Maryline Canto Movies

When a retired police officer is forcefully checked into a senior citizen's home, a fatal accident involving one of the residents leads him to suspect foul play in this lighthearted thriller written and directed by Romuald Beugnon. Simon may be up there in years, but he still feels like he's got more than a few good years left, and the thought of being marginalized as a result of his age is flat out infuriating. Upon being admitted to the Sapins Bleus retirement home against his will, Simon quickly discovers he's not the only one who feels this way: Ageing rocker Francky can still belt out a mean karaoke tune, former executive Jane Latour-Jackson still possesses a good portion of her feisty American spirit, and even nurses aide's Christine and Chantal have a special kind of sparkle in their eyes. After seventy year-old Alfred steps down from his post as the director of the home, Madame Laval takes over and at first it seems like everything is business as usual. Things soon start to get strange, however, when Alfred dies in a fatal accident that Simon senses may have been a homicide. Determined to get to the bottom of this deadly mystery, sharp-minded sleuth Simon enlists the aid of observant sidekick Francky in figuring out who would have benefited the most from Alfred's untimely death. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Time takes the most painful toll of all on a man confined to a home for the aged in this short drama from writer and director Olivier Bouffard. Paul (Michael Lonsdale) is an elderly man who is slowly falling victim to the ravages of senility. While Paul was once loved by his son and grandchildren, his wildly unpredictable behavior makes him difficult to deal with, and though his family still visits him on occasion, they appear to do so out of a sense of obligation rather than a genuine desire to spend time with him. Adding to Paul's sorrows is the unfortunate fact he's outlived many of his friends, while his surviving contemporaries no longer stay in touch. Ce Que Je Vous Dois (aka What I Owe You) was screened in competition at the 2007 Rotterdam International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

French novelist Vincent Ravalec made his directorial debut with this French drama about small-time crook Gaston (Yvan Attal) who poses as a millionaire after he picks up hitchhiking 16-year-old Marie-Pierre (Virginie Lanoue). Actually living in a seedy apartment, Gaston deals in stolen goods, but he soon climbs to bigger heists, including car thefts. Concealing his illegal activities, Gaston operates his company, Extramill, out of upscale, posh offices, while he and Marie-Pierre move into a sedate upper-middle-class neighborhood. Life is sweet, but the onset of paranoia, kinky sex activities, and police probes eventually culminate in violence. Shown in the Cinemas en France section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

An Algeria born and raised French citizen (known as a pied noir) finds himself forced to choose between his beloved but still war-torn homeland and a new life in Paris after he leaves his olive farm and goes to France for a cataract operation. Georges Montero initially only plans to spend a short time in France to heal and to visit family members who fled during Algeria's war of independence in the early '60s. All those he visits, including an old flame, are still embittered about the war and are deeply concerned about the mass murder of Algeria's artists and intellectuals by Islamic fundamentalists. It is Belka, one of Georges's old friends, who has recently relocated to Paris, who engineers a scheme to keep Georges, a staunch colonialist who does not seem concerned by the bloody tumult back home, in France. While trying to decide what to do, Georges becomes friends with his eye surgeon Tarek, himself an Algerian transplant. In arguing their different positions on the state of their homeland, each makes surprising self-discoveries about just how much Algeria's recent history of unrest has affected them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide