I went to Brentford Arts Centre to see a Sunday matinee of French Films
The Closet
The film was a year in the life of François Pignon, and shows how he changes from being perceived as a very dull nobody to being seen as as a 'pain'. He works as an accountant in a condom factory, accidently finds out he is to be fired and advised by his neighbour ends up being thought of as gay, with dramatic results on his life. Particularly funny is his relationship with the macho Personnel Manager, played by Gérard Depardieu, as being totally non-PC, rugby fanatic, who thinks anyone who is not able to play the game is well a 'flamer', when he's being polite. He is tricked into befriending Mr Pignon to protect his job, which ends up with him losing his wife and his sanity and there is a great scene where he is lead back to work with Mr Pignon holding his hand. The film makes fun of people's attitudes to each other and not just homosexuality, but without any moralising.
The other film
The Dinner of Fools,
Titled in the UK - 'The Dinner Game', but should have been called '
Anorak's Dinner shows how an affluent publisher, Pierre Brochant, has his life completely upset by the enthusiastic, helpfulness of tax inspector François Pignon, a person he has recruited for his weekly game of dinning with fools, where a group of the super rich invite 'idiotic' guests to a posh dinner in a competition to find the biggest fool. Pierre is vulnerable as he has injured his back playing golf and his wife has left him. Mr Pignon, who builds, and can talk about for hours, models of buildings, bridges and the Eiffel Tower, and can tell you not only how many matches, but also how many tubes of glue he used, is the only person who can help Pierre trace his wife, who may have run away to her ex-husband or to the love nest of a notorious, philandering advertising man.
The scene where Mr Pignon pretends to be a Belgium film director, pretending to be interested in the film rights for the ex-husband's book, to find out if Pierre's wife has returned to him, is one of a number of hilarious scenes, as Mr Pignon thinks himself into the role, negotiates the rights for the book and then does not want the rights as Pierre says the big is not that good - and yes he forgot to mention the wife.
Another important message fro the film was the serious warning of playing with boomerangs while using a mobile phone. A minority interest admittedly, but one that could have serious consequences for the partitioners.
Both films were extremely funny - even with subtitles a lot of the conversations had the audience creased with laughter. They also treated the audience as intelligent. Unfortunately both films had only a very limited release in this country. It is annoying that the big cinema chains do not promote more European films, independent films from the US and other foreign films. There is some improvement
Monsoon Wedding got a limited release and the local Richmond Odeon is starting to show 'alternative' films, but these seem to be exactly the same films as the Richmond Film House is showing on the same dates. The cynic in me is concerned that the long term strategy might be to put independent cinemas out of business, when the big chains can then try and force us to watch films made for what the big studio accountants think is best for us.
The Waterman's Art Centre Brentford (Slow loading because it is artistic)
Surely it would be more profitable for one or two screens in the multiplexes to show different films from all the other multiplexes in the region. So much money is spent on marketing and 'hyping up' films that you've seen all the best bits before you go and see it - the film has to be disappointing even if it is any good, which many hyped up films are not - and yes I do mean Signs - Mel Gibson your standards are dropping.
In the fifties and early sixties cinemas showed four different films programmes in a week, plus a children's show on Saturday mornings. The Monday/Tuesday film was always an old cheap film, possibly an Italian epic; the mid week were usually aimed at women, or more importantly the show where you could take your girlfriend and snog on the backrow - they used to have double seats in some cinemas; Friday/Saturday was the latest releases where everyone went and the cinema was always full. Sunday was always a Hammer Horror or a bad 'B' sci-fi movie where all the teenagers would come and shout rude comments - in the belief that this was high level satire - at the film.
The shows were better with a main movie, a B movie, cartoons, lots of adverts - including stills of the local chip shop with bad voice overs - and in the early period Pathe News. The cinema opened about midday and the film show was continuous. So you could come in towards the end of a B movie, find out who was guilty as the cops in the rain coats and trilby hats dragged the murder off and then watch the whole programme to find out who had been murdered.
Blake's Seven
I got on well with the potential manager but - the human resources person was cold and unfriendly - she didn't laugh - she didn't meet my eyes - she seemed unhappy. My impression is that human resource people are in fact really the lizards from V, using false skins to hide their features and that in fact they are taking over the world. 
I used to like The Bill. The episodes used to be tightly written and were reasonably believable, although there was not a lot of emphasise on the 40% of time spent doing paperwork. The revamp which among other things lost the image of a policeman and woman's walking feet - probably one of the strongest images on UK TV, has changed the programme out of all recognition.
