Coupez!

It starts with a low budget horror movie with very bad actors, but it's already very funny. You have 30 min of 'what the hell am I watching' with bad quality images and all. And then they explain how the movie was made (a movie within the movie, yup), and you laugh even more. It's not clever comedy for sure, it's something where you need your brain off, and it's French humour. But if you ever have the chance, you might like it.

COUPEZ! - The movie with the zombies

It's quite a cross with all these new films. Whether Italian and Spanish successes are being remade in Germany, Swedish films in the USA or Japanese films in France: the directors and producers can no longer think of anything new. But you shouldn't fall for the ACADEMY AWARD winner Michel HaZanavicius (for THE ARTIST) so quickly. Even if his film refers to an original bravura piece from another language area, it is also a clever comment on the tendency to copy successful foreign language films for the respective language area if possible. But with this material it fits perfectly. Pure joy to see France's superstars in such a turbulent action. Romain DURIS (nominated for the EUROPEAN FILM AWARD in the 2000s) and ACADEMY AWARD nominee Berenice BEJO act full of joy. Matilde LutZ (the Italian has been familiar with fake blood since REVENGE) and Finnegan OLDFIELD shine as young actors. The music by two-time ACADEMY AWARD winner Alexandre DESPLAT is also beautiful. I haven't laughed like that in a long time! A blood-red fun that was also the opening film at the Cannes Film Festival last year. The festival bunker must have been shaking with laughter. Do not miss!!!

Not normally too interested in remakes of films in other languages, but Artist director Hazanavicius being involved got me interested, and glad it did. There's a huge amount of fun to be had here - it is as much comedy as horror - with a great cast & director enjoying playing with the B movie concept of it all.

The opening chunk drops you right into the film being shot in a disused building, deliberately wrong-footing the viewer (also leaves you wondering why the French characters are all using Japanese names), only for the later two thirds of the film to show what we had been watching and put it all into context. It's a nice way to approach it and felt quite satisfying (to me, anyway). It may not be genius, but it is fun - make a good pizza night bit of viewing on a weekend.

Fun, smart, great actors. After "the Artist" and "la classe americaine", Michel Hazanavicius pay once again tribute to cinema, with honesty, talent and all his wit.

This could have been quite a funny spoof on all things zombie, if only it were just twenty minutes or so shorter! It all centres around a production team making a (very) cheap and cheerful film full of fake limbs, tomato ketchup and singularly bad acting. Acting rivalries and romantic affairs are causing director "Rémi" (Romain Duris) no end of problems as the money and time start running out. Just when things look like they could get little worse, it appears that they have managed to awaken a few "real" zombies and so things become seriously perilous (and messy) for all concerned. The latter part of the movie seems to have two functions - to explain just why the first half hour was so terrible and to then suggest that with some Japanese creative intervention - they all take on Japanese names and get some of their funding - the film gets magically better. Sadly, it labours that joke just once too often. The parody elements run out of steam and it becomes rather a puerile and unfunny slapstick-style enterprise with some bad actors portraying other truly bad actors. The last ten minutes of continuous filming of their filming of the fight against the axe-wielding undead is still quite funny, but by then I was starting to shift in my chair. It does have it's funny moments - but just nowhere near enough of them.