Like many Woody Allen fans, I didn’t much care for Midnight in Paris. It had less emotional depth than Allen’s last European valentine, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and while I could watch that film’s leading man, Javier Bardem, for hours on end, I run out of patience with Owen Wilson. Still, I ate up Midnight‘s ample [...]
As the saying goes, “Behind every great man stands a woman, rolling her eyes.” In the case of the Modernist architect Le Corbusier, that woman was probably Charlotte Perriand, his colleague and co-creator in the 1930s. Only she was probably too good-natured and well-mannered to roll her eyes. Perhaps from time to time she permitted [...]
The painting is often described as the most famous in the world. Official statistics show that in 2010 8.5 million people visited the Louvre, where the Mona Lisa is on display. Of these 7 million had gone there only to see the Mona Lisa. (In 2009 7.8 million people had visited the Louvre which has [...]
Eleven years ago, I bought the book Je Ne Sais Pas Maigrir by Dr Pierre Dukan and published by Flammarion. I thought I had to lose weight although everyone said: “Marilyn, you are not fat!” About two months into the diet I felt like a million dollars because I’d lost weight: a few kilos. Then I thought, [...]
In a letter sent to newspaper Le Temps in February 1887, a group of artists, writers and architects criticised the soon to be built Eiffel tower, calling it “inutile et monstrueuse.” Gustave Eiffel, an engineer and a “constructeur de machines,” would be scarring the beautiful face of the city in an attack on generations of artistic [...]
At the height of her popularity in the 1880s, the beautiful Madame X was practically mobbed wherever she appeared; people stood on chairs to catch a glimpse of her. But she was also the subject of a portrait painted by the American artist John Singer Sargent that was furiously criticized. The public’s hatred of the [...]
Want to play Amélie Poulain? Now you can do it with real style. This summer’s most surprising fetish object is the photo booth—but it’s undergone what Parisians like to call a “re-looking.” There is no need to fear harsh light or dingy curtains in these photos. Photomaton, the largest supplier of booths in France, asked designer [...]
I’m psyched about “Summer of Girls,” the TV channel Arte’s line-up for Tuesdays this coming season. It’s a barrage of female iconography past and present, from Anne Parillaud as a butt-kicker in Nikita (1990) to Meryl Streep as a country crooner in A Prairie Home Companion (2006). No entertainment powerhouse goes unturned, from Janis Joplin [...]
Angeleno by way of Hong Kong and Tokyo–but originally from Caen, Normandy–Charlie Sputnik touches down in Paris Thursday June 2 at the Pop In. It’s a rare occasion to see the multi-hyphenate who produces, DJs, and best of all performs original music. Click here for his SoundCloud page, which has free tracks, both solo and [...]
Because Robert Pattinson is in the movie Water for Elephants which was released here in Paris a couple of weeks ago with teenage girls doing much screaming and sobbing when he turned up for the premiere, it has been reported that he will next be seen in the movie Bel Ami based on the Guy de [...]
