Julien Guiomar Movies

Arthur Joffe directed this French comic fantasy, in French and English dialogue, about God (voice of Pierre Arditi), invisible and spinning through Heavenly space on an asteroid, along with his sidekick angel Rene (Ticky Holgado). God observes Earthly events on His television set. After hacking out a screenplay on the Hebrew keyboard of a manual typewriter, the Deity needs a director, lands as a burning bush in back of the Hollywood sign, finds Hollywood hostile, jumps to Paris, and travels from one body to another, eventually settling on tekkie Jeanne (Helene de Fougerolles), an employee at Harper Audiovisual. Faxes in Hebrew begin arriving, and Jeanne hears voices. With God's screenplay translated to French, it finally goes up to the 127th floor for an okay by Mr. Harper himself (Tcheky Karyo). But there's a problem -- God is not very happy about Mr. Harper's alterations, as he explains, "I wrote the Bible, the best-selling book of all time! Where do they get off editing my script?" ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Jean-Claude Lauzon's highly praised film tells the strange story of Léolo, a young boy from Montréal. Told from Léolo's point-of-view, the film depicts his family of lunatics and Léolo's attempts to deal with them. Not one individual in the boy's life is well adjusted. His brother, after being beaten up, spends the film bulking up on growth protein. The grandfather hires half-naked girls to bite off his toenails and, in a brutal rage, almost kills Léolo. As he witnesses his family decay around him, Léolo retreats into himself and the fantasy world he has constructed. In response to the weirdness of his daily life, Léolo creates a little mental mayhem of his own which Lauzon renders in an amazing series of free-form, surreal images. Eventually, this precarious balance of reality and fantasy cracks and Léolo is hospitalized after attempting to murder his grandfather. The score by Tom Waits underscores the narrative arc of Léolo's breakdown. On its release, the film won numerous awards including the International Fantasy Film Award for Best Director (1992) and a Genie Award for Best Original Screenplay (1992). ~ Brian Whitener, All Movie Guide

A "ripoux" is, in French slang, a policeman who accepts bribes, shakes down "honest" criminals for a cut of their action, at a level which can range from the familiar (U.S.) paradigm of accepting free donuts, to serious criminal activity. This comic police thriller is a sequel to the hugely successful 1984 film Philippe Noiret and Thierry Lhermitte about a pair of Parisian policemen, one an old, experienced "ripoux" and the other one an idealistic new-kid-on-the-block type, who has to be shown the ropes (and mildly corrupted) by the older man. In this story, Noiret's young partner is having misgivings about his misdeeds, and in any case wants to try for a promotion to police commissioner. What with one thing and another, this leads to both men being ignominiously transferred to another beat, to the (temporary) jubilation of the people they've been sponging off of for years. It turns out that the new cops on their old beat are far less helpful and easygoing than they were, and soon the denizens of their Montmartre district beat are beating on the doors of city hall begging for their return. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

For those unfamiliar with Asterix, a popular character in European cartoons and comic books, he is a courageous but humorous-looking warrior of the Gauls in Roman times, and often single-handedly fights off the encroachments of the Romans. In this feature-length cartoon, the Romans have conquered everything except the village where Asterix lives. This has survived because the town druid has a special potion which confers incredible strength. However, at the time of the film, the druid has been knocked on the head and has lost his memory, which is inconvenient, to say the least. Asterix and his villagers must search far and wide for something which can help them either with the druid's memory, or with reconstructing his potion. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Valeria Golino plays a double role in this thrilling crime drama. A woman returns years later to Tangiers in order to track down the thugs responsible for the gangland-style massacre that killed her father. Corrigan (Thierry Lhermitte) is the local detective recruited to find the international crime boss (Roger Hanin). The heroine seduces the kingpin's son (Vincent Lindon) in order to discover where the killers are hidden then methodically sets out to destroy them. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Rene (Jean-Pierre Marielle) is a small-time crook who tries to shake down storekeeper Emile (Jean Carmet) in this uneven and humorless comedy. Things change when Rene starts to fall for the terminally boring and provincial Emile. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Le Matou is based on a novel by Yves Beauchemin. The title translates freely to "Alley Cat", in reference to a pet owned by a Canadian street kid. Cat and kid are but two of several eccentrics with whom restauranteurs Jean Carmet and Monique Spaziani come in contact. Others include a bombastic chef and a self-styled conjurer. Filmed on location in Quebec and Florida, Le Matou was apparently never intended to draw huge crowds; its calculated quirkiness is aimed squarely at the "festival" crowd. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This run-of-the-mill police comedy drama focuses on two policemen, René (Philippe Noiret), a somewhat grubby plainclothes policeman who has lived on bribes and minor racketeering for the last 20 years, and his new partner François (Thierry Lhermitte), especially honest and certainly naive. René is too accustomed to the good life with his lover, a former prostitute, and too much addicted to the racetrack to give it all up because of a straight-arrow partner. And so he fixes François up with the gorgeous Natasha (Grace de Capitani), herself a high-class prostitute whose charms leave the young cop besotted and whose expensive tastes leave him broke. Driven by love above all other concerns, François not only joins René in his schemes, he eventually gets an idea for swiping enough money to retire them both for life. Both Noiret and Lhermitte give top-notch performances that help to compensate for the otherwise predictable script. Ripoux was awarded 1984 Cesars for "Best Film" and "Best Director." ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this rural comedy Pierre Cohen (Pierre Richard) is a sophisticated Parisian psychologist who travels to his brother's farm in Britanny to save it from a hostile takeover by a local landlord. The psychologist decides to save the farm by using the tricks of his trade -- psychological warfare, as it were. In spite of his efforts, he cannot control every situation as he had envisioned and there is more than one loud backfire before his ideas set off a reaction that chugs forward in spite of itself, to a happy conclusion. Pierre Richard takes a vacation from his usual hyper, dim-witted character types in this role, a choice that may leave some of his aficionados disappointed. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this uneven take-off on some reluctant resistance fighters in World War II, a family of musicians find themselves the unwilling hosts of a segment of the German High Command when their Paris mansion is taken over by the occupying forces. What happens next is a series of individual skits, cameo appearances, and zany interludes that are not necessarily as strung together as they are strung out. Characters include: Adolph Hitler's melodious half-brother whose singing style is hilariously close to that of Julio Iglesias, a "good" German officer, stereotypical of any of those found in post-World War II movies, and a woman who provides the comedy in a 1970s television talk show when she expounds on what really happened in the Paris villa back when. It is the acting which carries the day for this film, more than the actual script or cinematic development. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In one of Coluche's earlier films, the late French comedian stars in this standard comedy by Claude Zidi as the inept police inspector, Michel Clement. The senior Clement was a spectacular policeman, and Michel finds it particularly difficult to try and walk in his father's footsteps without tripping. At the moment he is after Roger Morzini (Gerard Depardieu), a dangerous gangster who eventually kidnaps Marie-Anne Prossant (Dominique Lavanant). She is a journalist traveling with Michel as he tries to track down Morzini. Her objective was to get an interview with the gangster, and now she has more than she bargained for. Meanwhile, Michel tries to get his act together and rescue her. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Dear Father and Dear Papa are the English-language titles for the Italian domestic drama Caro Papa. Vittorio Gassman plays a flint-hearted industrialist who thinks as little of destroying his business partner as he does of cheating on his wife. Gassman's son is an apparently weak-willed lad, who may or may not have become involved in the "Red Brigade". When Gassman learns that his son has been appointed to execute someone known only as "P", he assumes the victim is his ex-partner. Only as he is being gunned down does the industrialist realize that "P" stands for Papa. But that's not the end of Dear Father; there's still a viciously ironic coda before the final fade-out. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

During a vacation to a remote tropical hideaway on the African Maurice Islands, two Parisians (Jean Lefebvre and Henri Guybet), rather the worse for wear, urinate on a sacred totem statue. This irreverent act brings them to the attention of the local gods, who punish them by making them invisible in mirrors, giving them telekinetic gifts, and causing them to levitate at odd times. As they grow accustomed to their strange condition, they find ways to take advantage of it to straighten out their problems. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide