Search - Same Old Song on DVD

Resnais' lastest film, this is an outstanding musical comedy

12/27/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Although released in France in 1997 to nearly universal critical praise, outside of a few domestic film festivals, "Same Old Song" was only screened domestically last year (2000) in select film markets. I saw both showings in Seattle, and found myself thoroughly enchanted by this playful, yet somber, musical comedy by one of the greatest living directors. While Resnais long ago turned away from the self-reflexive, deconstructive style of "Last Year at Marienbad" and "Hiroshima Mon Amour," the 80s and 90s have seen perhaps his most innovative, if least watched, work. His last three films, "Smoking/No Smoking" and "Same Old Song," show that Resnais continues to explore new terrain, at an age when most directors, even great ones, often become rather nostalgic and banal. I spent the last year experimenting with different international releases of this film, all of which invariably suffered from subpar picture quality due to PAL conversion. Before the present release, the only NTSC version was an unsubtitled Canadian release, which had excellent colors but was pan and scan. If your video store does not carry this title, it is well worth the price tag. This first domestic video edition presents the film in widecreen format, with excellent subtitles. Now I am just waiting for the DVD release.As for the film itself, it is outstanding, possibly Resnais' best film since "Life is a Bed of Roses" (1983), not to take anything away from "Smoking/No Smoking." If anything, "Same Old Song" reminds us that the Romantic Comedy genre should not be dismissed along with the latest Julia Roberts picture. I do not want to spoil the story. I will say only that the final thirty minutes, recalling the hypnotic filmmaking of Resnais' work from the early 60s, are absolutely breathtaking and feature some of the most beautiful images of jellyfish ever filmed."

Great Film, when's the DVD coming out?

05/25/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Charming French Film, revolves around the love affiars of 2-3 people, some seeing old loves, others starting new loves, very well done. The french "pop" songs, spliced sparingly through-out the film in moments of 30 sec - 1 minute. No dancing (!!! thank goodness) the songs range from the 1930's to the Present. With most of them skewing towards modern times. Overall, good song choices if anyone knows the song sung in the dinner scene, where Nicholas visits Odile after 8 yrs. please, i'm still lookin wasn't on the French Soundtrack on amazon.co.fr please write it here. i'd pay top dollar for just that song.I caught this film, back when I had the sundance channel for a while 2 yrs. back, I always had a blank VHS ready to go. Since they ran movies 3 times a week, if it looked intersting the first 2 times, I'd tape it. The beggining is where this film caught my eye. There's a vignette scene where a top German comander in France is ordered by Hitler via phone to destroy Paris in 24 hrs. After hanging up the phone the comander sits down and opens his mouth and lip-syncs as an old-school record breaks out in the background and it says:"Two loves of my life
my home and Paris
in times of strife
they set my heart free"Just beautiful. As is the rest of the film. And then the rest of the film forwards to the mid 90's with the tour guide: the younger Camile sister says, [paraphrasing] "in that building the comander got orders to destroy Paris from Hitler, his motives for not doing so remain obscure." [paraphrasing] .....and then it heads into the realationships thing. When's the DVD coming out?"