The Bling Ring

Sofia Coppola directed four feature films before "The Bling Ring". "The Virgin Suicides" (1999) was promising; "Lost in  Translation" (2003) was very good; "Marie Antoinette" (2006) was pretty but boring and "Somewhere" (2010) was really, really boring. The graph of her career was not looking good but I am pleased to report that "The Bling Ring" is a decent film.

It's a very contemporary meditation on the intertwined subjects of the surveillance state and the cult of celebrity. It's a fiction based on a real crime spree where a group of bored, materialistic and celebrity obsessed Southern California teenagers used social media and celebrity gossip sites to find out when various celebrities were out of town so that they could burglarize their houses. They got away with it for almost a year and stole an estimated 3,000,000 dollars in luxury goods. Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton were among the victims and Hilton, in her weird disarming way, allowed the film crew to shoot a number of scenes in her house.

The film is darkly comic and also skillfully anxiety producing. It's not boring. When the Bling Ring kids do their break-ins, security camera footage of them is intercut with the regular footage and there is always the sound of helicopters in the distance. Since we know they were eventually caught we keep waiting for the moment.

The young actors are very good. Katie Chang, as Rebecca Anh, the leader of the gang, brings a casual sociopathic edge to her role and Emma Watson leaves Harry Potter far behind with her portrayal of Nikki Moore, the most self-deluded, narcissistic and and unintentionally amusing of the bunch.

This is not a great film but it's worth seeing. I'm once again interested in what Sofia Coppola's next project will be.

Winter Light Part 3

Montparnasse Cemetery exists in the shadow of the Montparnasse Tower, the only skyscraper in central Paris. After the tower was built, they realized that it was a terrible idea and changed the rules so it would never happen again. This is the cemetery from the top of the tower (in summer light 2008).

This is the tower from the cemetery on a very chilly day in 2005. The top of the tower is lost in the fog.

Jean Seberg was a cinematic icon just on the basis of "Breathless".

The intelligentsia.

This is Contantin Brancusi's statue "The Kiss" on a grave in the cemetery.

Winter Light Part 2

The bureau chief neglected to mention that the winter photos in the last post were from our 2005 trip, giving some of our faithful readers the impression they were recent. Unfortunately, recently completed renovations to the bureau precluded traveling to France last year and will preclude it this year (I know I'll get no sympathy). On the other hand our excellent contractor is paying for his daughter's wedding.

Since the blogging machine is already fired up, I thought I'd post some pictures of Montmartre cemetery. Since it's on a hill it has a certain double-decker aspect.

There are lots of famous people buried there but Nijinsky's tomb caught my eye.

As did La Goulue's.

I don't know if she was the sole creator of the "French Cancan" but she was certainly an icon of it.

Winter Light

Madame Le Chef and I have made it to Paris five times in this century. Four trips were in the summer and one was at Christmas time. Paris was fascinating, as always, but the one thing we weren't totally prepared for is that the city is further north than one tends to think. It's further north than Thunder Bay Ontario. This means that when you arrive close to the shortest day of the year, the sun is not fully up until 8:30 AM and starts descending around 4 PM. That's not a lot of daylight. On the other hand, the light is very beautiful.

This was taken around 9 AM.

The Louvre.

Louvre roof.

19th century apartment blocks near the Louvre.

It's claimed that it rarely snows in Paris but it did while we were there. This is outside the Pantheon.

Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen has made a film almost every year since 1977, when he made probably his best film, "Annie Hall". He was on a roll through the 70s and 80s but quality declined in the 90s and in the 00s of this century. The bureau chief, who at one time saw every Allen film that came out, adopted the wait for the reviews and see method after watching some truly wretched efforts. Expectations have been greatly diminished so it's a pleasure to be able to say that "Midnight in Paris", the director's latest, is a very enjoyable little film.

Owen Wilson plays Gil, a successful screenwriter who despises his own trade. He has a sexy but horrible fiancée, Rachel McAdams, and equally horrible future inlaws, and he wishes that he could be working on his novel, in 1920s Paris, among the Lost Generation. He gets his wish, after midnight, every night. It's an English Major's wet dream where he gets to hang out with Hemingway, Scott and Zelda and Gertrude Stein. He also meets a lovely French woman, Marian Cotillard, who, a woman of the 1920s, longs for the Belle Epoque of the turn of the 20th century. Clearly this is a wry meditation on the nature of nostalgia but with a light touch.

The film is funny. The biggest crowd pleaser is Hemingway, played by unknown-to-me Cory Stoll, as a Hemingway hero speaking Hemingway prose. But Allen gets humor from all the notables who appear, to the point where just their appearing is amusing. This film, and "Vicky Christina Barcelona" demonstrate that the director still has some things to show us.

Palate Cleanser

Today we left the lovely Loire Valley town of Montsoreau and drove to the big city of Nantes where we checked into a hotel with internet. Here's a picture of where we stayed in Montsoreau.

For those faithful readers who found the picture of the andouillette disturbing, I hope this plate of seared maigret du canard with pesto (not basil) and fried gnocchi, from the restaurant “Urbane” in the 10th Arrondissement of Paris, wipes out that memory.

And here is a bowl of zucchini soup with basil mousse from the restaurant “Café Panique” also in the 10th.

Paris 1st Report

Madame Le Chef and I are great fans of Paris Walks, which are walking tours in English led by very well prepared, intelligent and amusing guides in various neighborhoods in Paris. Unfortunately we've been on almost all of them so we were happy to discover a new one which had a history of science emphasis and centered around the Jardin des Plantes in the Latin Quarter.

The tour started with the remains of a Roman arena. The original stonework had been repaired with modern additions but the basic structure was there. Instead of blood, guts and fake naval battles there were some guys playing soccer.

The Jardin des Plantes has a zoo and, although we didn't visit it, the animal images over flowed.

Even the merry-go-round had a didactic slant.

The actual building.

Science and commercialism.

Under the trees on a hot day.