GAINSBOURG

 “Famous In France”

French director Joann Sfar has made a lavish biopic of France’s 60s pop music icon Serge Gainsbourg called “Gainsbourg”. The film’s psychedelic style is in keeping with the period in which Gainsbourg rose to fame, but it gives the movie a quality that can best be described as a mixture of Ken Russell with Fellini.

Gainsbourg’s success in Europe was never repeated in the U.S., probably because his songs were written and performed in French (although that didn’t stop Edith Piaf from becoming more widely known over here). His biggest hit was “Je t’aime… moi non plus” which he recorded with his wife Jane Birkin. Here on Billboard’s U.S. charts, the single reached a disappointing #69. Other than that, some Americans may also know Gainsbourg as the father of movie actress Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Drive

“Action At $4 A Gallon”

“Drive” is an intelligent, smartly conceived action film that takes off going zero-to-60 in the first frame. Ryan Gosling plays a character only known as “the driver”. His day-job is being a stunt driver for Hollywood movie productions. In his off hours, he moonlights as a getaway-car driver for bank heists and pawn shop robberies.

It sounds like the formula for a fantastic action picture, and it is. But when “the driver” meets Irene, a beautiful neighbor in his Los Angeles apartment building who is being a single mom while her husband is in jail, “Drive” becomes a beautiful love story. Irene is played by british actress Carey Mulligan with a spot-on American accent. When her husband returns from jail owing money to some nasty people, “the driver” gets involved in a scheme to save him and therefore protect Irene and her young son. His motivation is driven by his love for Irene.

“Investment Prophets”

Margin Call

To the average layman (those of us who don’t work on Wall Street) understanding the language of investment banking is like trying to translate hieroglyphics. But there’s no doubt that it would have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall of a Wall Street boardroom on the eve of the 2008 economic collapse and watch the devious planning of greedy bankers that would ultimately cause the U.S. economy to crumble to its knees.

J.C. Chandor’s sensational new financial thriller “Margin Call” lets us do just that. It’s 2008 at an unnamed investment banking firm (but you can fill in that blank with names like Lehman Brothers or Goldman Sachs) and a team of senior executives are overseeing the systematic layoffs of more than 60% of their work staff. One of the employees being fired is Eric Dale (played by Stanley Tucci). As security escorts him out of the building, he hands a computer disk-stick to another employee and warns him to “be careful”. That employee returns to his office, boots up his computer and begins to study the data which causes extreme alarm.