alice’s posterous

Yesterday night, I watched Looking for Eric directed by Ken Loach and starring Steve Evets as a depressed postman from Manchester and Eric Cantona as "lui-même" or himself!
Ken Loach is not known for making funny and uplifting films. I remember watching Sweet Sixteen or It's a Free World... and feeling so depressed afterwards! However Looking for Eric was funny and touching at the same time. Ken Loach still describes working class people and confused teenagers who have stopped going to school. Eric Bishop is a football fanatic postman whose life is descending into crisis. But this time there is optimism. Eric's hallucinations bring forth visits from his football hero, the famously philosophical Eric Cantona, who gives him advice. Thanks to Cantona and with the help of his friends, Eric Bishop will overcome his problems.

Ken Loach said of the film, "We wanted to deflate the idea of celebrities as more than human. And we wanted to make a film that was enjoying the idea of what you and I would call solidarity, but what others would call support for your friends really, and the old idea that we are stronger as a team than we are as individuals."

Two important points why I enjoyed watching the film:

• the comic situation in that a Frenchman gives a lesson to an Englishman ;)
• the fact that we are stronger as a team and that football is a team sport and not individual players scoring amazing goals. When Bishop asks Cantona his best moment in his football career, Cantona says: "it's not a goal, it's a pass". That is what football is all about!

I thoroughly recommend seeing it. My favourite quotes are "I'm not a man, I'm Cantona." and "He who is afraid to throw the dice, will never throw a six." :))

Plus d'infos sur ce film

What about you? Have you watched the film? Did you enjoy it?

This is again a brilliant animation from Ideas to Inspire.



It could be used when teaching house and bedroom in another language, as well as verbs in the present tense.
After watching it, students would have to:

• describe the bedroom/ the characters
  
• write a narration for the story in the present tense
  
• think of an alternative ending

I have been watching OSS 117 Rio ne répond plus, the second movie about the famous French secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath (who shall be referred to as Hubert, to spare you the tedious length of his name) and I've found it as funny (even funnier) than the previous one OSS 117 Le Caire, un nid d'espions.

Hubert (played by great actor Jean Dujardin) is the anti-hero, a parody of the traditional espionage movie. He is the stereotype of the arrogant Frenchman, misogynistic, a chauvinist, filled with racial, colonial and cultural prejudices. The character is so grotesque and exaggerated, it is impossible not to laugh at his stupidity. And when we laugh, we can do it without feeling guilty because it is not the Arabs, Jews or Chinese that we are laughing at, but the outdated attitude of the old-school Frenchman.
Hubert is a mix of Austin Powers and James Bond, but in the French way with alcohol, women, and deranged dance moves. It is very politically incorrect but it works because it is French!