The best French movies you've never seen

Thought I'd post some of my fav French movies today. Yeah, I have a thing for Frenchmen. And if he's in a costume drama, then that's just ten kinds of perfect. Here's a few you might find in a video store or at an online rental site:

DISTRICT B13

You haven't seen this one? It's fun and full of action, and some amazing stunts. Parkour! The French Vin Diesel! And David Belle who is just an interesting man to watch for his sinuous movement. It's set in the near future, after Paris has banished all the criminals to District B13 and barricaded them off from the rest of the city. Only, now someone wants to completely eradicate the district. It's sub-titled, but there's not a lot of dialogue to read anyway, because it's all action, and super-cool fight scenes.

MOLIERE

Seventeenth century France featuring Moliere's rise to fame. It's one of those story-within-a-story kind of shows, and it's great fun to watch the lead character fumble his way through this comedy of errors. Subtitles. Great costumes!

FARINELLI

Set in Italy, but a French-made movie, I believe. The story of Carlo Bruschi, the castrato who rose to rockstar-like fame in the 18th century. Gorgeous sets and costumes. Real emotional dilemmas. Sexy and taboo. Stephen Dionisi, who plays the lead role, nails it. You can picture him on the modern stage, holding the audience in his clutches. Sigh... I was born in the wrong century. Subtitles.

DANGEROUS LIAISONS

Okay, this one isn't French made, but it's set in 18th century France, and is probably my all-time favorite movie. Ever! John Malkovich as the Vicomte de Valmont is excellent. The dude was actually kind of handsome in this movie with his long black hair. And man, do he and Glenn Close have some delicious verbal wars. But what's most important? Those words left unsaid. Not only are there double entendres around every corner, but I think there's even triple ones, if that's possible. I pick up something new every time I watch this movie. It's so good!

KILLING ZOE

This one played in the US, but I think it was released in France first. It's French made, anyway. As with so many contemporary French movies, it rambles and doesn't always get to the point. The entire first half is like that. But once they get to the heist, it gets interesting. I love Jean Hugues Anglade, who plays the maniacal bank robber, who is probably as crazy as everyone thinks he is. (He does crazy so well; see below.) And Eric Stoltz! And interesting cast. Lots of blood and senseless violence, but still, a strangely good time. And do you think they managed to kill Zoe? I'm not telling.

QUEEN MARGOT

More Jean Hugues Anglade playing crazy. This man is my favorite French actor. He can switch from sensitive to berserk on a dime. (That's Vincent Perez in the pic.) The history and costumes in the movie are amazing. Very bloody and dismal, but worth a watch for the excellent acting from practically every lead character. Okay, so maybe I'm glad I wasn't born in this century.

LA FEMME NIKITA

Can I say I think this was one of the first films that really started the 'bombshell-esque' kinds of movies with strong, sexy women tearing across the screen wielding weapons and using their sexuality to conquer men? If you haven't seen this, and enjoyed the TV series, then you're really missing something. This is where it all started. Innocent street girl recruited into a ruthless organization as an assassin, trained to kill or be killed. Jean Hugues pops up in this one again. :-)

LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL

This one might have been released in the US as The Professional. Jean Reno and a very young Natalie Portman. A professional hitman is suddenly in charge of watching after a little girl. Good stuff, and you could probably find it on TV some night.

LE LIBERTIN


Another costume drama set in mid-eighteenth century, featuring Diderot (father of the Encyclopedia) as he attempts to write an article on Morality. Meanwhile, everything unmoral that can occur, does. He's staying with country gentry who believe in indulging anything and everything that is new. I mean really indulging. When they serve caviar it's in huge bowls. It's wicked sexy and fun. No subtitles, but you don't really need to understand the language to know what's going on. Heck, major naked Vincent Perez scene, too. :-)
This one is available on a Region 2 disk. Which means it was only released in Europe and you'll have to buy from France, or rent it (probably from France, too.)

Let me know if you've seen any of these! And if you try one!

And hey! There's still time to enter the contest mentioned in the below post. No right entries yet. But if I don't get any right guesses, I will still draw winners from the wrong guesses. :-)
M

Dark Rapture Released — and What's Wrong? contest

Hey, so yesterday in Borders I bought two copies of DARK RAPTURE. I don't get free copies for a rerelease, so I had to shell out some cash. So the book is out! Go buy it! :-)

I've said here before that I'm not thrilled with the cover (at right). The guy is actually a bit more attractive when you hold the book in your hand, but I'm still not in love, and he most certainly is NOT the hero. I'll get over it. Maybe. :-)

So I haven't read this story since I wrote it in the early nineties, and I intend to read it because I want to know how much I need to cringe. Heck, the story is awesome. I loved it then, I still think it rocks. But you know, I really liked my words when I first started writing. I just read the Prologue last night. Purple! (But then, I've never denied that I do write with a purple tinge.) And man, did I like my adverbs. Really liked them. Really, really, really liked them. I hope readers will pick up this book and realize this was my first book, and my writing has changed over the years. Hopefully it has improved. But I think my story telling skills are much the same. I like to have twists and throw everything I can into a story. Including the kitchen sink.

In fact, I recall now, after I had finished Dark Rapture, that I was ticking off all I had included. Vampires. ghosts, time travel, 18th century Paris, rock star, rock band, sexually ambiguous villain, a few good duels. Everything but the kitchen sink, I thought. So then, I went back to the story and inserted a kitchen sink scene. Now it had everything!

It's funny too, or maybe interesting, how writers insert things that are happening in their lives at the time when they write their stories. I know there's a scene where a secondary character has just moved into a mansion and he's ripping wallpaper off. That's because I had just moved into a new house and the entire thing was wallpapered in hideous flocked paper. If you leaned against the wall, you'd stick. It was awful.  And what's with wallpapering a room in a plain cream-colored paper?  Why not just paint?  That stuff was a %^&*# to get off!

There's the scene where the vampire sits on the heroine's front steps waiting for her and he's wearing biker shorts. Ah, Nuno in biker shorts in the Hole Hearted video! Loved that band, Extreme, and gave the hero the lead guitarist's looks.

Vincent, another secondary character had a lot of migraines but didn't realize it was because he was becoming vampire. I still recall the night I went to the emergency room with a migraine. Got a shot of Imitrex. That stuff is awesome. It immediately flushes your system and speeds up your heart so fast, you wonder if it was wise to sign that release form that stated if anything goes wrong—including your death—the hospital is not responsible. But then your muscles all relax, and other things happen. I still recall my hubby saying, "So that's why they call it projectile vomit." :-)

I don't know where the white roses came from. But the red jello? Well that is just a plate full of fun, isn't it?

And I think Sebastian is one of the sexiest names for a man out there. I named my cat after the hero. And I still would like to have a child named Scarlet. Not me, though! I'll wait for one of my kids to have a girl, and then when she comes to grand-ma's house I'll secretly name her Scarlet. Hey, it could work. I call my son Bob, and that's not his name.

I had a fascination for 18th century Paris at the time, so of course that's in the book. And that villain I mentioned looks like another rock star of the times, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden (before he was in Audioslave), and when he still had that long curly dark hair. I love the idea of a sexually ambiguous character, and really would like to do a hero like that some day, but it won't fly for a romance. Captain Jack Harkness, anyone? Love it!

So here's the contest part: It doesn't require you purchase the book, but you will need to go into a store and look at it.

There's something wrong on the outside of the book. Nothing inside, just look over the whole thing, front to back, and see if you can figure what that is. I cringed when I saw it. Did they really do that?

I'll keep the contest open for a few weeks, and draw a couple names as winners. I don't have copies of DR to give away, but you can pick from these titles: Kiss Me Deadly, Seraphim, Getaway Girl, His Forgotten Forever, or if you can wait a month, I should have copies of Winter Kissed and Rogue Angel.  And if I can dredge one up, I'll see if I can find an original cover flat for DARK RAPTURE and send the winners that too.

Send your guesses to my email: toastfaery@gmail.com.    Don't post your answer in the comments, because you don't want to give it away to others.

Go forth and find out what's wrong! And then buy the book. Or at least face-out all the books in the store, will ya?

M

Clue: From the entries so far, I think a lot might be checking the cover online. You have to actually hold the book in hand and turn it about to figure out what's wrong.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm blogging over at Shapeshifter Romance today about immortal and paranormals living forever.  How long is too long?

M

Seasons in the Sun

So I was just at iTunes trying to find the Bullet For My Valentine song I heard on the radio last night. It's called Hearts Burst Into Fire. Cool song. And then I downloaded the free song which was a Cuban/Miami kind of fun dancey thing. About thirty percent of the time, the free songs are great, and usually all the free songs in the World section are worth a try.

Anyway, so with those two songs in my brain, all of a sudden an old childhood favorite pops into my head. Seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks! I don't know why that came up, but I immediately downloaded it. Does anyone remember that song? When you listen to the lyrics, it's really very depressing, about a guy saying goodbye to all his loved ones because he's going to die. When I was a kid I didn't really comprehend the meaning of the lyrics. I might have thought it was about a guy going off to war. But I did know he sang my name in the song, and that's all that mattered to me. :-)  Goodbye, Michelle, my little one....  [Okay, so that's not exactly my name; it's spelled wrong; but close enough!]

Here's an interesting article about the song if you don't have a clue.  Seems Nirvana covered it once.

I remember very distinctly that I won the 45 (that's a small vinyl record, for you youngsters) at a local carnival in the parking lot of the Pamida store.  I must have worn the grooves off that one, and probably the nerves off my mother, too.  

So do you have a favorite song from childhood or early teen years that, no matter how silly it may sound to you today, the moment you hear it, it brings you back?  

M

Same thing I do every day: try to take over the world.

I saw The Mummy III this weekend. I knew before leaving for the theater that the movie would probably be lacking. I can usually judge a movie pretty well from the trailer. If nothing too exciting happens in the trailer, it ain't gettin' any better on screen. But I had a small hope.

I found the movie boring. Couldn't even get excited about it. I was disappointed they tried to just paste in a new wife for the hero, and found her English accent obnoxious. None of the action even lifted a grin from me. I had guessed the ending after the first five minutes. I hate it when that happens.

But this is what I wonder about many action/adventure/paranormal movies. Some books, even. If there's a villain who's been out of commission for a while (frozen in terra cotta form for 2000 years, or a vampire in his coffin for centuries, etc.) who is suddenly resurrected, why is it all he wants to do upon taking his first few steps is to take over the world?

Isn't he the least bit hungry? Wouldn't a nice cheeseburger taste great? How about a moment to actually take a look at the world as it is now. Does he even want to take over the whole freakin' world? Why not start with a small country, and work up from there? And really, what are you going to do with the world should you and your pitiful army manage to take it over? You know that Bush guy, he's got some mighty powerful weapons in his arsenal.

I don't know. It's the movies, I know. But just once I'd like a villain to be resurrected and maybe decide he needs some modern clothes before venturing out into the world. And maybe he needs a hot chick, or two or three. Get himself a cellphone, maybe an iPod and a nice sporty car. Just enjoy the modern world a bit before destroying it, eh?

M

Hawk watching

Been watching the hawks again. They've only in the past month starting hunting our yard again. I think they've moved their nest a few houses from where it has always been. Maybe. Or else they've just taken up new hunting grounds, because I haven't seen them much until recently. Anyway, I can sit outside on the deck and watch a hawk track its prey, swoop down for it, then fly to its favorite tree branch to consume the thing. It's fascinating. This picture is taken from my office window. The hawk is sitting on a sun shade-thingie over a bench on our deck. I think it was watching the squirrels steal seed from the feeders. It was also eyeing up the birdbath. They splash in it every so often.

Cool.

Contest!

I keep forgetting to post this link to a contest put on by a group of authors. It lasts a month, and is an Internet scavenger hunt of your websites. It includes prizes from: Vivi Anna, Caridad Pineiro, Me, Jennifer St. Giles, Eve Silver, Ruth Glick, Lori Devoti.

I'll put a link in the sidebar for as long as it runs. Check out the Treasures From The Dark contest!

Three done!

I have officially finished three books in the past week!  I sent off #1 in the Wicked Games series, THE HIGHWAYMAN on Tuesday to my editor.  #2, MOON KISSED, I finished.  It's not due until mid-September, so I'm setting it aside, and it'll get a final read-through before I mail it in.  That's just a fast read to check for misspellings and wrong words, no time to add new stuff.  And #3, BITE ME, I finished last night.  It's not due until sometime in December, I think, and again will get a final read through.

So I've accomplished a lot!  Whoopee for me!  I need to celebrate.  I did a little of a happy dance.  Check Megan Hart's blog (link to right) for the real happy dance.  I now need to clean the house, because it's not really been cleaned since I started all these in April.  Probably should get groceries to feed the family.  Then I need to just take the rest of the weekend off (which I know I won't do, but it sounds good, doesn't it?).

Next week I'll work on a secret project a couple days, then I'm full-speed ahead into the Rogue Angel book, which I think is due in January.  Such leisure to write only one book in the coming months!  Though I do have a Bite to write, which I think is due in December.  Have no clue yet what to write for that one.  But I do know I'd like to write some follow-ups for #2 and #3.  Those couples' stories ended happily, but I'd like to see what they're up to six months after, you know?

So I'm off to celebrate and clean!  

Check the Shapeshifter Romance blog for my post (yesterday).

Tomorrow I'll be blogging about the empty nest at Riding.

And for my reward, I shall give myself this...

And this...



And since I wrote three books, I will also give myself this...



Have a luverly day,
M

Since my last post, I've finished another book. And I'm on my way to finishing yet another, or at least, getting it down to that final stage where I can set it aside for a month, then pick it up for a final read-through. Whew! Feels good to accomplish so much. This summer has been too busy. Haven't spent much time outside, and I really need to go out and catch some vitamin D.

So did anyone go to RWA? Have a good time? Learn anything new about the industry? New lines, publisher looking for stuff?

M