Above: detail from the Argentinian poster for Magnet of Doom. Artist unknown.Jean-Paul Belmondo, the great French movie star who died last week at the age of 88, had a marvelous face. He wasn’t a classic matinee idol like his friend and compatriot Alain Delon but with the combination of his soulful puppy-dog eyes, lopsided boxer’s nose, and luscious feminine lips he could play both hoodlums or heartthrobs (and in Breathless he played both at the same time). A classic tough guy best known outside France for art movies, he was initially synonymous with the angry alienation of the French New Wave and starred in films by Godard, Truffaut, Melville, Malle and Lelouch. But he could play comedy as well as action (he was renowned for doing his own stunts) and was for a while promoted as a French James Bond. By the ’70s and ’80s—when he was...
- 9/16/2021
- MUBI
By Lee Pfeiffer
International screen icon Jean-Paul Belmondo has died at the age of 88. The French star was one of the major influences in terms of popularizing anti-heroes on screen. His somewhat shaggy, rough-hewn look was at odds with traditional screen leading men. Belmondo was not handsome in the traditional sense, nor did he specialize in playing erudite, sophisticated characters. He excelled in playing the common man who was often caught up in extraordinary situations. Belmondo had flirted with being a boxer in his youth before gravitating to acting at the precise time French cinema's "New Wave" was taking the world by storm, led by directors and actors who would revolutionize world cinema. After appearing in numerous French films in the late 1950s, he became a sensation with his leading role in director Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 crime classic "Breathless". There would be no looking back. In the decades to come,...
International screen icon Jean-Paul Belmondo has died at the age of 88. The French star was one of the major influences in terms of popularizing anti-heroes on screen. His somewhat shaggy, rough-hewn look was at odds with traditional screen leading men. Belmondo was not handsome in the traditional sense, nor did he specialize in playing erudite, sophisticated characters. He excelled in playing the common man who was often caught up in extraordinary situations. Belmondo had flirted with being a boxer in his youth before gravitating to acting at the precise time French cinema's "New Wave" was taking the world by storm, led by directors and actors who would revolutionize world cinema. After appearing in numerous French films in the late 1950s, he became a sensation with his leading role in director Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 crime classic "Breathless". There would be no looking back. In the decades to come,...
- 9/6/2021
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
What an adventure!
The vast majority of foreign language films that make any noise in the United States are solemn or nuts. And yet there are foreign action films, foreign comedies, and the like that go mostly unseen and unknown here. The home video market, in league with Amazon and other internet stores, has made it possible to make up lost time with high quality, restored transfers that give you the same--or even improved--experience that you missed by living outside of Europe or New York City. With the Cohen Film Collection's recent release of That Man from Rio (1964) and Up to His Ears (1965), you can enjoy two rather entertaining French adventure comedies from a director you've never heard of with an actor you might vaguely recognize.
Read more...
The vast majority of foreign language films that make any noise in the United States are solemn or nuts. And yet there are foreign action films, foreign comedies, and the like that go mostly unseen and unknown here. The home video market, in league with Amazon and other internet stores, has made it possible to make up lost time with high quality, restored transfers that give you the same--or even improved--experience that you missed by living outside of Europe or New York City. With the Cohen Film Collection's recent release of That Man from Rio (1964) and Up to His Ears (1965), you can enjoy two rather entertaining French adventure comedies from a director you've never heard of with an actor you might vaguely recognize.
Read more...
- 5/28/2015
- by Jason Ratigan
- JustPressPlay.net
Two of director Philippe de Broca’s earliest renowned titles get new restorations and are available for the first time on Blu-ray, That Man From Rio (1964) and Up to His Ears (1965), the first two titles from a loose James Bond spoof trilogy featuring Jean-Paul Belmondo. Certainly ahead of his time, de Broca’s amusing adventure films are much more than the kind of lowbrow entertainment that would come to typify the genre known as spoof, and this became a notable inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones films, particularly 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Inspired by the adventures of Belgian cartoonist Herge’s Tintin adventures (which also provided the basis for a 2011 Steven Spielberg adaptation), a prized Amazonian statue is stolen from a Parisian museum. Three such statues left South American on an expedition that involved the late father of Agnes (Francoise Dorleac) and and two colleagues. Professor Catalan...
Inspired by the adventures of Belgian cartoonist Herge’s Tintin adventures (which also provided the basis for a 2011 Steven Spielberg adaptation), a prized Amazonian statue is stolen from a Parisian museum. Three such statues left South American on an expedition that involved the late father of Agnes (Francoise Dorleac) and and two colleagues. Professor Catalan...
- 4/14/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
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