Thursday, April 15, 2010

Films #1 and #2: Rire

Last night kicked off the four day 2010 Wisconsin Film Festival, which runs from Wednesday to Sunday. If you can count, you'll note that's five days, not four. The festival has been so popular that the organizers decided to screen more movies, so although tonight is the official opening night, last night was added as a "bonus" night. And are My Dearest O and I ever lucky it was.

Rire means "to laugh" in French, and laugh we did. (In English, not French.) After dinner at Coopers Tavern with my co-worker, Carolyn, we all headed over to the Orpheum main theater for a double-feature, Fathers and Guns (De pere en flic) and OSS 117: Lost In Rio (OSS 117: Rio Ne RĂ©pond Plus), two ridiculously funny French language films. If you think the words "ridiculously," "funny," "French language" and "film" don't belong in the same sentence, you're dead wrong.

The first film, Fathers, is a Canadian buddy cop movie, the buddy cops being father & son. Dad Cop is an impulsive, overbearing instant-hero-in-any-situation, whereas Son Copy is the thoughtful touchy-feely nerd who chokes when it's most important. In the pursuit of the bad guys, they go undercover, infiltrating a father/son reconnection therapy group in the great outdoors. There were a lot of ridiculous goings-on with the fathers and sons, and I don't think there was a scene in the whole movie that fell flat. Dad Cop and Son Cop are both complete smart-asses, with funny, witty dialogue, which made the movie for me. Check this one out.

The second film, OSS 117, kept us laughing way past our bedtime. If you've seen the first OSS film, Cairo, Nest of Spies*, you'll know what to expect. (If you haven't, go rent it. Now! You might even be able to get it free at the library.) In this spoof of 60's spy movies, the hero, Hubert de la Bath, bears a great resemblance to a vain, clumsy Sean Connery Bond**. There's one gag after another, each funnier than the one before. OOS achieves what I suppose "Austin Powers" was trying to achieve. The audience laughed, laughed, laughed. Who knew the French could be so funny?

Tonight's films: The opening night special presentation, The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, a documentary about the New Zealand yodeling lesbian twin comedy duo, and The Host, a South Korean Toxic-Chemical-Created-Monster-a la-Godzilla movie from the festival's featured director, Bong Joon-ho.

Cheers,
-b

*I don't remember Cairo being anywhere near this funny.

*Beware, you sensitive folks who might be offended by some of the terribly inappropriate politically incorrect humour, which serves to highlight what a self-centered jerk de la Bath is.

Wednesday's film ratings (outta 5):

Fathers and Sons ****
OSS 117: Lost in Rio ***1/2

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