A change of season is coming, bringing a host of cinema events to brighten up your spring days. New releases, must-sees, the Spring Cinema Festival (Printemps du Cinéma), and discounted tickets—a whole program for the arrival of warmer weather.
Here is a quick overview of what’s happening in theaters right now.
Glass slippers and leapfrogging: children are in the spotlight… Easter holidays are here, and our dear little ones will find plenty to enjoy in theaters. No egg hunting under the seats, but the return of Cinderella and a trip to the countryside with a sheep named Shaun.
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Spring returns… to the Cinema
From Sunday, March 22 to Tuesday, March 24, 2015, the Printemps du Cinéma is back in French movie theaters, offering 3 uninterrupted days of cinema deals.
A quick reminder about this event: for 3 days, movie theaters offer all spectators the chance to get into the dark rooms for the modest sum of €3.50 per screening. So if you haven’t been to the cinema much lately, this is your chance to catch up!
If you’re not sure what to see, here are a few ideas, but you can also take a look at the cinema article for the month of February!
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Cinderella: Ella, Ella… not so modern…
It must be said that Disney loves recycling. You take an old recipe that has proven its worth in the past, sprinkle it with new features (on a green screen), and serve it up hot to the public. After Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent, and The Wizard of Oz, it’s Cinderella’s turn to get a makeover. Even so, the cinder girl smells of dust.
And yet, the direction, entrusted to the very Shakespearean Kenneth Branagh, promised a very noble legacy for the young princess. Kenneth Branagh, accustomed to prose and sonnets (although tempted by the irresistible adventure of lending his genius to the epic scale of a superhero), did not find enough in Cinderella to elevate his career as a director.
And yet the setting of the most beautiful work catches the eye and tickles our inner child with details as tasty as a madeleine. Helena Bonham Carter, as the fairy godmother, bewitches and knows how to charm with her whimsy, even outside of Tim Burton‘s world.
Very close to the original Disney version, the transformation of the beauty remains a real success, a florilegium of effects orchestrated by an old refrain that goes “bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.” A journey to childhood, a flight, like the tornado that carried Dorothy far from her Kansas. But overall, the journey is a dead end.
Carried by a cast that feels the influence of the young generation of HBO or other successful series, these rising stars (Lily James “Downton Abbey”, Richard Madden “Game of Thrones“) do what they can to modernize a theme that is outdated and far from the liberating and emancipated discourses (Let It Go, no, that’s enough!) of contemporary animated films.
Why has Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella escaped more than 50 years of shifting attitudes toward women? A copy/paste of the cartoon of yesteryear, Lily James, perfectly corseted and playing with the mice in the attic, wears a smile and an enchantment toward shiny things that eventually becomes annoying.
Why has the open-mindedness that Disney has shown with its revisited classics suddenly disappeared with the wave of a magic wand? Perhaps the fear that this generation might forget grandma’s old recipes?
With a dull moralizing discourse, not to mention the “and they lived happily ever after” (yes, they dared), Cinderella still breaks her slipper but mostly annoys us. What remains is a perfect Cate Blanchett, cold and indifferent toward this cinder girl who also ends up putting us to sleep. A pity…
The Cinderella surprise: before unwrapping the gift package, a special preview should delight the children. They will have the surprise of discovering the short film “Frozen Fever”. The return of Elsa and Anna will make a splash, as will its new song, which will mark a break in the hell that parents are living with the (all-too) famous “Let It Go”. A refreshing appetizer before the heaviness of the main course.
Cinderella Directed by Kenneth Branagh, with Lily James, Richard Madden, Cate Blanchett Duration: 1h44 in theaters from March 25, 2015
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Shaun the Sheep: Sheep in the city…
While the Musée des Arts Ludiques is preparing to host the exhibition dedicated to Aardman Studios, it is their latest, Shaun the Sheep, who becomes the star of the day.
Adapted for the big screen, the successful series broadcast on the BBC doesn’t have to blush at the reputation of its predecessors “Wallace and Gromit” or “Chicken Run”, and is a worthy addition to the studio’s long list of gems. The little sheep is now making its way into the big leagues, thanks to an endearing, bucolic, intimate, and highly refined universe.
It was in a short film titled “A Close Shave” that Shaun first appeared alongside “Wallace and Gromit”. Since then, the little sheep has made a name for itself on its own, in commercials, until it became a hero in its own right, soon joined by its rival the dog Bitzer, and the farmer, who manages this whole little world.
A successful series, the character’s destiny was already set, with its place being in theaters. This time, Shaun can no longer stand the surprise-free daily routine of farm work and plays the leapfrog card to outsmart the farmer and take a day off with its companions.
But things go wrong, their master disappears into the confusing hustle and bustle of the big city. The adventure begins for the whole flock…
Going from 7-minute episodes to a feature film was a major challenge for the studio’s animators. And yet, the transition goes off without a hitch.
The film strings together action, humor, and emotion in a sustained and mastered rhythm that never tires the viewer, despite the total absence of dialogue. Therein lies the strength of an animation adjusted to the millimeter, where each of these silicone puppets expresses, through a gesture or an expression, a multitude of ideas and emotions that are sorely lacking in digital-era animation.
Facetious, energetic, the film moves you like a Chaplin movie, where the sweetness of these fragile and marginalized beings, lost in a world that is not their own, tugs at your heartstrings. Intelligent, clearing the table of clichés and ease, Shaun is an artistic and narrative feat.
Shaun the Sheep gains in sincerity where some animated films lose interest. Because the subject matter cares for the detail and points out the joy found in life far from the hustle and bustle. The superficiality, created by the fashion of a sheep’s haircut, is confused with the farmer’s amnesia, who doesn’t know what he is doing.
Or how to create buzz while being ignorant of what matters. Shaun finds peace in a secluded field, in habit and community life. It’s simple, but effective!
Shaun the Sheep Directed by Mark Burton, Richard Starzak Duration: 1h25 in theaters from April 1, 2015
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Birdman: heroic schizophrenia…
And the Oscar goes to 
: “Birdman”! The verdict is final: the film by Alejandro González Iñárritu is declared the best film of the year by the Academy. Deserved? “Birdman” sticks its tongue out at “Boyhood” and spreads its wings to embrace an industry whose superficiality it deplores.
Deserved and applauded, the film is a UFO, a labyrinthine work that manipulates us in an exemplary and staggering way.
Michael Keaton embodies a fallen actor, like an open-heart therapy. A denied alter ego, and yet this depressive, alcoholic, and totally has-been actor, Keaton knows him, contemplates him in this dirty mirror, a reflection of a roller-coaster career.
A destructive conscience that comes to whisper in his ear in the guise of a once-adored superhero, with a voice as deep as the impression he left on the public. (Batman, are you there?).
But which public? The demanding Broadway public, which applauds torture and tastes blood like simple sweat. Or the public of an explosive Michael Bay-style cinema that destroys real stars, makes them fly over mediocrity, only to never reach that dream that was within reach.
The director disorients his audience in the vast corridors of the theater, an art of stripping bare, where the actor can play his last card. Each actor here has a role to play, decisive, like a brilliantly orchestrated relay race.
Iñárritu creates the illusion of a long take that makes you crazy as much as it mesmerizes. The prodigious staging alone is worth the trip.
Iñárritu resurrects Keaton and offers the all-too-rare Edward Norton a golden character, a Machiavellian being who wants to be both the good and bad conscience of an actor who wants to believe in his comeback.
Emma Stone, a little flower on cocaine, fragile and fierce, no longer has faith in her former star father, but adores the unfeathered hero. Iñárritu reinvents the superhero, the one who exists in our minds and who is looking for his place in the hell of buzz.
A schizophrenic film of rare power, “Birdman” turns its back on the Hollywood that gives it all the honors. It’s thoroughly enjoyable, breathless like that nervous drumming that sets the tone for the film. Heroic!
Birdman Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, with Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone Duration: 1h59 in theaters since February 25
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Big Eyes: Tim Burton makes eyes at…
Tim Burton is a storyteller, an enchanter, a creator of universes, of memorable characters profoundly linked to him. He is a fringe director who has fled the banality of “political correctness” and locked himself in his bubble, full of mischievous and optimistic darkness.
But like all geniuses, his work is sometimes totally misunderstood and subjected to fierce detractors who deny the possibility of redemption in his own art.
Tim Burton has created his own family, with his codes, his regulars, but has eventually wearied an audience that has changed its view of cinema. And yet his cinema is still what it is: the reflection of a dreamer who loves security and wants to believe in his creatures. Since “Sweeney Todd,” Burton has been trying to dust off old dreams.
Alas, by wanting to “Burton-ize” classics, the work has turned against its creator. “Frankenweenie” was the precursor to the Tim Burton of the future: kid projects that scare the audience away because they are too far from the norm.
Today with “Big Eyes,” the director tackles the world of art, and more specifically popular art, reproduction on a large scale. He allows Margaret Keane (another misunderstood genius) to bring her big-eyed children back to life, to let them play in Tim Burton’s backyard, and his infantile vision of the scam.
Manipulated, she will find fame, but hidden in the shadow of an opportunistic husband, a failed artist lacking recognition. The film is a Burton but without Tim.
Everything is there: the pastel and sanitized suburbia of “Edward Scissorhands,” the clownish interpretation reminiscent of Nicholson’s Joker, Christoph Waltz-style, the enchanted notes of Danny Elfman, and yet the result lacks substance.
The sensitivity of Amy Adams is saving, and points to the artist at the heart of an era he no longer masters. Keane’s sad children are the companions of little Tim, who is desperately trying to move his audience.
It’s pleasant like a “Big Fish,” but the fish doesn’t bite! Tim Burton treats the fraud like a schoolboy at his desk. It’s subtle, harmonious, and holds up.
But Burton fans will leave saddened to see their great hero making concessions with the studios and agreeing to be less himself to be more… common. And that’s not what we expect from an extraordinary director…
Big Eyes Directed by Tim Burton, with Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz Duration: 1h47 in theaters since March 18, 2015
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The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: the seniors are in the place!
Three years after The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the crème de la crème of English actors is back in a sequel as invigorating as can be, still directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love).
We had left this lovely group in a dilapidated Marigold hotel, which today enjoys a second youth. The “second” installment is a miracle, as this hymn to life restores the reputation of a generation little supported in the seventh art.
The Marigold Hotel is now fully booked, and the grumpy Muriel Donnelly (Maggie Smith) partners with Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel), whose dream is to expand his business.
In Jaipur, Evelyn (Judi Dench) and Douglas (Bill Nighy) have embarked on new professional adventures, without ever admitting the feelings they have for each other. Norman (Ronald Pickup) and Carol (Diana Hardcastle) let themselves be seduced by infidelity, and Madge (Celia Imrie) turns the heads of two Indian fortunes.
A “choral” construction that could lose the thread and keep the viewer at a distance. And yet, John Madden weaves his web with grace and voluptuousness, in a journey with spicy scents, surprisingly exotic. Funny and endearing, the film pays tribute to this group of sublime actors, transported far from the narrow paths of old age, in a whirlwind of color and music made in Bollywood.
A communicative energy sublimated by a Dev Patel overflowing with optimism and vigor. The duo formed with Maggie Smith presents the observation of a generational conflict that is not so insurmountable, in a relationship that brings together the ambition of youth and the experienced and benevolent judgment of an elder who is not a little proud.
We let ourselves be carried along by this delectable English comedy, which makes this clash of cultures a restful mixing imbued with very good intentions, where teatime is combined with the tumult of Indian dances. Why deprive yourself?
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Directed by John Madden, with Maggie Smith, Dev Patel, Judi Dench Duration: 2h03 in theaters from April 1, 2015
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Quais du Polar, Lyon
We end this article with the announcement of a Lyon festival (my home city) that has existed since 2005, Quais du Polar. This eleventh edition is once again partnering with the SNCF to offer the 2015 SNCF Polar Prize.
On this occasion, a Polar train will run between Paris and Lyon on March 27 with events on board; there will be free screenings of the films in competition (short films) during the festival and events at the Lyon Part-Dieu station.
In fact, several other mystery events take place several times a month on trains and in stations throughout France, to allow travelers to be part of the grand popular jury that will choose this SNCF Polar Prize (3 categories: Comic Book, Short Film, and Novel).
You can also go directly to the Polar SNCF website to watch the short films in competition and vote online for your favorite.
The great deal: to get to the festival at a low price, 100% Prem’s tickets will be available.
Quais du Polar from March 27 to 29, 2015 at various locations in Lyon
article written by Julie Brando and Melle Bon Plan
