given the false sense that you CAN walk everywhere. But trust me, DON'T DO IT. You will end up one of the walking wounded, like I was by Monday afternoon. Take subway system, thethe U Bahn & the S-Bahn - they are basically free, and once you are on them you'll appreciate how freaking big the city is. Sheesh. 

Matt looking cold at Checkpoint Charlie

BERLIN IS COLD - Cold like New York cold, not like Paris with it's wimpy 35-40 degree temps. Cold like it snowed multiple times while we were there (the snow didn't stick around, but still), I was cold in full winter wear (coat, gloves, scarf, hat), and Matt, who had forgotten to pack a hat and scarf, was freezing and kept mumbling "Maybe gloves would have been a good idea". So would a down jacket. And some long underwear.

BERLIN STAYS UP LATE - Another reason why you need some serious winterwear. Berlin is a great city to wander around late at night.The trains run all night, bars stay open till at least 2AM and often all night, there are plenty of late night IMBISS ( fast food shops), and then of course the NIGHT CLUBS of Berlin, the most famous of which, Berghain, doesn't open until midnight and doesn't start its official DJ sets until 5AM. Yes, 5AM people! Matt and I actually thought of getting a real nights sleep, then going to Berghain at 7AM when the bigger acts go on. Which I understand a lot of people actually DO in Berlin - because you can only take cocaine so many nights in a row. Who the hell stays up until 7AM to hear a DJ??? Am I just OLD now? What?

We were in Berlin for the Berlin Film Festival, which after Cannes is the largest and most important European film festival, with a prestigious competition and a big market selling distribution rights to films in various territories. But, like Toronto's film festival, it has advantage of also being a Public event - ie, everyone and anyone can buy tickets without having to prove professional status (in Cannes and several other festivals you must prove you are a member of the industry before you get to see films). So, perfect for a couple like Matt and I, half in and half out of the industry - we got to do a combination of exploring and seeing films, which is a fun organizing principal for a trip, and if you're a little bit informed you can usually see some decent movies.

Our hotel was in the middle of Mitte, the downtown section of the city, right near Checkpoint Charlie. Now, I want to go on record by saying that I know almost nothing about German history, so for those of you that DO, or say, are German (hi, Claudia!), please forgive any inaccuracies or the general tone of American naivete and wonder that is about to pervade this letter.

Touristy Checkpoint Charlie

Like, did you know there was a WALL running through Berlin, separating East and West? I bet you did know that.( I did too). But what I didn't know is that pretty much all of Mitte, which is now the downtown commercial center of the city, was all part of East Berlin, and in fact quite a bit of it around our hotel specifically was sort of cleared out to make way for the famous checkpoint in and out of the American section. Change has happened so quickly since 1989 that quite often you can't tell when you are in historically East or West Berlin anymore, and Checkpoint Charlie is just a memorial in an island in the middle of Friedrichstrasse, with cars driving by on either side (see picture below).

Also, the majority of the historic buildings are in what was East Berlin - Including everything along Unter Den Linden, Berlin's Champs Elysee - Above also you can see a picture of Berliner Dom, the church of the German royalty (i think?), seen through a graffiti covered underpass near Hakescher Markt in former East Berlin - what to me feels like a classic Berlin sight.

Matt near Prenzlauerberg, with Graffiti

We spent a lot of time walking around Prenzlauer Berg, which seems like the Williamsburg (or maybe even Park Slope?) of Berlin - it was one of the first East German neighborhoods to become fully gentrified after the wall came down - at first it was filled with artists and young people without a lot of money, but as often happens it quickly became a pretty comfortable place to raise a family for yuppie Berliners. Now, being kind of a yuppie myself, I liked this neighborhood a lot, but many Berliners I think now feel like its a little TOO fancy and have moved towards Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg (also in East Berlin) for the real cutting edge/cheaper communities. To me, Prenzlauer Berg felt like Brooklyn - We went to the Prater on Kastienallee, widely recommended beer garden - of course, we couldn't see it in its full glory because the outdoor space was shut down, but we had delicious beer there in the indoor space. We also went to KulturBrauerei (Culture Brewery) in this same neighborhood, which is a giant historic brewery that has been converted into a cultural space, wiht restaurants, film/media/theater company offices, and a very cheesy looking nightclub - it's bizarre because the complex looks like a fortress and takes up a huge block, when you walk inside you feel like you are in a medieval village - with a nightclub. And a movie theater.

We saw four movies - which I will say just a little bit about here :

MARGIN CALL - This was at Sundance, and is a smart thriller about the last 36 hours of a very-lightly-fictionalized Lehmann Brothers - starting from the moment a young research analyst discovers that they're about to go bankrupt, through what happens as this news is run up the chain of command and what the bank decides to do about it. It's got a great cast - Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons (clearly enjoying himself), Zach Quinto, and Stanley Tucci - and all in all its a really enjoyable smart film - two minor quibbles for me: Demi Moore plays only female banker in thethe film, and is shown as both weak and kind of a villainess, which is always a little boring to me - plus she also OF COURSE doens't have kids and regrets it - in an all male movie, this grated a little. Also, the movie as a whole will ask you to empathize with or at least understand the people inside investment banks -and while this was okay with me, I'm sure there will be people who won't be too sympathetic with their plight. But overall, this was my favorite movie that I saw - I recommmend it.

THE BENGALI DETECTIVE - Also at Sundance, and soon coming to you as a TV series from HBO - this is a documentary about a private detective in Calcutta, where apparently profession is in great demand as thethe police are unable to fully investigate all crimes. filmmakers lucked out with their subject, he is a GREAT character - a PI, a father & husband, AND an aspiring dancer (no joke), who is really compelling. TheThe filmmaking isn't great, but guy at thethe center makes up for this.

YELLING TO THE SKY - Obligatory horrible competition film about gang violence in New York, starring Zoe Kravitz as a teenage girl who moves from victim to gang-banger in a ridiculously cliched story that also has strange arty shots of clouds and things sprinkled throughout. Matt now understands why you should never sit in the middle of a row at a film festival - in case you need to ESCAPE.

THE CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS - Werner Herzog's latest, a documentary about the cave paintings in southern France, the oldest paintings in the world - Very interesting in principle but felt long and is inexplicably shot in 3-D, clearly Herzog just wanting to get in on the technology while sort of giving a fuck-you to it at the same time. Not his best work.

Finally, a word about CURRYWURST, the Berlin specialty:

Okay first, what is Currywurst? It's a sausage, usually cut into pieces, smothered in tomato sauce and curry powder, and then eaten with toothpicks.
Where can you GET currywurst? On literally every streetcorner and in every trainstation in Berlin. Next to Checkpoint Charlie there is a stand called Checkpoint Curry. Not kidding. There is a Currywurst Museum for gods sake.
But, you ask, is Currywurst actually DELICIOUS? No, no it is NOT delicious. Well, it might be very delicious if you were drunk, which I think is how it's intended to be eaten. We tried it twice, once in a train station (the low end) and once at the KaDeWe department store food hall (the high end) and though KaDeWe's was better, we both decided we'd stick to bratwurst or other wursts with sauerkraut and mustard. I was very relieved when my German friend Cathrin told me that no one in Berlin actually likes currywurst either, they just eat it to be cool.

Then we went to the zoo

Oh and one more thing about Berlin - They have an awesome ZOO. By Monday, I was so tired I basically didn't want to do anything but sleep - but we'd checked out of our hotel and had another two hours before we had to head to the airport. We were actually right near the zoo, and so we decided to go for our final outing in the city. I've realized recently that I love zoos - as an adult who has spent basically her entire live in cities, seeing any animals that aren't pigeons, squirrels or rats makes me extremely excited. But the Berlin Zoo has EVERYTHING - monkeys, elephants, giraffes, a giant panda, and a little polar bear named Knut, Matt and I spent most of our time in the monkey house, watching the baby orangutan learn to climb ropes, and it couldn't have been better. Berlin Zoo- my recommendation for when you are too tired and/or hungover to do anything but stare at cute animals.

Thanks to EVERYONE who gave suggestions of where to go in Berlin, we are so bummed we couldn't do everything - but it just means we will have to go back and explore the city some more - I really recommend it.

Have a great week everyone!

CTL

THE PARIS LETTER: French Rom Coms, Bitchy Yoga Teachers, and La Pharmacie

Hello from our sickbed - well, really Matt's now - where I write this letter in between checking for updates on the fall of the Egyptian government. Crazy stuff. I'm both excited and a little worried.

Matt and I have basically spent the week in bed sick - first me, now him - making it not the most exciting week. Thankfully I think we are both on the mend now. My cousin Hillary, who has lived here for 5 years, told me to expect to be sick more often this first year as the body adjusts to a new environment with new germs and whatnot - This seems to be true. We're going through our second bout of colds since we got here 4 months ago, which is a lot for us.

Getting sick in Paris means a trip to the Pharmacie, where all drugs are sold. While you can get shampoo, toothpaste, and kleenex at your local supermarket, you cannot get aspirin or cold medicine. For this, you must go to the pharmacie, an institution that will seem totally weird to many Americans, as they sell homeopathic and herbal remedies alongside more traditional medicines, often with makeup and skincare thrown in as well. The French are famous pill-takers and hypochondriacs, so there are multiple "Soins" (treatments) for everything; its very difficult to leave the pharmacie without some form of herbal remedy, usually given in conjunction with the more traditional medicine - why take one pill when you can take four? However, there are some things they don't have, weirdly- like Melatonin, which is illegal to sell here for some reason (I still don't get it). 

I went to the pharmacy when we first arrived to try and find some and was given an armload of herbal stress and sleep remedies instead that I bought because I didn't know how to politely say no in French at that point.



This week we are taking "Fervex", sort of like Theraflu - pour la Rhume et L'Etat Grippal (for a cold and "flu state") - seems to be doing the job. I'm having my neighbor pick up some Lemsip when she's in London next week, this British invention is truly the top cold remedy I've found.

This week I started my registration for coursework at the Sorbonne's Cours de Civilazation Francaise - a special course they have for foreigners to study French language and french civilization. Registering reminded me what a famous student city Paris is - I registered with people from all over, including very fashionable Saudi girls in Versace headscarves whose brothers registered for them while they talked on their cellphones, hip Japanese teens doing their year abroad in France, Dutch fashion models, and some requisite Americans who didn't understand why they had to wait in line or bring the right paperwork (They are American, after all, right?).

I have to go back next week to take my language placement, but then I will be taking a combination of language classes and seminars on French life, politics, and culture. I'm already very excited about my seminar choices, which include things like Introduction to French Political Life, Economy and Society in France and Europe, a whole course in French screenwriters and Directors, and one in 20th Century French Theater. There's also one in French Gastronomy, food and culture - but guys, I think it's only offered at a lower level of French than I'm at. Sorry everyone.

I also passed a major milestone for myself this week by going to both a French film AND a French play and understanding them both - I would say at about 80% understanding, enough so I wasn't lost at all about what was happening. I don't know if I can explain how liberating this was for me - there's so much happening here in terms of film and theater, and I haven't been able to fully experience it because I basically haven't been able to go to anything without subtitles for the past few months. Now, I feel like I can at least begin to experience culture same way thethe Parisians are, which is HUGE.

The French film was a good example of the differences between our two cultures. It was a romantic comedy that's been quite successful here, called LES NOMS DES GENS, or, basically, The Names of People/ People's Names. Its got a traditional set-up in that there's a sort of buttoned up older guy who meets a free-spirited young woman that he falls in love with, almost loses, and then finally is able to get together with. The free-spirited young woman, played by actress Sara Forestier, has a sort of Kirsten Dunst/Kate Hudson energy to her - thethe beautiful fun-loving girl that comes into your life and shakes it up. Except in this French movie she is naked almost all the time, in a way that wouldn't be true in the American version. At first this irritated me, as I'm not a fan of romcoms that seem to have a female lead that's more male fantasy than real person.

HOWEVER, then the French movie turned POLITICAL in a way that I loved but that would NEVER happen in an American film. You see, our two protagonists have very political French histories - our guys mother was Jewish, and her parents were sent to the camps during World War II, but not before placing her in an orphanage and changing her name so no one would know she was Jewish. This became a big family secret and they never, ever spoke of their Jewish past while the boy was growing up. Meanwhile, the girl is half-Algerian, the daughter of a father who was a refugee from the French Algerian war, and a wealthy French mother who turned to counterculture in the 70s and rejected her bourgeois past. So the girls family is very open and outspoken about politics.

The other part is that the girl has decided to sleep with political hardliners - both Islamic and French - to convert them to her more liberal point of view. This is not why she sleeps with guy in thethe film - she actually loves him - but is another part of her character. So you see, more sex and more politics in the French rom com than we would ever see in the US one. And it works! At least for me. Though I prudishly found some of the nudity a little annoying. But most people won't, and this chick has a great body.

One final funny story from the week and then I'm off - I will tell you about my yoga class with The Bitchiest Yoga Teacher Ever.
Have I mentioned that I'm taking yoga here? This is also a good way to learn new French words, as you basically have to relearn all the parts of the body, but if you've done some yoga before you can pretty much make all the necessary connections. For example - Les epaules = shoulders as in "relacher les epaules" (relax your shoulders), 'cheville" = Ankle as in "attraper la cheville" (grab your ankle), etc -

I've been taking with a GREAT teacher (recommended again by my cousin Hillary), who is very funny and generous and I've generally been happy taking her class - However, there's this very fancy yoga studio down by the Sorbonne called Rasa Yoga, that's supposed to be amazing, so I went to a class there after registering this week just to check it out. And it was a beautiful studio, all skylights and hardwood floors in an old Left Bank building that felt very "Catherine Deneuve does Yoga". I was excited at first. But then I took a class with this teacher - I KNEW it would be a problem when I introduced myself at the beginning of class and mentioned that I was American, and she fixed me with a cold stare and asked if I'd ever done Iyengar yoga before. Hmmmm....this was supposed to be a beginner class ...

The teacher, it turns out, was American but a very unhappy American who proceeded to treat the class like shit for an hour and a half, saying things in French like "I'm only going to demonstrate this once; if you don't watch, well then it's your practice, not mine"; and "How do you expect me to teach if you're not listening to me?"; and "No one is doing what I'm telling you to do" and ... I think she actually said something like " You guys are idiots for spending hte money on this class if you're not going to practice between classes". Then she would literally come over and kick you into position with her foot if you asked a question. So of course no one wanted to ask her ANYTHING, we just prayed we would get out without her focusing her disdain on us.

This was one of my better zen moments, I thought, because I had this very Claire Lundberg moment at the beginning where I was incensed and was going to storm out in protest - but then I thought...well, then I will have accomplished nothing except paying for a yoga class and not taking it - So I just decided to find this poor unhappy woman very funny rather than monstrous, and that helped me get through the class basically unscathed, physically or emotionally .... Ah Paris, apparently where unhappy American yoga teachers come to retire ....

Okay, I'm running long again, so I'll sign off now and wish everyone a good week - More to come next week as I continue my cultural adventures -

A bientot!

Claire

THE PARIS LETTER: Butchers, Movie Theaters, and Residency Cards

Hello from my Parisian sickbed -

Yes its the dreaded winter head cold time - really more irritating than anything else. I came down with it a couple of days ago and I keep thinking I'm in better shape than I am - bleah. However, lots of fun stuff to talk about this week - butchers, movie theaters, and the joys of the Parisian prefecture de police!

1. LONG CONVERSATIONS WITH MY BUTCHER -

My local butcher during the holidays

This is what my friends have decided my book about my life in Paris should be called - and indeed, a lot of my food adventures here have become about finding, buying and cooking different cuts of meat, and having long hilarious conversation with French butchers, where we try to explain to each other what parts and cuts of the animal we are talking about. I've learned a lot about anatomy, and the words for various parts of the body in both French and English. I've also found myself doing research online about the differences between French and American butchering and cuts of meat. Things I didn't set out to learn, but which I think will actually set me in good stead for years to come.

THE PARIS LETTER: Some First Observations on French Film, TV, and Theater

Hello all -

For those of you who are new, welcome to the Paris Letter, my weekly letter about living here in France - As I was doing my Holiday cards this morning I added a few more people to the mailing - If you don't want to receive this, just shoot me an email, no problem.

Today's letter may be somewhat brief, because I"m having some kind of shoulder trauma which typing seems to make worse - I seem to be developing a chronic right shoulder problem, which some of you right-handed office workers may be familiar with - does anyone out there get frozen or painful shoulder stuff every couple of months on their dominant side? I am treating it with yoga and going ot get a massage in Madison,, but this seems to be something that flares up every few months now and I would love anyone's advice on treatment as it is ANNOYING.

ANYWAY, on to more interesting news about Paris, which is currently blanketed in slush and exhibiting classic "wintry mix" weather; the temperature is much milder than New York, and there's almost no accumulation, but I did order myself some rain boots from Zappo's today because I think it's finally time....

This week was very busy for Matt and I both as we tried to wrap everything up in time for our flight to Madison on Wednesday. We will be spending a week there with Matt's parents, and then flying to Bozeman and meeting up with Matt's brother and sister in law, and then all of us are heading to YELLOWSTONE for four days of skiing and snow. I simultaneously feel really settled in here in France and REALLY excited to be going back to the US for a visit. I am going to drink Sam Adams beer, eat a really good hamburger, go get a haircut and the aforementioned massage, buy jeans and shoes in my size and in dollars, not euros .... oh, so many fun things to do in America. Maybe I will even watch a FOOTBALL game.

I am also going to get my laptop fixed, with any luck, because it died on me this week and is now a big paperweight - thankfully, a paperweight that is under warranty

Okay so - this week, the first post not on Food but on Culture here in France! As I mentioned last week, I'm both starting to look for a film job here and also helping my cousin Hillary with her French production of Tony Kushner's A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY - So I'm starting to get a small window into the cultural world in Paris - I basically feel totally overwhelmed by it right now, but here are a few things I've noticed that are interesting and different.

There is a lot of theater in Paris, but it seems like rather than our tradition of musicals, they have a lot of Boulevard Comedies, or farces that get produced commercially here. There's also a lot of highbrow theater, but this is done more frequently by state sponsored theaters - not unlike in the US, though there is apparently a real highbrow-lowbrow divide between the two and people don't necessarily move between them easily. There's a lot of advertising for theater in Metro, actually, and it seems like big business - thethe farces have names like "Bonjour, Ivresse" (Hello, drunkenness!) or "Mon Colocataire est une garce!" (my roommate is a man-baby!) or "Boire, Fumer, et Conduire Vite" (Drink, Smoke, and Drive Fast) - apparently many of them come up through big theater festivals like Edinburgh and Avignon and get booked into Paris for long runs. I feel like they're a bit like TONY N TINA'S WEDDING or THE DONKEY SHOW in New York, but can't quite find an equivalent - imagine if all of Broadway were for comedy rather than musicals, and you'll get the idea.

Though, they also love musicals - I may have mentioned that MAMMA MIA! just opened here in it's French version on an open ended run - however, there's just not the same musical tradition here, so they have to import them, largely.

Paris, like London, is the center of film, TV, and theater for the country (as opposed to in the US, where it's split between NY and LA), so actors here move relatively easily between these media. In my cousin Hillary's play, there is an actress who is also in a TV show here called UN VILLAGE FRANCAIS, about a French town during the German occupation in World War II, and she is able to do the show and the play fairly easily. Television seasons here are discreet, usually 6 to 12 episodes, leaving actors free part of the year to act in plays or make films. My understanding is that TV stations here didn't have shows with "seasons" the way that we do, but would have miniseries on a project by project basis, without necessarily even having clear timeslots (for example, an episode could be 60 mins, 90 mins, or 2 hours) - However, now that they import a large part of their television from the US ( HOUSE is very popular here, as is LAW & ORDER, which is called NEW YORK: POLICE JUDICIARE), they've had to adopt more US methodology and formats in order to get all the timeslots to work.

Still, things remain fairly individual and project-by-project, in a way that would feel very strange to anyone who's worked in the TV machine of LA. A friend here is a writer on RIS (the French version of CSI, it stands for Recherches et Investigations Scientifiques) , and they don't have a traditional writers room the way the would in a US TV series - instead, the producers contract with individual writers for each episode, and work with them to develop an outline and make sure the script is in line with the series - So it's sort of halfway between what would happen on a film here and what would happen with a TV series .There's no real "showrunner" or team of writers, but there's an executive at the studio who is making sure that continuity of character and tone are upheld.

Film is much more diverse here, in part because of France's famous system of subsidy - part of the price of each movie ticket sold in France goes back into a general fund to subsidize French cinema, and this allows small films and auteur driven works to flourish more than in the United States. There's lots more to say on this, but I'll tell you one interesting thing I learned this week in a meeting with an exec at SND, the film arm of French cable channel M6 - In France, Hollywood action blockbuster is definitely a part of thethe market share, but its not as great here as it is in other European countries. Why this anomaly? In part, it has to do with how French films are marketed. In France, you're not allowed to show trailers of films on TV - so Hollywood's global tentpoles, which largely rely on special effects that can translate to people without words, can't really sell their best stuff to people in their homes. They have to rely on posters to sell film, and this doesn't do justice to action sequences thethe way a trailer would. By contrast, small French films advertise also with posters, but their stars have the time and ability to go on numerous French culture & television shows to promote their movie, something American movie stars can't do, as they do not live here and can't speak French. Thus, its likely that this weekend thethe movie SKYLINE, an alien invasion action film, will probaly open similarly to UN BALCON SUR MER (A BALCONY ON THE SEA), a tiny French drama with a big name French actor in it. Needless to say, in the US these opening weekend numbers would usually be quite far apart, with SKYLINE trouncing the drama, which at this point would probably even have a hard time getting released.

However, you'll all be happy to hear that MEET THE LITTLE FOCKERS is advertising here and ready to open! Here its called "MON BEAU PERE ET NOUS" (my Father in Law and Us), since the whole term "Fockers" doesn't really translate in French in the same way :)

Okay I'm signing off here -For those of you who are feeling French food deprived, I'm attaching a picture from this morning at our local butcher - they've now hung Christmas geese and turkeys from the rafters - sort of festive, in a meaty kind of way.

I hope everyone has a fantastic holiday, and keep me posted on what you're all up to !

xo CTL