Learning French with Movies
What should I be looking for when buying French movies?
Ideally the DVD or Blu-Ray disc you purchase should offer as many French/English dialogue options as possible. This can include English audio with French subtitles, French audio with English subtitles, and French audio only. There are two ways to get these movies:
1. Domestic Market Movies
Popular French films often make it to our shores with English dubbing, or at least English subtitles. Thanks to Quebec’s Francophone population many American-produced movies include French audio tracks, but it’s rarer to find one of these with both French audio and subtitles. You may already have some of these movies in your collection, although the language will be less accurate since the dialog is adapted from English. Major releases will have a large box on the bottom of the back cover that will list the included audio tracks and subtitles.
2. French Market Movies
Video is encoded for different regions to control their worldwide release: France-market DVDs are Region 3 while U.S. and Canadian market discs are Region 1. French Blu-Ray is Region 2 while domestic market products are Region 1. Some off-the-shelf players are region free, although this feature won’t be advertised. Often the only way to tell is to try a disc from a different region. Retailers that specialize in import video will often carry region-free players. Britain has the same region coding as France so most newer French-market movies will include English audio and subtitles.
What are some good movies to learn French from?
1. Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain: Known as “Amelie” state-side, this is by far the most internationally popular French movie. A young woman does a good deed for a stranger which gets her started helping out friends and neighbors in unusual ways. The other movies on this list may require some searching, but nearly every video store will have a copy of this film on hand.
2. Les Visiteurs: Until “Amelie” came along this was the highest grossing comedy in France. A knight and his squire are accidentally sent to present day France where they must work with their descendants to return to their own time. The interactions these medieval French have with the modern world provide a good base for real-life situations, sort of like an adult “Dora the Explorer.”
3. Banlieue 13: This story of drugs and corruption introduced parkour to the world. Brought to English-speaking audiences under the titles “District 13″ and “District B13,” this is a good movie if you want to learn more earthy language.
4. Delicatessen: A handyman fixing things in an apartment building may sound like the plot of an instructional video, but if this apartment is in a post apocalyptic world where the tenants mysteriously disappear when they don’t pay their rent you have the makings of a great thriller. Like “Les Visiteurs,” its setting lends itself to language that can be useful in real life.
See also: French horror films.
The writer/director of this film would only be noticed by the public is he went broke and knocked over a liquor store. The cast is the “Blacksheep squadron” of the movie world. An A list of nobodies. The most notable actress in this effort also appeared in obscure reality television show, “Joe Schmo”. If you were only given this information about the film, a logical conclusion is that the movie should only be aired on “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ or late at night when nobody is awake, or sober. Oddly enough though, this film works.
What most people do not know about writer/director, David James, is that he is, in the truest sense of the word, a real rounder. He is a coinsurer of the ring game, though he can be seen, year in and year out, hanging around World Series of Poker events like a remora hangs onto a shark. This love of the game combined with his history and knowledge gives the movie a realism that is rare in poker films.
Unlike “Rounders” which follows a linear story line, “The Big Blind” has more of a “Pulp Fiction” feel to it. There are multiple plots and story lines which center around the Lake Elsinore casino. James masterfully interlocks these vignettes to create a wonderful cinematic tapestry about the happenings in and around the poker world.
The game itself contains a wide range of personalities and personas. This fact is not lost in the film. Instead of zeroing in on one stereotype, David James creates dozens of diverse personalities. Truly art mimicking real life.
If your enjoyment of poker is not limited to the game itself, but the atmosphere as well, you will enjoy “The Big Blind”. The gritty realism that is represented in this film leaves you with the feeling that the depicted events could be happening at your favorite casino at any time. If you are looking for star power though, I suggest you go rent some quality film like “Gigli”.
Amy White http://www.texas-poker-777.com
www.texas-poker-777.com
Sure, Spidey takes in all the big box-office dough, Supes is the strongest, and Batman has all those wonderful toys. But with the smash success of “Iron Man,” Tony Stark rocketed himself to the top of the superhero ranks. So when MTV News recently visited the set of the eagerly anticipated sequel, Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. were determined to prove that the first flick was no fluke and explore the repercussions of a hero exposed. Sales of iron man dvds are still selling well months after release
“That was [Marvel Studios honcho Kevin Feige’s] thing, and it was funny ha-ha as an out,” actor-turned-filmmaker Favreau said of the first film’s now-classic finale, in which Downey reveals to the world’s media that he is Iron Man. “And then now, the exciting action of the sequel is asking, ‘What does that really mean to a real person in a real world?’ And then we heighten it for our superhero reality.”
This superhero reality had us visiting Stark’s iconic underground garage now new and improved with infrared sensors in the floor that allow him to operate his “Minority Report”-esque virtual computer anywhere, not to mention an Obama-inspired Iron Man poster on the wall that was approved by Shepard Fairey himself.
“Half the stuff [Stark] does, he doesn’t ever really know why he did,” Downey said of the billionaire industrialist’s newfound notoriety, which has him entering the sequel (six months later) as a sort of superhero/ reality-show star/ politician-like celebrity. “He does it in the moment.”
“Essentially it’s an inner game, rather than it is about who the nemesis or nemeses are,” Downey said of his own worst enemy in the new film himself. “But obviously Mickey [Rourke as Whiplash] figures into that, and there’s other challenges as well.”