Ociné

Hôtel de ville de Saint-Omer

Film: Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010)

Screens: 8  Ticket price: 9.20€

Saint-Omer is a great town to visit and this cinema -- just off the main square -- is a bustling place that makes for a fine evening out.  Many years ago I remember pressing my nose up against the attractive glass exterior while on a day-trip there -- although my interest in the cinema was soon forgotten as I struggled to stay conscious after an alfresco lunch consisting of a "Welsh" that contained enough melted cheese to fill the Stade de France.  Later on that day you'd have caught me cramming armfuls of salad into my mouth in the vain hope it would counter the brutality of the cheese.

Fast forward a few years and a short break in the town afforded us enough time to take in a film.  The rather belligerent ticket man and the indifferent popcorn woman weren't the best front of house staff I've ever encountered, but that was the worst of it.  I think it was the opening day for Luc Besson's latest, which proved to be piles of fun.  The auditorium it played in is, I'm guessing, the biggest of the 8 they have as it was pretty huge.  Pic and sound quality were both excellent, and the seats nice and comfortable.  All in this is an attractive and lively cinema that I would happily pop into again.  That's if I'm still successfully eluding the long-term effects of that Welsh. 

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Majestic

Rue de la Mairie, Douai

Film: Quand j'étais chanteur (2006)

Screens: 10  Ticket price: 10€

In September 2006 we took a much-needed trip to Douai -- a place we'd never been to before, but it was a reasonably easy place to get to to catch living legend Johnny Hallyday on his superb Flashback tour (tickets purchased about 18 months ahead of the show), thus joining the masses who've seen this megastar perform (a staggering 1 in 3 French people have seen him in concert).  The day after the show we had a full day in which to explore Douai before heading back to the channel tunnel, and after doing the town centre and the excellent market in the morning we still had the afternoon at our disposal.

We headed over to the Majestic to catch the first screening of the day, and were met with the sight of a sizeable crowd milling around as they waited for the cinema to open.  In the meantime we still had enough time to get some lunch, so went to the Subway that's right next to (and might even be joined onto) the cinema.  Lucky we did, as they had a "menu ciné" (or similar) offer which, for little more than the cost of a cinema ticket on its own, gave you your typical Subway meal deal of sandwich/crisps/drink, plus a ticket for a screening at the Majestic.  A great deal, especially when it negates the need to visit the food kiosk in the cinema as you smuggle your oh-so-messy sandwich into the auditorium.  I'm kidding here -- we did actually eat our meal like well-adjusted members of society at one of Subway's tables.  Ideally, Subway sandwiches should be eaten while standing in your sink or wearing a poncho (or both?); as nice as they usually taste, stuff that you generally don't remember ordering tends to come oozing freely out of them.

The cinema itself was pretty nice -- the screening was fuss-free, although there was a potentially worrying moment when a rather noisy couple came in, only to realise they were in the wrong auditorium.  But the film was great -- a moving, subtle and classy tale that signed off in the most bittersweet of manners.  And what's not to like in a film that features Depardieu, de France and Amalric?  Almost inspired me to go out and buy a Mike Brant album -- or at least a poster (you might have to see the film to fully appreciate that one).

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UGC Ciné Cité Créteil

Film: La science des rêves (2006)

Screens: 12  Ticket price: 11.40€

For a couple of successive summers we’d had a late August/early September (don't dignify it by clicking) holiday in Paris, taking advantage of reasonably good value train-plus-hotel combos offered by Eurostar.  Summer 2006 saw them offer nothing but ridiculously-priced packages -- well, perhaps they did, but not when we tried to book, which was about the same time as the previous two years.  "Ah'm no giein them it" was the most-heard phrase in our house as my wife pummelled the keyboard in search of a non-existent bargain (what's up with all these people who spell it "bargin," by the way? And why does our house turn into an Irvine Welsh novel whenever we try to book a holiday?)  But we did have, hiding in plain view, a ticket remaining from a value bundle we’d bought from the now-defunct Speedferries (click here for a Speedferries-related anachronism that yours truly submitted to the IMDb page for Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), so decided to put together our own package.  Ha!

The plan was to drive down to Paris from Boulogne but stop off at a couple of places we’d often thought about but had never actually got round to: Amiens and Parc Astérix.  Neither of those places disappointed, and en route we managed to take in the very attractive Chantilly, too.  Now, you’re probably thinking that taking the car to Paris isn’t the greatest idea, and you’re right -- but we’d cunningly booked a hotel on the outskirts (Créteil), with the main criteria being that it had to have parking and was close to a métro station.  As it turned out, Créteil was the last stop on the line, but getting into the centre of town was actually pretty painless.  Once it was holed up in the hotel’s free car park, the Hyundai didn’t move until it was time to head north again.  Although I think it did nip out to get a McDonald's at some point, as I noticed some evidence under the radiator on the day we checked out.  But I let it slide.

There was a large and impressive shopping centre close to the hotel, and next to (or joined onto) it was the UGC.  The efficient if none-too-sparkly ticket seller handed me the tickets plus a couple of miserable coins in exchange for my 20€ note (it may be the ’burbs, but they still charge Parisian prices) and we then proceeded to wait behind a cordon while our auditorium was "prepared."  The Michel Gondry film -- one of my favourite movies of the past ten years -- was nicely-presented to a well-behaved audience, and all told it made for a very satisfying evening out.

Now, this is quite interesting (though probably only to me), but they screened the film in its original version, although if memory serves me right this wasn't indicated anywhere in the foyer or listings.  In all the times I've looked at this cinema's listings since, I've never known them to screen a film in anything other than French.  Maybe this was a one-time-only error that met with a barrage of complaints (although our fellow audience members didn't seem at all disgruntled), and if so was a reasonably easy one to make: Gondry is a French director; the movie was French-filmed, set and funded; it had an original title that was in French; and it prominently featured French stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alain Chabat, Miou-Miou and Emma de Caunes.  So perhaps they assumed (via the duck test or otherwise) that the film could only be in the French language.  But -- and here's the rub -- the film starred Mexican heartthrob Gael García Bernal, whose character used the lingua franca that is English to communicate with those around him (an arrangement that no doubt continued off-screen as well).  I'd estimate that no less than 85% of the film is in English.

So yep, that's Créteil for you.  On the basis of that truly great film I said I'd always make a point of seeking out Michel Gondry's future work (even though I didn't especially care for his earlier Eternal Sunshine) but I'm now quite understandably reconsidering that policy on the basis of The Green Hornet.  Everything has its limits.

Update: Judging by the information in the issues of L'Officiel des spectacles that I've managed to get hold of this year (2019), it now seems that films in VO are not uncommon here...

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[PARTLY CLOSED] Gaumont Champs-Elysées

Film: Clean (2004)

Screens: 6/7  Ticket price: 10.50/12€

A tip: if you ever arrange to meet someone at the Gaumont Champs-Elysées but you're not planning on seeing a film there, my advice is don't.  Pick another rendezvous point, such as the Disney Store or the Publicis Drugstore.  See, there are two cinemas there, both called Gaumont Champs-Elysées.  If this helps at all, the one referred to as the Marignan is on the same side as the Publicis Drugstore while the Ambassade is on the same side as the Disney Store, Fnac and Virgin Megastore (yes, they may be gone from the US and UK, but you can still get your fix in France).  But, despite having nominally different identifiers, they always seem to come under the single umbrella of Gaumont Champs-Elysées.

I suppose you could say that London's Leicester Square has two Odeon cinemas, but at least they have explicitly different names -- Odeon Leicester Square (which also houses the broom-cupboard miniplex Odeon Mezzanine -- a similar deal to Le Grand Rex, but not as good) and Odeon West End.  If you're dozy enough to say you'll meet someone by "that Odeon in Leicester Square" a bit of nomenclature confusion might await you, but at least they're much closer than these two Gaumonts that, to all intents and purposes, have the same frickin' name.  A much harsher mistress.  Between these two you'll find a very nice spread of films, with the tourist trap nature of the area meaning that films in English aren't hard to come by (although this same logic doesn't apply to the Gaumont out at Disneyland).

We visited the Ambassade on my birthday to see Olivier Assayas' Clean -- a film that starred ex-Mrs Assayas Maggie Cheung and contained a nice little appearance by Canuck combo Metric.  Assayas is an interesting director -- kind of like France's answer to Michael Winterbottom (stay with this, please) as he indulges in all manner of genre-hopping.  He's made some pretty great films (such as Clean, Carlos and Les destinées), interesting failures (Demonlover) and downright stinkers (Boarding Gate).  A lot like Winterbottom.  Plus, they have at least one actress in common (ex-Mrs Mathieu Amalric, AKA Jeanne Balibar) who worked on Clean immediately after Winterbottom's Code 46 (copy and paste into his "interesting failures" if you so fancy).

But yep, it's a very comfortable cinema and a nice place to escape the hustle and bustle of the Champs-Elysées for a couple of hours (especially when you've just overdone it on hot chocolate and cake).  It's a little bit pricey, but as it's a combination of (i) Gaumont and (ii) the Champs-Elysées, what could anyone reasonably expect?  Much better value than that Odeon in Leicester Square, anyway.  No, not the one by Chiquitos... the one, you know, by the grass square... along from The Hampshire... towards Panton Street.  But not Odeon Panton Street.  Oh, just forget it; see you at the Gaumont Champs-Elysées.

Update:  The above nomenclature confusion no longer applies as, after 57 years of service, the Ambassade side shut down at the end of July 2016.  Now's probably a good time to also mention that there's currently only one Odeon in London's Leicester Square (although Odeon West End is due to be revived in a couple of years, incorporated into a luxury hotel).  Oh, and Virgin Megastores no longer exist in France.

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Studio 28

Montmartre, dominated by the Sacré-Cœur

Films: 5x2 (2004), La moustache (2005)

Screens: 1  Ticket price: 9€

The first cinema I set foot in on French soil (unless we count non-film excursions to the UGC in Lille) still stands as one of the best.  Both times we've been there we've been staying just around the corner from the cinema on the steep Rue Tholozé, which is deep in the heart of Amélie country (indeed, part of that film was shot in the cinema's opulent interior), AKA Montmartre.

There's something very special about this one-screener.  Luis Buñuel's shockfest L'Age d'Or debuted here, as did his later Los Olvidados.  At one time Jean Cocteau was closely associated with the place and designed some of the interior features such as the light fittings, a peek at which is arguably worth the (by no means extortionate) ticket price alone -- or, you could just click on the link (that reminds me -- put your 'phone away, you ****).  There's a nice-looking bar (no food or drink allowed in the cinema, mind) and (hopefully still) a charming resident Wire Fox Terrier; we once swung by there when the cinema was shut as part of its annual closing, and as we stood outside figuring out our next move, the dog drove past and glanced at the cinema.  It's true -- he was in the left-hand seat, and I very much doubt the car was an import.

My inaugural experience of a film at a French cinema was a preview of Ozon's sweaty 5x2 -- a film that, at the time, I felt was less than the sum of its parts and actually more like 6/10 (I thank you).  But in the months that followed it really started to grow on me, for several reasons --  it does have an emotional resonance, it featured the great Michael Lonsdale, there's fine use of Sparring Partner on the soundtrack, and even that reedy sister of the first lady (who's also rent-a-deviant Louis Garrel's real-life Mrs Robinson) was pretty good in it.  Man, did she stink in that Chabrol film.  The cinema, which probably has only a couple of hundred seats, was packed and they even conducted a short pre-film quiz, which sounds really intense and geeky but was actually quite relaxed and fun.  Tuesday night previews are a staple there, and I would imagine that if I lived round those parts (as if...) I'd become one of the many who religiously turn out for them.  Films are always in their original language there -- it's a pretty hardcore place, but fun and friendly.

Since you weren't wondering, the "28" part in the name comes from the year the cinema opened, which apparently makes it the longest-running picture house in Paris.  The cinema was immortalised in a 1998 film starring Mike Myers.

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