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The French auteur behind 8 Women, In the House and most recently When Autumn Falls is joining us to answer your questions, from how does he coax such amazing performances from actors to his visual influences

Is François Ozon the most talented French film-maker currently working? That’s a big ask, in a very crowded field, but Ozon has got the back catalogue to back it up. From his 1998 feature debut Sitcom (notwithstanding 1997’s 52-minute See the Sea), early films such as Fassbinder adaptation Water Drops on Burning Rocks and star-stuffed crime musical 8 Women, on to more recent works including Frantz and Summer of 85, Ozon has ranged widely across styles and genres, offering something new and original wherever he’s gone. He’s even done an English-language period drama, Angel, starring Romola Garai.

A distinctive feature of Ozon’s career is his ability to command great performances from top-notch female stars,...

Why in the name of all that’s funny do American producers try to adapt British sitcoms for U.S. audiences? The easy answer: Sometimes, it works. Norman Lear’s All in the Family and Sanford and Son were huge hits based on U.K. comedies, while the American version of The Office is arguably the most successful (or at least the most imitated) sitcom of the century.

But alongside those successes are a series of miserable failures that got lost in translation. Here are five examples of failed American versions of classic British sitcoms…

1 Fawlty Towers

In 2000, the British Film Institute ranked Fawlty Towers first on its list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, and Channel 4 had Basil Fawlty number two on its list of the 100 Greatest Television Characters. With its simple premise — an uptight dolt runs a dysfunctional hotel — Fawlty Towers was an obvious choice for an American update.

Lance Baas disclosed he lost the CW sitcom as he came out of the closet ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

The 45-year-old actor Lance Bass made the stunning revelation while appearing on Tuesday’s “Politickin’” podcast episode with Gov. Gavin Newsom, Marshawn Lynch, and Doug Hendrickson.

Lance Baas Had to Be Straight to Play a Straight Character

“We were about to shoot the pilot, and this came out, and they were like, ‘We can’t do the show anymore.’ They have to believe that you’re straight to play a straight character,” the former Nsync member said. He added that the executives told him, “I don’t know what we can do with you now.”

“Every casting director I knew, they’re like, ‘Lance, we can’t cast you because you’re too famous for being gay now that they can’t look at you as anything other than that,’” Baas further alleged,...

The following contains spoilers for The Franchise season 1 episode 5, "Scene 83: Enter the Gurgler," now streaming on MaxThe Franchise's dark take on actors like Chris Pratt highlights the show's approach to character comedy. The Franchise has been a cutting parody of the film industry, taking particular aim at how superhero franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe operate. The show has so far been a harsh riff on the more ruthless and absurd underbelly of blockbuster filmmaking, with sly commentary on angry fan reactions, industry exhaustion and studio interference. It's been a harsh satire that's been unafraid to take a solid comic hammer to the shared cinematic universe.

The latest addition to The Franchise's cast of characters is a harsh actor who shares a history with Billy Magnussen's Adam, but seems to have a very low opinion of the actor. This guest role actually has some notable connections to one of the McU's stars,...

Max has greenlit the first “Friends”-themed competition show as part of a celebration of the original sitcom’s 30th anniversary.

“Fast Friends,” a new four-part game show, will take place in the series’ iconic sets and see fans relive their favorite moments while being put to the test with trivia, puzzles and games that will keep even the most die-hard fans on their toes. The quickest team will win the title of Ultimate Friends Fan.

The series begins production next month at “The Friends Experience: The One in New York City,” which features 18 nostalgia-filled rooms, activations and recreated sets, spanning two stories and 17,000 sq. ft. dedicated to the show’s history. In addition to the NYC location, The Friends Experience has a long-term location in London and will soon open another in Las Vegas, with more locations to be announced. It has traveled to 25 cities across eight countries worldwide.

Lindsay Lohan has continued to stay in the spotlight thanks to her acting career, which kickstarted as a child actress in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Following her successful career as a child actress, she became a teen icon with her work in Mean Girls. After pursuing her music career for a while, she continued to stay in the limelight, be it for personal reasons or her comeback attempts.

Lindsay Lohan as Cady Heron in 2004’s Mean Girls

Little did she know that jumping from one project to another would affect Bette Midler’s sitcom. The latter recently revealed that her sitcom, Bette, couldn’t really hit the mark, and she believes that the former’s exit contributed to its lack of success

Bette Midler Wished to Sue Lindsay Lohan for Exiting Bette

In a recent appearance on David Duchovny’s Fail Better podcast, Bette Midler reflected on a...

Not since television comedy legend Norman Lear's prime has one man so overwhelmingly dominated the sitcom genre more than Chuck Lorre. From his start in television writing for Muppet Babies and My Little Pony, to his prime-time break writing for Roseanne, to creating, co-creating and producing crowd-pleasing sitcoms like Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men, Mom, and the ubiquitous The Big Bang Theory, Lorre has earned the "Sitcom King" moniker he's been given.

Land of Talk today shared “Sitcom,” the silken third single off their forthcoming new album Performances, due out this Friday via Saddle Creek, alongside a video directed by Ana-Maria Espino Trudel. “A lot of my love of music is just from long car rides with my dad listening to Christopher Cross, Fine Young Cannibals, and Whitney Houston. He’s not a musician but I feel like I’m almost having a conversation with my dad through a lot of my records,” explains Lizzie Powell, the creative force behind Land of Talk. “Recently, I got into a really big Christopher Cross phase. On this song, I thought I could try to write like that. I was also watching a lot of Family Ties and older sitcoms. The keys part kind of evoked that classic TV intro from the ‘70s and ‘80s.”

Of the video, Espino Trudel explains, “I wanted ‘Sitcom’ to...

Method acting can lead to outstanding performances, with some of the greatest actors working today practicing the technique, but it can also lead to disaster, bringing down the quality of the whole movie. Method acting is a technique actors use to better tap into their character. This can be done in a range of different ways, such as learning a character's trade or staying in character between shoots. The best examples include when Daniel Day-Lewis took method acting too far by living as somebody would in the 1800s for Gangs of New York (and catching pneumonia as a result) and Leonardo DiCaprio actually eating raw bison liver in The Revenant (per Vanity Fair).

While method acting is often considered an admirable, it has also come under scrutiny, and a huge number of actors have recently criticized method acting, including Mads Mikkelson, David Harbour, Robert Pattinson, and Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson said of method acting,...

Goodbye, Chicago courtrooms. Hello, crime-filled streets of New York City!

Former defense lawyer Elsbeth is using her quirky observational skills to take down criminals — like True Blood vet Stephen Moyer — in the first trailer for CBS’ upcoming The Good Wife spinoff. (View CBS’ new fall schedule here.)

More from TVLineCBS Fall Schedule: Survivor/Amazing Race Twist, S.W.A.T. Stays Put, Elsbeth Paired With Todd; Sunday Issue SolvedCBS Series Orders: Good Wife Spinoff, New Matlock, Wayans Sitcom GreenlitEast New York Boss Hints at Possible New Home for Cancelled CBS Series: 'Our Journey Doesn't Have to End Here'

Premiering this fall,...

Hang on just a minute, S.W.A.T. fans: Your prayers may be answered.

CBS is reportedly considering bringing back the long-running procedural for a seventh season after all, per our sister site Deadline, just three days after the network announced its cancellation after six seasons. Update: It’s official — S.W.A.T. has been saved!

More from TVLineCBS Series Orders: Good Wife Spinoff, New Matlock, Wayans Sitcom GreenlitEast New York Boss Hints at Possible New Home for Cancelled CBS Series: 'Our Journey Doesn't Have to End Here'cbs Cancels East New York, True Lies Following S.W.A.T. Resurrection

According to the Deadline report, “renewal conversations...

(Welcome to Did They Get It Right?, a series where we look at an Oscars category from yesteryear and examine whether the Academy's winner stands the test of time.)

As someone who frequently peruses the past years of the Academy Awards, more often than not the results just wash over me. Rarely are the winners the most exciting options, but I generally understand how and why a given person or film walked away with a trophy, even if they wouldn't have gotten my vote. People like to grouse about the results of the Oscars, but their whiffing on a massive scale actually doesn't happen as often as people claim it does.

Of course, there are those "What were they thinking?" moments, like "Crash" winning Best Picture and "That Thing You Do!" losing Best Song. Few make me scratch my head harder than Best Actor at the 1975 Oscars. It's a slate...

The success of the Night Court revival is bluntly explained by a leading NBC executive. In the reboot of the popular 1980s sitcom, Big Bang Theory alum Melissa Rauch stars as Abby Stone. The daughter of the late Harry Stone from the original series, Abby has a sunny outlook on a job that most of those around her can't wait to be free of. That includes Dan Fielding (the returning John Larroquette), who reluctantly accepts Abby's offer to become a public defender. The show also stars India de Beaufort, Lacretta, and Kapil Talwalkar.

Early in its run, with just four episodes having aired so far, Night Court has been a hit for NBC. The premiere episode was watched by over 7 million viewers, gaining a speedy season 2 renewal. In an interview with the TV's Top 5 podcast, Susan Rovner — the chairman of entertainment content at NBCUniversal TV and streaming — thoughtfully breaks down...

Trevor Noah finally thinks he may have heard “the most American story of all time” — at least until next week.

During Thursday’s episode of “The Daily Show,” Noah was baffled by a news story out of Florida that a study from Florida International University found that fish off the coast were loaded with prescription medication.

According to the report, bonefish that were studied contained anywhere from seven to 17 different pharmaceuticals, including blood pressure medication, antibiotics and antidepressants.

Also Read:

Jimmy Kimmel Rips Prominent GOP Members: ‘Shameless, Worthless Grifters and Leeches’ (Video)

“You know, every time I think I’ve seen the most American story of all time, this kind of stuff comes up,” the late night host said. “Cause which other country can say, ‘There’s so much medication leaving our bodies we’re basically providing Obamacare to the fish?'”

The issue, he contended, might have something to...

In the latest TV show ratings, The CW’s All American this Monday drew 450,000 total viewers and a 0.1 demo rating, holding steady week-to-week.

Its yet-to-be-renewed spinoff, All American: Homecoming, however slipped to its second smallest audience to date (310K) while steady with a 0.1. rating.

More from TVLineGeorge Lopez Sitcom Lopez vs. Lopez Lands Series Order at NBCThis Is Us Recap: The End Is HereLaw & Order Revival Renewed at NBC

Fox’s 9-1-1 (5.1 mil/0.7, read recap) was steady and topped Monday in the demo; Lone Star (4.7 mil/0.6) ticked up.

CBS’ The Neighborhood (5.3 mil/0.5) dipped yet delivered Monday’s largest audience,...

[Editor’s note: This article was first published on September 18, 2019.]

In 2014, I published a book called “Sitcom” that served as a history of the American situation comedy, covering the gamut from “I Love Lucy” to the present day. For that work, I wrote a chapter on “Friends,” rewatching the entirety of the series and appreciating its warmth and its acidic vigor. I felt like I’d said my piece.

Then I came across this story in the New York Times about high-school kids watching “Friends” on Netflix and shipping Ross and Rachel, as if this were a hot new series and not a two-decade-old show. Some combination of the series’ streaming debut and the internet’s unstinting love for “Friends” helped it find an entirely new audience, and I wanted to tell the full story of the show for everyone who was only just discovering it now, as well as the fans who had tuned in for the first episode...

Two boys in a French seaside resort fall fatally in love in a nostalgic coming-of-age tale

This latest from François Ozon, director of such wildly diverse offerings as Sitcom, Under the Sand, 8 Women and The New Girlfriend is a bittersweet saga of love and death, a coming-of-age tale based on Aidan Chambers’s 1982 novel Dance on My Grave. Shifting the setting from Southend-on-Sea to Le Tréport in 1985, it centres on Alex (Félix Lefebvre), a death-obsessed teen in the throes of doomed first love, whose morbidly romantic story plays out with the sensual artfulness of classic Ozon, combined with the accessible vigour of an 80s American teen pic.

We first meet David (Benjamin Voisin) at sea, a beautiful vision riding the waves to rescue the hapless Alex after his little boat capsizes. David takes Alex home to his widowed mum, played with nervy energy by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, who undresses...

The “Will & Grace” revival won’t be back with its third and final season until 2020, but TheWrap has already exclusively learned that some of the show’s fan-favorite alums who will make it into the NBC sitcom’s remaining batch of episodes when they do air: Matt Bomer, Vanessa Bayer and Blythe Danner.

All three will have recurring roles, with Bomer coming back as Will’s (Eric McCormack) boyfriend, McCoy Whitman, Bayer returning as Amy, a bakery owner from Karen’s (Megan Mullally) past, and Danner reprising her role as Will’s mother, Marilyn Truman.

Last month, NBC revealed the “Will & Grace” revival would end with its upcoming third season, which is the 11th season overall for the beloved sitcom starring McCormack, Mullally, Sean Hayes and Debra Messing.

Also Read: 'Will and Grace' Revival to End With Season 3 - Sitcom's 11th Overall - at NBC

The final...

It’s the end of an era in entertainment newsmagazines: Nancy O’Dell is leaving Entertainment Tonight after eight years as co-host.

O’Dell announced the news herself on Friday’s broadcast, according to our sister site Variety, sharing with viewers: “I’m excited to tell you about the start of a new chapter in my life.” She remembered how honored she was to take over Et hosting duties from the legendary Mary Hart, and thanked her co-workers, along with her longtime manager and agent John Ferriter, who passed away just last week. She’s taking a break to spend more time with her daughter,...

The “Will & Grace” revival is set to end with its upcoming third season on NBC, which is the 11th season overall for the beloved sitcom starring Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes.

The final season will be 18-episodes long and debut in 2020, with a premiere date to be announced at a later date.

“When NBC had the opportunity to reconnect this amazing cast and creative team, we jumped at the chance,” NBC Entertainment co-chairmen George Cheeks and Paul Telegdy said. “The impact and legacy of ‘Will & Grace’ simply can’t be overstated, both as a true game-changer in the portrayal of the Lgbtq community and as one of the finest comedies in television history. A huge thank you to Max, David, Jimmy and a cast that is second to none for their brilliance over an incredible run.”

Also Read: NBC's Fall Schedule: 'Bluff City Law' Scores Post-'Voice' Slot,...

by Daniel Walber

Few things were more inevitable than a Francois Ozon film in which Jérémie Renier makes out with himself, however briefly. It’s the erotic cherry on top of a career of rule-breaking sexual escapades and pastel pastiche. Double Lover often feels like a return to some the director’s early ideas, including the effervescent camp of Sitcom and the throbbing sexual ambition of Criminal Lovers.

Yet this newest feature does at least begin with a grounded plot than these earlier films. Chloé (Marine Vacth) is a young woman with a recurring, potentially psychosomatic stomach problem. Naturally, she goes to therapist, the affable and reassuringly-sweatered Dr. Paul Meyer (Renier). Chloe sinks into one of his welcoming leather chairs, settles her feet on the fuzzy carpet, and tells him her story. The sessions go so well that, before you know it, they’ve moved in together...

“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Star” Rachel Brosnahan shared her grief over the loss of her aunt Kate Spade — or “Katy,” to her — the day after her death with a video of the famous handbag designer dancing by a Christmas tree.

“Knowing Katy, this is how she would want to be remembered,” Brosnahan wrote in a post to Instagram early Wednesday morning. “She had a light that words can’t capture but touched everyone she came into contact with. She was exceedingly kind, beautifully sensitive, insanely talented, funny as heck and one of the most generous people I have ever known. She was effervescent. Hug your loved ones extra tight today.”

Kate Spade was found dead of an apparent suicide in her Manhattan apartment Tuesday morning at the age of 55.

Also Read: David Spade Pays Tribute to Late Sister-in-Law Kate Spade: 'It's a Rough World Out There'

Brosnahan is not the...

The late Kate Spade was best known for her designer handbags and couture. But she also had comedic chops she showed off while guesting on brother-in-law David Spade‘s sitcom, “Just Shoot Me.”

Kate Spade (who was found dead of an apparent suicide Tuesday morning) married David Spade’s brother, Andy Spade, in 1994, a year after the two founded Kate Spade New York. Her fame as a designer made her an obvious choice to guest on the show, about the inner-workings of a high-fashion magazine called Blush. The fact that David Spade was family made her guest spot an even better fit.

Kate Spade appears in Episode 619, “Blush Gets Some Therapy,” which originally aired on NBC on April 11, 2002.

Also Read: Kate Spade's Hollywood Family Includes David Spade, Rachel Brosnahan

In the episode, Kate Spade — playing herself — comes to Blush to promote her new fragrance and doesn’t miss a beat...

Those mourning the loss of Kate Spade include Hollywood luminaries many may not know were related to the revered fashion designer: She was the sister-in-law to “Saturday Night Live” alum David Spade, and the aunt of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” star Rachel Brosnahan.

Kate Spade married David Spade’s brother, Andy Spade, in 1994. She guest-starred as herself on David Spade’s sitcom “Just Shoot Me” in 2002. He tweeted an image of her late Tuesday at a signing for his 2015 memoir, “Almost Interesting.”

“Katy at my book signing. I love this pic of her. So pretty,” David Spade wrote. “I don’t think everyone knew how f—ing funny she was… It’s a rough world out there people. Try to hang on.”

Also Read: Kate Spade, Fashion Designer, Dies at 55 in Apparent Suicide

Kate Spade shares her maiden name with Rachel Brosnahan, who starred on “House of Cards” before moving...

Ever since making his feature debut with the darkly comical Sitcom, French writer/director François Ozon has been making the world feeling horny and shocked with his films, often at the same time. With a body of work that also includes Water Drops on Burning Rocks, Under the Sand, In the House and the glorious one-two punch of 8 Women and Swimming Pool, you’d think the prolific provocateur might soon be running out of tricks.

Think again. His latest erotic thriller, L’amant double, which premiered in competition at Cannes this year, proved to be the film scandaleux of the festival. Starring Marine Vacth as Chloé, a young woman who one day discovers her psychiatrist partner Paul (Jérémie Renier) might have an evil twin brother and gradually loses herself in a web of deceit and kinks, it’s the kind of dangerously sexy farce at which Ozon excels.

We had...

Los perros, premiering in Critics' Week this year, is the second feature film by Marcela Said.When this year’s Cannes slate was announced, an absence that many immediately noted in the competition slate was that of Claire Denis’ latest project: Un beau soleil intérieur, an adaptation of Roland Barthes's 1977 text A Lover's Discourse: Fragments. Leaving aside why her last feature, Bastards, was shunted to the Un Certain Regard section in 2013, the fact that one of the world’s greatest living filmmakers was again denied a competition slot was baffling, to say the least. Except that the film will be at Cannes, premiering alongside new films by Philippe Garrel, Bruno Dumont, and Abel Ferrara no less; it just won’t be in what’s known as the Official Selection. Specifically, Denis will be opening the Director’s Fortnight (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs), a separate, parallel festival completely independent from what...

The French film director on being haunted by Under the Skin, the music of La Femme, and the place where he had his first kiss

Born in 1967 in Paris, film-maker and screenwriter François Ozon studied at the film school La Fémis, and has cited directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Jean Renoir as early influences. After the release of his debut feature Sitcom in France in 1998, he achieved international success with murder mystery 8 Women (2002) and Swimming Pool (2003), an erotic thriller starring Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier. Since then, he has released a number of films including Potiche, In the House, Jeune & Jolie, and The New Girlfriend. His film Frantz, a drama set in a small German town after the first world war, is in cinemas now and L’amant double is in competition for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes festival.

Continue reading...

“Awards are like hemorrhoids. Sooner or later every asshole gets one,” François Ozon, one of France's most prolific director/screenwriters, has noted.

With Frantz, his pacifistic, feminist, and slightly homoerotic chronicling of a post-World War I love affair of sorts opening Stateside this week, he can say that with a smile. After all, this feature has already garnered eleven Cécar nominations, including one for best film, and a dozen more from various international film festivals.

For many folks, that’s no surprise. All they have to hear is that a new Ozon is unspooling at their local art house, and they’re hotfooting it to the ticket booth. Why? Few other directors have the ability to depict the psychosexual permutations of our fellow man better, at times accompanied with an unexpected Hitchcockian twist or a good dose of Almodóvarian tongue-in-cheek perversity.

In his 1996 short, "A Summer Dress," a young gay man,...

One of the France's most prolific writer-filmmakers, François Ozon (Sitcom, Swimming Pool, 8 Women) has been delighting moviegoers while exploring and subverting many genres for almost three decades with 30 features and shorts. His new film Frantz, a sumptuously shot period piece, just might turn out to be his best film. I had a chance to sit down with him during the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Series here in New York. Screen Anarchy: There is a lot of talks on Frantz being the remake of Broken Lullaby, an old film by Ernst Lubitch. Was that the starting point when you first conceived the idea for the film? François Ozon: No, the starting point was the play. Broken Lullaby was a play that was written just...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

While someone like Woody Allen tends to get name-checked immediately when it comes to directors who work at a prolific clip, it can be easy to forget that François Ozon is no slouch either. The French filmmaker has been working steadily, releasing nearly a film each year, since his debut “Sitcom” eighteen years ago. And with his latest “Frantz” barely off the festival circuit, Ozon is gearing up to go behind the camera again.

Continue reading François Ozon To Direct ‘Double Lover’ Next at The Playlist.

The brilliant, bizarre You and the Night has found itself in a unique position. It played Cannes back in May, where it was the third most popular French film with Lgbt content at the film festival. Such a strange circumstance has probably never before been possible, and yet it happened. Blue Is the Warmest Color won the Palme d’Or, Stranger by the Lake won the Queer Palm, and You and the Night ended up the bridesmaid at an entirely unprecedented celebration of French queer cinema on the Croisette. This is a shame. You and the Night, the debut film by Yann Gonzalez, is nothing short of extraordinary. Its small-scale orgiastic plot is akin to the controlled sexual experiments of other, prior queer filmmakers like François Ozon (Sitcom) and Pier Paolo Pasolini (Teorema). Its style is of another ilk entirely. Gonzalez has tapped into a new twist on the chaotic abandon of his forebears, a...

Review by Barbara Snitzer

In the House (Dans La Maison) is a crafty, suspenseful yarn that successfully maintains the audience’s engagement throughout its entire 102 minute running time.

Director François Ozon has improved his craft by being prolific; he has made just about a film a year since his debut feature Sitcom in 1998. Fabrice Luchini plays Germain Germain, a failed author turned jaded literature teacher at the Lycée Gustave Flaubert. The film begins with a new school year. Germain’s first assignment is for the students to write about their summer’s activities. Germain is astounded by the mediocrity of his students’ work; he reads aloud the shoddy essays to his wife,Jeanne (Kristin Scott-Thomas) who sympathizes with his frustration. He picks the papers at random, expecting each to be worse than the next, when suddenly, one essay captivates both of them. Student Claude Garcia (excellent performance by Ersnst Umhauer...

Glenn here. Given my penchant for poster goodness I figured I'd pick up Nathaniel's regular "posterized" feature. A fun series that can time to time shine a curious light on the way films are marketed and how certain actors or directors can find themselves in a so-called "marketing rut" where it's the same thing over and over. Think of a Will Smith movie and don't you just picture his smug mug staring out at you in mid-range closeup? Even that one about selling his organs to Rosario Dawson (or whatever Seven Pounds was about - I've sure as hell forgotten!)

This week I've chosen François Ozon - and he's having a helluva week. Not only is his latest (un/lucky number thirteen) film, In the House [Dans le maison], getting a release in America, but his next picture, Jeune et Jolie, was just chosen to compete for the Palme d'Or in Cannes. Well done,...

When François Ozon first started making features some 15 years ago, with films like Sitcom, Criminal Lovers and the Fassbinder adaptation Water Drops on Burning Rocks, he showed himself to be a raw, edgy and insistent talent. His ambition and style were at the fore in those early efforts, but over the years as he has continued to make movies — at the breakneck pace of almost one per year — he has visibly matured as a filmmaker. During his career he has done everything from colorful, large-scale retro musicals (8 Women) to bleak, formally rigorous relationship dramas (5×2) to lavish …...

To say that François Ozon has worked in many genres would be a misstatement, but only because his films tend to ignore the boundaries of genre in the first place. 8 Women is a musical, melodrama and murder mystery. Swimming Pool is a thriller inflected by romance novels. Sitcom is a fusion of sitcom tropes and rambunctious sexuality. And now, Ozon has made a film that functions almost as a retrospective blend of his own prior work. In the House builds from the insightful narrative trickery of Swimming Pool, blends in the promiscuous anarchy and wry humor of Sitcom, and drops the whole thing into the otherwise boring “inspirational schoolteacher” movie. The result is Ozon’s best work in a decade. The student in question is Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer), a sly young man with a lot of ambition and little humility. He’s the star of his literature class, taught by once-aspiring novelist Germain (Fabrice Luchini). It...

François Ozon's new film, In the House, looks set to be his international breakthrough. But has the erstwhile enfant terrible fallen for the bourgeois values he once satirised?

François Ozon has been knocking out roughly a film a year since the late 1990s: some camp and frivolous (Sitcom, Potiche), others intense (5x2, Time to Leave), each one zesty and provocative. Occasionally he will make something truly exceptional: Under the Sand, starring Charlotte Rampling as a woman falling apart after the disappearance of her husband, was rightly considered a masterpiece by the late Ingmar Bergman.

But though Ozon has had commercial success in France, he is still chasing the sort of career-changing international breakthrough on a par with, say, Pedro Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown or Michael Haneke's Hidden. If there is any justice, his new film In the House will change that. It's a witty,...

Still from The Artist

The 2011 edition of Mumbai Film Festival can boast of a strong French connection. Not only does it include a strong line-up of French films in a special section, but it will also celebrate the 50th anniversary of Cannes Critics Week by presenting a retrospective of 25 films.

The special section called ‘Rendez-vous with French Cinema’ will be co-organized with the French Embassy in India and Unifrance. For those who remember, this is the fourth edition of the event in Mumbai which has been merged with the Mumbai Film Festival this year. The past three editions were held separately as film festivals. This section will bring to Mumbai some of the critically acclaimed contemporary French films which include The Artist by Michel Hazanavicius, The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Robert Guédiguian and Declaration of War by ValérieDonzelli.

The Artist which will open the section competed at the Cannes Film...

François Ozon, one of France's most popular living filmmakers, is nothing if not prolific. Since breaking out in a big way with his first feature "Sitcom" in 1998, Ozon has released a film a year, displaying his versatility in style and his passion for strong leading ladies. Among the highlights: he worked with Charlotte Rampling in the ghost story "Under the Sand," paired her up with Ludivine Sagnier in the ...

François Ozon, one of France's most popular living filmmakers, is nothing if not prolific. Since breaking out in a big way with his first feature "Sitcom" in 1998, Ozon has released a film a year, displaying his versatility in style and his passion for strong leading ladies. Among the highlights: he worked with Charlotte Rampling in the ghost story "Under the Sand," paired her up with Ludivine Sagnier in the ...

Though he’s lately been given to more muted (though structurally adventurous) relationship studies, prolific French director François Ozon was once celebrated for irreverent, feature-length homages to other movies: See The Sea and Swimming Pool to Alfred Hitchcock, Sitcom to John Waters, Water Drops On Burning Rocks to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and 8 Women to Technicolor musicals. Inexplicably shuffled to OnDemand and now to DVD without getting its due in theaters first, Ozon’s 2007 lark Angel returns to that tradition with a cheeky nod in David O. Selznick’s direction. Like a Selznick film from the ’30s or ...

Watching his new film Hideaway, it’s hard to believe that director François Ozon was once considered an enfant terrible, a prolific young purveyor of sexually charged thrillers and dramas like Sea The Sea, Criminal Lovers, and Water Drops On Burning Rocks, or garish experiments like Sitcom. Ozon’s insinuating 2000 character piece Under The Sand signaled a new maturity, affirmed by intelligent but forgettable films like 5 x 2 and Time To Leave, but who’s looking for an enfant terrible to mature? (It should be noted that 2007’s Angel, his inspired goof on David O. Selznick ...

Ten years ago, François Ozon’s dark, Hitchcock-tinged melodrama See the Sea caught the attention of American film critics. The New York Times’ Janet Maslin marked him as “an impressive new filmmaker with a flair for implicit mayhem.” In the 12 features since then, Ozon has expressed his mayhem in various genres (musicals, fairy tales, magical realism, period romances, etc.), with different cinematic influences (Chabrol, Fassbinder, Renoir, Pasolini, etc.) and in a range of production scales. But central to all his films is a deep sense of the essentially conflicted nature of emotional relations, be it the comic sadomasochism of Water Drops On Burning Rocks, the perverse family values of Sitcom, or the life-affirming death wish of Time to...

• Alice's House tells the story of a midde class family living in Sao Paulo. Alice (Carla Ribas), the matriarch of the family, is an unhappy wife and mother who works as a manicurist. She is married to Lindomar (Zé Carlos Machado), with whom has a decaying relationship and they have three children, all of them male and teenagers and if that wasn't difficult enough there is a sixth member: Alice’s mother Dona Jacira (Berta Zemel). While the apartment is filled with physical beings it is also filled with secrets.In the first scene, a rat is found living in the family’s apartment. Jacinda immediately tries to combat its presence with poison. Unlike the French comedy “Sitcom” (François Ozon – 1998) and perhaps the pesky fellow in Dominick Moll's Lemming (2004), the presence of the rat isn’t going to become the main source for the family’s problems. Actually, it

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