Leap! AKA Ballerina

Leap! AKA Ballerina

Entertainment One and Gaumont

19 October 2016

Children's, Historical Drama?
DVD
C-

Not terribly original but innocuous enough I guess.  The directors are Mimi Maynard, Eric Summer, Paulette Victor-Lifton, and Éric Warin

Young and Innocent

Young and Innocent

Gaumont Film Company

November 1937

Mystery, Romance

DVD
B+

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, which is warmer, sweeter, and more charming than most Hitchcock, although not without danger and suspense.  There are times it's like a romcom (with an admittedly offbeat meet-cute), and I instantly shipped Erica/Robert, she so earnest and he so playful, although a wanted man.  I also enjoyed many of the supporting performances, especially of her relatives, from her understandably suspicious aunt to her four lovable and individualized brothers, although Will the hobo offers a lot of the laughs.  I can even forgive the blackface, since it does figure into the plot and is used relatively un-racistly.  This time Hitch's cameo is, appropriately, as a photographer.  The movie is based on the Josephine Tey novel A Shilling for Candles.

Fanny and Alexander

Fanny and Alexander
Gaumont
17 December 1982
Historical Drama
DVD
C-

The title characters grow up in a theatrical family.  Ingmar Bergman wrote and directed.

A Bag of Marbles AKA Un Sac de Billes

A Bag of Marbles AKA Un Sac de Billes
15 January 2017
Gaumont Film Company
Historical Drama
DVD
B+

This is a stunning movie, both grand and humble, about two brave Jewish brothers who struggle to survive in Nazi-occupied France, while longing to be reunited with the rest of the close-knit family.  Early on, the younger brother Joseph (who would grow up to write the autobiographical novel that inspired this and a 1975 adaptation) trades his Yellow Star for a bag of marbles, although it is only one battered blue marble (like the Earth?) that he keeps through all his adventures.  The film runs the gamut of emotions, including petty ones, and is filled with moving performances, so that the subtitles aren't a barrier (except when on light backgrounds, but I'm not going to mark it down for that).  I can't, however, give an A- or higher because the violence, although necessary to the plot (and less than it could've been of course), and overall danger make this in some ways a hard movie to watch.  Still, highly recommended, and indeed the first B+ in this project.

Christian Duguay directed and co-wrote.