Cinéma des cinéastes

Film: A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

Screens: 3  Ticket price: 9.50€

Now this is a cinema.  Founded by Claudes Lelouch, Miller and Berri with Jean-Jacques Beineix (the rogue whose Betty Blue was responsible for introducing that law where a quad for the film had to adorn every 80s/90s student hovel), this 3-screener, situated in Clichy and just across from the Pathé Wepler, really means it.  Don't come here unless you want to watch the film, as chatterboxes and text/facebook/twitter addicts will not be suffered at all, let alone gladly.

With an ambitious programme that annually includes a generous helping of stuff hot from Cannes, as soon as you walk in here you can sense the purposeful -- yet not at all pretentious -- atmosphere.  The auditorium we were in was quite modern and minimalist in terms of its decor, which is how I understand the other two to be.  As you'd expect, the presentation of the film was superb, and Robert Altman's hugely enjoyable swansong, retitled as the less unwieldy (and rather poignant) The Last Show for French audiences, was well-received by the impeccably-behaved audience.

I really wish I'd visited the bistro (located upstairs - you have to enter from within the cinema, but a ticket isn't needed) as I've since read several rave reviews about it.  That said, on a cold December night the crêpe stand just over the road made for an ideal post-film stop to grab an ambulatory bite to eat.  That reminds me: if by any chance you bought a pile of stuff to make crêpes with (say, on holiday last summer in Brittany), isn't it about time you used it?  If that doesn't sound like you, please ignore.

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Le Grand Rex

Film: Arthur et les Minimoys (2006)

Screens: 7  Ticket price: 13.50€/11.50€

Boasting the biggest screen in Europe and some 2800 seats from which it can be viewed, Le Grand Rex isn't just a clever name -- and it's impossible not to be impressed by the scale and grandeur of this place.  The auditorium is decked out in flamboyant, Art Deco style, and it's tempting to spend much of your time looking anywhere but the screen -- which might well be advisable if, as was the case when we once walked past, something of the calibre of Stealth is playing.  As you'd expect, it's always a big, commercial film that plays on this screen, and it's almost always in French (originally or dubbed).

Arguably the best time to go is around Christmastime, where the big seasonal film is augmented by an incredible, elaborate, pre-film water fountain display entitled the Féerie des Eaux; apparently well over 1000 water jets are used for this show, which also involves lights/lasers and music.  They seem to thematically tie in this display with the film, so when we visited there were various characters from the first Arthur film (natch) pinging around on zip wires, dangling over balconies etc.  To be honest, between that and the incredible design of the building, I felt I'd just about got my money's worth even before Freddie Highmore started trying it on with Madonna -- surely that's just wrong?  Maybe that's why they got someone his own age (Selena Gomez) in for the two sequels?

In case you're reading this and thinking that I've made all this up and you never saw any such smut when you viewed the film, let it be known that the Weinsteins hacked around 10 minutes out of the movie for the US and UK markets -- most of which concerned this love story.  The original cut, which we saw at the Rex, is freely available on French DVD, complete with the original English audio track.  Hell, I may not necessarily agree with the concept of that boy from Two Brothers making amorous overtures towards the woman behind that filthy coffee table book, but I'll merrily defend your right to see such wrongheaded fare.  Although I probably wouldn't go so far as to provide a link to some backstreet trader that might supply it.

If you do plan on going at what might be a busy time (i.e. near Christmas, weekends or evenings) then you might want to book (online, in person or over the 'phone) as you can imagine how nuts this place can get when it's approaching anything like capacity.  We were down that way (nearest métro is Bonne Nouvelle, by the way) on a Saturday and had to wade through a swarm of Arthur-daft kids to book tickets for the Monday.  Best head to the box office that's a short way along the side street just to the left of the main entrance; they also have another half-dozen smaller, cheaper screens, but who wants to go to those?

If you've made the trip there, definitely do the behind-the-scenes tour, les Étoiles du Rex, which is thankfully self-guided and takes about 45 minutes.  At one point you go in a lift that takes you up (or is it down?) behind the screen where the main film is playing, and you can look right through at the unwitting audience who appear to be watching you.  Well, I suppose if they've been on the tour they won't be unwitting, as they'll know there's a lift behind the screen that's continually, silently going up and down as they're watching a dub of Transformers 2.  Bet this knowledge drives some of them mad.

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Pathé Wepler

Nightfall in the Place de Clichy. Image: public domain

Films: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

Screens: 12  Ticket price: 13.20€

Everyone loves the Pathé chicken, don't they?  Much better than that star thing that Gaumont has as a logo.  These two big-hitters now come under the same umbrella (as the link to the website will testify), and I assumed there'd be far more Gaumonts than Pathés around.  So I was mildly surprised to learn that Gaumont only has a poultry lead over their feathered friends, with the scores currently running at 35-34.  And that's only because Gaumont broke the deadlock by opening a spanking new multiplex (aren't they all?) in the regenerated docks area of Le Havre.  I hope this slightest of edges won't lead to Pathé being squeezed out, Andrew Garfield style.  You could just imagine the fried chicken returning from a long, stressful trip, on which he'd been nominally trying to drum(stick) up some advertising revenue (probably from Société Générale) and having his carefully-selected airport gifts flame-grilled by his lady friend, only to find he's been ousted by the apathy of I-can't-believe-it's-not-Michael Cera.

If I'm right (and can operate Allocine correctly, else the above figures may also be way out) the Pathé Wepler is the only cinema that the company (meaning the cockerel half of the operation) have operating in Paris (meaning with a 75 postcode).  Gaumonts are everywhere in the capital, though -- 12 at the last count, if we take their arrangement on the Champs-Elysées to be two, which we will.  Although, if we take it to be just one, that means the overall score is tied at 34 apiece and the chicken can rest easy.  I'd still have a lawyer check it over, though.  But those numbers (if at all accurate) prove that Pathé, like Kad in that Dany Boon film, have, in the main, been assigned to the sticks -- what's the crass thinking here?  That everyone outside of Paris lives in a Bruno Dumont film where they keep livestock, and will therefore be bewitched by that (admittedly pretty damn rockin') rooster graphic? 

We visited the Wepler cinema on back-to-back days, or at least twice in three days.  The reason I know this is that they had their summer "3 days, 3 Euro" promotion on so it seemed rude not to exploit it, even if the films we saw were ones we could quite easily have caught at home (although we wouldn't have -- over the past few years, we've spent far more time as a couple going to see films on overseas holidays than we have in UK cinemas).  In cosmopolitan, not-remotely-bucolic Paris it's generally not too hard to find a film that's playing in English, and the Pathé Wepler normally has something on in this tongue.  The two films we saw (one of which starred a pre-Madge-bothering Freddie Highmore, the other that greeting-faced guy from The Office who was only ever tolerable in that show) provide good examples of how this cinema (and quite a few others in the city) tends to operate: French dubs abound for earlier screenings of the day, but from evening onwards films often revert to their original languages (with French subs, natch).

The cinema is absolutely fine -- I have no real strong feelings about it, to be honest -- and is an easy walk from Montmartre, so if you like you can pop in to the famous cemetery before or after the film and see François Truffaut's grave.  The ticket booths are on a fairly noisy corner, and once you've barked your requirements through the glass you will either be heading through the doors right next to where you've grabbed your ticket or will have to nip round the corner to another set of doors, depending on what screen you're headed for.  If your destination is the further away entrance the ticket seller will normally gesture in that direction (I've deduced this after a full 2 visits), or the worst case is that you'll try the wrong door and a member of staff will prod you towards the other entrance -- you'll make more friends than Mark Zuckerberg as you fight against the throng of people who actually know where they're going.

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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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