'If your words are less important than silence, then keep quiet'
How fitting a quote to explain Laurent Cantet's new movie The Class - Winner of the Palme D'or at Cannes in 2008- which portrays the french school system in a realistic and incredibly fascinating way. It's french director Laurent Cantet's 5th film and his best one since 2002's L'Emplois Du Temps. It reminded me of my own high school days- the different people, the troubling differences, the classroom vibe and the amount of knowledge one can learn by just listening. The students are played by real students, the teachers are played by real teachers but even more impressive the atmosphere feels real. In fact it's quite possibly the best teacher/class movie Ive ever seen & has a documentary style feel to it. I was reminded of a french documentary I saw many eons ago called 'Etre et Avoir' which dealt more with primary students but had the same attention to detail as Cantet's film.
Whereas the horrendously graphic House On The Left also has its release. I panned the movie a few months ago and you can check that out in the following Link. It's a timely reminder that finding bad movies is more common than finding good ones. Also out is Greg Motolla's slight but loveable Adventureland (Review), Tony Gilroy's Twisty but flawed Duplicity (Review) & The Indie Comedy Sunshine Cleaning (Review). Another random thought comes from Inglourious Basterds, which finished first at the box office this weekend. Writer Peter Travers has a nice little poll happening at RollingStone.com asking which is your favourite Tarantino character & since I cannot stop posting link after link- here's Christopher Nolan's newest film in Glorious HD, Inception.