Daniel Briere Movies

La Moitié Gauche Du Frigo director Philippe Falardeau follows up that Toronto International Film Festival favorite with this darkly comic study in abandonment and innocence lost as related to a troubled young boy from an explosively dysfunctional family. Set in 1968, Falardeau's adaptation of Bruno Herbert's novel centers on the early life experience of ten year old Leon (Antoine L'Écuyer in his screen debut). Leon's proclivity towards theft, vandalism, breaking and entering, running away from home, and failed suicide attempts might lead the casual observer to deduct that his parents were a horrifically mismatched pair prone to window-rattling domestic tiffs that are frequently punctuated by broken dishes and shredded paintings - a deduction that couldn't be more accurate considering the fact that his parents relationship is rapidly deteriorating. His father is distant, and his mother's conspiratorial approach to child-rearing ensures that Leon has precious few people to confide in outside of his best friend Lea, who seems to come from an equally discordant household. With each inch Leon's parents move towards the brink, their son's rebellion seems to increase tenfold. Later, when his mother abandons the family to start a new life in Greece and Lea announces her plans to move into a dictatorship, the young hellion embraces his wild side as never before. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A documentary filmmaker and his subject find themselves at odds in this dark comedy from Canada. A mechanical engineer who has lost his job is trying to decide what to do with himself now that he needs to find a job. An actor who is looking to break into filmmaking hears of his predicament and asks to make a film about his life, following him with a camera until he can land a job. Without much else going on in his life, the engineer agrees, and soon the documentarian thinks he's hit pay dirt when the engineer begins romancing a supermarket check-out girl, even seducing her on camera. However, the filmmaker's political agenda is a great deal different than that of the engineer, and when he begins expressing his own controversial opinions while the engineer suffers through failing job interviews, things quickly become tense. La Moitie Gauche Du Frigo was named the Best Debut Canadian Feature at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this watered-down fantasy, Cotnoir (Remy Girard) is a middle-aged male virgin who falls in love with the picture of a female author on the back of her novel. He sets out by boat for the island where author Helena Montana (Marie Tifo) presently resides, but when the boat breaks down, he has fantasies that she is a mermaid. Soon the line between fantasy and reality is blurred as Cotnoir returns to Montreal with Montana and is able to convince his friends as well that she is a mermaid. The title refers to a fictional book written by Montana. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A rousing "he said/she said" endeavor, The Decline of the American Empire begins by separating the boys from the girls. Preparing a gourmet dinner, four male intellectuals begin trading stories of their sexual experiences. At the same time, four well-read women, all working out in a gym, exchange their own tales from the love front. The film is set in the lofty circles of academia, a world well known to Canadian director Denys Arcand. The anecdotes related herein are based on actual events in the lives of Arcand's professorial friends. There's nothing bookish, however, about the subject matter of the stories themselves, which ranges from mild philandering to S & M. The Decline of the American Empire was the winner of eight Canadian Genie awards (that's the above-the-border equivalent of the Oscar), including Best Picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide