Autumn Begins Right Now

Summer is over! Woo-hoo! Farewell, over-bloated, shallow, irritating, noisy, derivative Hollywood product; hello festivals, retrospectives, and other quality fall filmic fare! The first great film of the autumn season arrives this week -- Abdellatif Kechiche's Games of Love and Chance (L'Esquive). Already one of Filmbrain's picks for best of 2005, it's unlike anything else you're bound to see this year -- vibrant, original, and endlessly fascinating; it's one of those films that restores your faith in the art form. The reviews so far have been quite good, and rightly so. Opens this week in NYC (Filmbrain will be seeing it again for sure), followed by additional cities in the coming weeks. Trust Filmbrain -- this one is too good to miss. Have a great labor(less) day on Monday -- rest up for the great cinematic deluge that arrives over the next three months. (Now, if Filmbrain can only figure out how to be in New York and Pusan at the same time. . .)

Comments

[girish]

I remember Filmbrain's review well, and am delighted that the film is now in distribution.

[Aaron Hillis]

For all it may be worth (as I ran out of time to write it up for Premiere.com), I had been planning to give the film a 4-star review.

[Michael]

Sounds interesting. Thanks for the heads up -- will keep my eyes out for it in L.A. Have a good holiday weekend.

[philippe]

I didn't know that this movie will be releasing in the states.
that was one of the BEST french movies in the last years. it will be very interesting to know what will please you in it because the story and the characters are really typical here in france.
and i don't know how foreign audience can relate to that.
Good luck for the translation, too much slang. i wonder how they'll do that.

[Filmbrain]

The translator decided to use the equivalent street slang of American youth. Though I'm sure the kids in L'Esquive aren't saying "homie", it suffices.

[Mike G]

Just to nominate another potential film for your "Best of 2005"...Nicholas Cage's Lord of War. I was definitely blown away when I went to the advanced screening two weeks ago and had a great Q&A with the director Andrew Niccol. It's a must see!

[Mikko Pihkoluoma]

Right now one of my personal favourites is Innocence, but L'enfant isn't far off.

About L'esquive: I had a lot of trouble accepting that the film was so literal. It's splendidly writte, but I'm not even sure it's a film; it's more like a really good camcorded script reading. The documentary feeling and the police harrasment scenes give it a few cinematic qualities, but otherwise I'm not terribly convinced on Kechiche's directing skills. He seems to be good with actors, but I expect a bit more from _films_.

[phyrephox]

Mike, that's interesting you say that, because though the trailers looked hack-tastic, I noticed the writer/director was Andrew Niccol, who is certainly far from stupid. I'm looking forward to it.

I'll be seeing L'esquive today, it leaves NYC by next Tuesday.

[Mike G]

Yeah, I was a bit apprehensive when I saw the trailer at first. But a friend got a few screening passes and took me to the show. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much in the beginning but was quickly proven wrong. Since this was also Lion's Gate Film, it's far from your typical Hollywood popcorn flick.