Bernard Menez Movies

French actor Mathieu Amalric directs the made-for-TV comedy La Chose Publique (Public Affairs). Shot on digital video, the film is a satire of French politics and media personalities. Television director Philippe Roberts (Jean-Quentin Chatelain) has been assigned to make a film series, so he decides to use his own life and marriage as an inspiration. Public Affairs was shown at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Caroline Vignal debuts with this sensitive teen comedy about 16-year-old girl looking to lose her virginity. Apprentice hairdresser Solange (Julie Leclercq) is a whiz at teasing locks and cutting hair but knows little about the act of sexual congress -- but she wants to know more. She hails from a small working class town close to Toulouse where she lives with her comely mother, who grudgingly works as a babysitter, and her father, who loves herding ostriches. Her best friend in beauty school is an African immigrant lass named Gary (Benoite Sapim) who dreads being returned to her native country for an arranged marriage. Gary offers Solange advice in her quest. Though there is a guy Solange fancies at her vocational school, she wants to know the lay of the land, so to speak, before she gets intimate with him. This film was screened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Charles (Charles Vanel) is a 100-year-old perfume magnate who decides to marry the equally ancient Emmanuelle (Denis Grey) in the French sex comedy. Company executives and family members scramble for position in the wake of the surprising announcement. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Haragon Louis De Funes is such a miserable miser that he even steals oats from horses in this comedy from celebrated playwright Moliere. The story remains true to the original, but the combined effort between Girault and De Funes remains uneven. Still, the film will satisfy the fans of De Funes, one of France's more beloved screen comics. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Christopher Lee dons the Count's legendary cape once again for this satirical French-made entry in the vampire genre (titled Dracula and Son for American release). It seems Dracula's son (Bernard Ménez) is a bit reluctant to carry on the family's blood-drinking tradition on account of severe squeamishness. This understandable rift is widened when the Dracula family is banished from Romania by the new communist regime, and they end up traveling their separate ways -- Ménez goes to France, while Lee, oddly enough, finds a lucrative career in British horror films (perish the thought!). They are reunited again at the premiere of one such film, where they meet and fall in love with the same woman). Directed by Edouard Molinaro, known best for his international comedy hit La Cage aux Folles, this was a very witty film prior to its decimation by an uncaring American distributor, who not only excised many of the jokes but also replaced them with horribly-written, sophomoric gags. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Following a car chase and shootout, a man stumbles into a girl's apartment and dies. Frantic to be rid of this encumbrance, and wishing to avoid getting involved with the police, the girl finds a willing lad in a bar who will help her with her predicament. He loads the body into the back of his father's car. Before he can find a place to dump the body, his father takes off in it to see his mistress. In this comedy, the car with the body, chased by the girl and her helpful new friend, slips from their grasp time after time. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this wartime comedy, Robert Lamoureux plays a General in the Resistance. With an unlikely team of French patriots, he easily outwits the buffoonish Germans and steals the master copy of their plans to invade England. By doing so, he prevents the invasion and makes it more likely that the Allies will win the war. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

When Joelle (Nathalie Courval) notices that the "one of a kind" watch given to her by her lover Norbert (Jean-Claude Brialy) is also being worn by Olivia (Marcha Grant), she and the other woman strike up an acquaintance. They discover that they had been told the same lie by the same man; not only is he being unfaithful to his wife with a mistress, he is being unfaithful to one mistress with yet another! The two watch-wearing mistresses put their heads together to think up an appropriate punishment. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this sex comedy, William (Bernard Menez), together with his family, joins his childhood friend and his family in a crowded country house for a summer vacation. As a result, he has had to leave behind his mistress and all the other lovely women he enjoys trying to seduce. Stranded in the isolated rural cottage with his friend's family, he attempts to bed every female member of that clan. Unsuccessful and extremely frustrated, he is determined to have some fun on his vacation and abandons the whole group in pursuit of a trio of hippyish females who flirted with him earlier. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Known to English-speaking audiences as Day for Night, La nuit américaine was director François Truffaut's loving and humorous tribute to the communal insanity of making a movie. The film details the making of a family drama called "Meet Pamela" about the tragedy that follows when a young French man introduces his parents to his new British wife. Truffaut gently satirizes his own films with "Meet Pamela"'s overwrought storyline, but the real focus is on the chaos behind the scenes. One of the central actresses is continually drunk due to family problems, while the other is prone to emotional instability, and the male lead (Truffaut regular Jean-Pierre Leaud) starts to act erratically when his intermittent romance with the fickle script girl begins to fail. In addition to all this personal drama, the film is besieged by technical problems, from difficult tracking shots to stubborn animal actors. The inspiration for future satires of movie-making from Living in Oblivion to Irma Vep, La nuit américaine was considered slight by some critics in comparison to earlier Truffaut masterworks, but it went on to win the 1973 Oscar for Best Foreign Film. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide