TV Series - Furies (French)

In French, with subtitles

Watched on Netflix
Season 1
Number of Episodes: 8
Length of Episode: 45 min.
IMBd: 6.2/10
RT Critic's Consensus: n/a
RT Audience Score: no ratings
cag: 4.5

Premiered: 3/1/2024 (US)

Note:  VERY violent 

My comments:  This kept me totally engrossed all day Sunday, despite its violence and having to read subtitles.  Twists, turns, surprises, love triangle....what's not to like?  I didn't enjoy the huge amount of violence, but the relationships and story were great!

Storyline from IMBd: A dive into Paris's criminal underworld, where Lyna meets the enigmatic and brutal Furie, the boss of this hazardous environment.

Storyline from IMBd:  Seeking to avenge her father's death, a young woman becomes entangled in the web of the Fury, peacekeeper of the Paris criminal underworld.

MOVIE - The Midwife

Not Rated (1:57)

Limited release 7/21/17

Viewed Saturday evening, August 12, 2017 at The Carlisle Cinema (by myself)
IMBd: 7.0/10

RT Critic:  83  Audience:  83
Critic's Consensus:  The Midwifetakes a rewardingly patient approach to potentially melodramatic material, emerging with a well-acted, emotionally resonant character study.

Cag: 4/Liked it quite well

Directed by Martin Provost

Music Box Films

In French, with subtitles

Catherine Deneuve

My comments:  A French film with subtitles and Catherine Deneuve.  Claire is a 48-year old single woman who happens to be a fantastic midwife in a hospital that appears to be in a suburb of Paris.  She lives a simple life:  working the night shift, riding her bicycle back-an-forth to work, climbing four flights to her small apartment because the elevator is frequently broken, and caring for her garden on a small plot of land along the Seine.  Her 20-something son, Simon, is in medical school.  Everything changes, however, when the woman who had been her father's mistress 35 years earlier shows up and forces herself back into Claire's life.  Claire is very reluctant, feeling that Beatrice had abandoned both her and her father all those years before.  Claire meets a man (an interestingly unattractive one at that - hurray for the filmmakers!) loses, her much-loved job because the hospital is taken over by a conglomerate, and even her son't course in life veers off.  This is quite an interesting, captivating tale.

RT/ IMDb Summary:  Two of French cinema's biggest stars shine in this bittersweet drama about the unlikely friendship that develops between Claire (Catherine Frot), a talented but tightly wound midwife, and Béatrice (Catherine Deneuve), the estranged, free-spirited mistress of Claire's late father. Though polar opposites in almost every way, the two come to rely on each other as they cope with the unusual circumstance that brought them together in this sharp character study from the César-award winning director Martin Provost (Séraphine).

MOVIE - Two Days, One Night

PG-13 (1:35)
Limited release 12/24/2015

Viewed at the Loft with Sheila 2/9/15

RT Critic: 96   Audience: 79

Cag: 3.5 It kept my attention....

Directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne

IFC Films

In French, with subtitles

Actors: Marion Cotillard

My comments:  Yes, Cotillard did a superb job in this role.  The story was quite interesting, too.  But it was slow.  Really, really slow.  Too slow.  I loved listening to the French.  There really wasn't a whole lot of talking, so I could follow much of the conversation.

RT Summary:  Sandra (Cotillard) has just been released from the hospital to find that she no longer has a job. According to management, the only way Sandra can hope to regain her position at the factory is to convince her co-workers to sacrifice their much-needed yearly bonuses. Now, over the course of one weekend, Sandra must confront each co-worker individually in order to win a majority of their votes before time runs out. With TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT, the Dardennes have turned a relevant social inquiry into a powerful statement on community solidarity, once again delivering a film that is simple on the surface but alive with both compassion and wisdom. 

MOVIE - Queen to Play (Joueuse)

Wonderful lead actress!
in French with subtitles
Limited release 4-1-11 (made in 2008/2009)
unrated (1:41)
7-16-11 at The Loft by myself (not a seat left in the upstairs theater!)
RT:  67% cag 79%
Director:  Caroline Bottaro
Sandrine Bonnaire, Kevin Kline, Jennifer Beals

This was a very lovely movie.  The setting was the island of Corsica, and it was a bout a mom who discovers the game of chess.  She's a house cleaner, and she sees Jennifer Beals playing chess while sitting on the balcony of a b & b that overlooks the ocean.  It's a lovely, somewhat sexy scene, and Helene is mesmerized by the memory of it.  So much so that she buys her husband an electronic chess set for his birthday, even though neither of them have in any way encountered the game before.

Now...although the movie does not really focus on the actual game of chess, most of the rest of the movie revolves around learning it and playing it.  Got a little too much chess-y for me.  Kevin Kline plays the reclusive chess player that teachers her how to play - and who gives her the confidence in herself to go farther.  This is another movie about a woman who breaks free of her long-standing cocoon and emerges as a butterfly.  Sandrine Bonnaire plays the protagonist beautifully.  What a lovely smile she has!