Movies, Photos, and "Art"

Wednesday morning I took our final exam for the conversation and composition class. It was a little ridiculous, because that class wasn't very well organized to begin with, and there wasn't a lot I could have done to study better. Still, I did alright. Then, after lunch I went with a bunch of other people to watch the Sex in the City movie. I've never actually watched the show, but practically everyone on the program was excited about it, and after that test, I didn't really have to energy to do anything else for a little bit. The movie itself wasn't that great, and rather corny. What was funny though, was reading the french subtitles along with the movie. Because there is a lot that gets lost in translation. The french probably saw a very different movie than I did.

After that I went to the Maison Européene de la Photographie, and what a great find that was. There were two expositions, and one of them was way amazing. His name is Georges Rousse. His photos look like they've been altered, because they're sort of optical illusions, when in fact he created each space to look like they do, and then took a picture. It's so hard to describe. So here's a picture of one of the prints I saw. (Small pictures on the internet just don't do them justice. They're kind of mind boggling.) So that was fantastic.
Thursday I got up and met a few people to see Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis. It's a french movie by Dany Boon, and has been out for ages--it's had record success in France. But, because it was 10:40am on a thursday, and the movie had been out for so long, we were the only one's in the theater besides one older woman. The movie itself was really good. Also, I understood pretty much everything-I think it was good I waited until this point in the program to see it (I'd been meaning to go for a while), because my comprehension is good enough to appreciate the movie. I will be interested to see if it comes to the US (I hope it does), but it will be more of just a cute romantic comedy than the play on stereotypes that is a central part of the movie. There is some language/accents jokes that won't be translated, and the understanding of the stereotypes of the North of France won't be quite as strong. Still, it's a good movie, and I'd be interested to see what they might do with it in the US.

Then after grabbing a bite to eat, we went to the Musée Marmottan Monet. We couldn't stay for too long because we had to get to our last museum visit class with Jérôme, but it was a pretty neat museum. It had a lot of Monet, as you could guess from the name, along with other impressionists. Upstairs was also some more modern/abstract art. (Also, can we talk about how cool France is? In a monoprix--a grocery/clothes/everything store--there was an escalator. And then a little one just for grocery carts. crazy).

Then we went to the Palais Tokyo, which is a modern art museum. It was some giant opening so there were a lot of people. There was also free champagne and yogurt. (I had a thé vert à la menthe-mint green tea, and a white chocolate one. Yogurt in France is amazing. And I like champagne, so that was neat). In terms of the art, it was rather bizarre. There was a giant elephant balancing on its trunk, a giant gun thing that shot beer bottles crazy fast at a wall, and they'd shatter and it was way loud and kind of smoky, some random little things and a room with a bunch of Darth Vader masks all hooked up to a computer, with creepy music. Modern art is way weird. I don't get a lot. Oh! and there was this TV that was playing Back to the Future. And a DJ just jamming, but you couldn't actually hear the music. It was all rather odd and random.
Also, there was this guy going around with this giant video camera. As we were looking at the elephant, he got up real close to this one guy and videoed his face as he looked at the elephant. I turned to Anna and commented on how awkward that much be. So then the guy turns around and comes over and videos me that close and awkwardly. I just stayed staring at the elephant. I don't know what they were videoing for, but I'm in it. Also, me and Monica found a Georges Rousse book (they were out at the photo museum) but it was 65 euros. So I didn't get it, even though I really wanted it-this guy is way cool).
(also, that's the camera guy)