The B&B for people who love films

We went to the Prytania Theater today, on Prytania Street, just before Jefferson Avenue.  It's in a nice neighborhood.  Near the St. James Cheesery, Crepes Nanou, and LA Thai, as well as the Creole Creamery, and a very nice restaurant with a name I don't remember, but Frau Schmitt does.  

Someone will say the name of that restaurant and I'll say I've never heard of it.  Then Frau Schmitt will say, "You remember it.  It's the place where we talked with that nice couple at the next table because you were admiring his seersucker suit and he told you he got it someplace uptown."  She is usually right about these things.  In fact, the gentleman recommended his haberdasher on Tchoupitoulas Street, just uptown of Napoleon Avenue, on the lakeside of the block.  The food was very good, as good as the atmosphere.  If you are looking for a seersucker suit, I know where to send you.

Anyhow, the New Orleans French Film Festival is just winding down. We happened to have some rare free time this afternoon, so we went to see "Populaire."  Do you know who was in the audience with us?  The guy who owns the Chalmette Cinema.  He has impeccable taste in film.  We chatted outside afterward and he was staying for the next show, "Haute Cuisine."

Populaire was a wonderful movie, which is much better than its trailer, above.  It is rated R, but compared to most of the trash that we see on the screen, both large and small, there are worse things that families can see together.  It is almost chaste.  It is tame and inspiring.  It is lovely.  

As for Haute Cuisine, here is the trailer for that:
Maybe we should have stayed for the next show.  That movie is probably better than it's trailer, too.  We don't get that feeling from the many, many, many overloud trailers we interminably sit through before most movies playing at the AMC Palace Cinema in Elmwood (12 screens! plus IMAX in 3-D!).

One thing that is nice about going to Chalmette Cinema is that when they play a movie, at least the ones we go to see, they don't play any trailers.  One at most, and that is a trailer that whets our appetite instead of turning to each other to say, "No way."

We saw "Captain Phillips" last week in Elmwood and I thought Tom Hanks' Vermont accent was over the top, a caricature of how New Englanders speak.  Frau Schmitt didn't notice.  "I thought he talked like you do," she said to me.  She is usually right about these things, too.

The last line in the movie Populaire is spoken by an American who has taken a French wife.  He says, "America for business.  France for love."  I would substitute 'France' with 'la Nouvelle Orleans."  It's easy if you try.

If either of these films are screened where you live, check them out.  If not, you can always come to New Orleans.  The French Film Festival is brought to us courtesy of the New Orleans Film Society.  

Maurice Chevallier sang, "Thank Heaven for little girls." When he say's "Gigi," I would substitute it with 'New Orleans."



A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.