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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