Spencer Le Fou: A film blog of sorts.

Samba is the follow up from directing duo Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, whose last film, The Intouchables , was a film that was filled with touching moments, lots of laughs, and had two amazing leads. Nakache and Toledano's are collaborating again with Omar Sy, who plays the title role. Omar Sy and Charlotte Gainsbourg both command every scene that they are in, bringing many laughs, and are one of the main strengths of Samba . In this outing, the directors still bring plenty of the same charm, as well as some more dramatic material to play with, although I did not find myself quite as engaged as I was with The Intouchables . The chemistry between Sy and Gainsbourg is strong, but I feel the more dramatic elements present could have played a much bigger part. While the abundant humour and more crowd pleasing elements of the film (mostly) worked, I would have liked to see a bit more weight given to the issues with France's immigration laws instead of the romantic aspects ...

Eden , the new film by Mia Hansen-Løve, may be formally described as the life of a young DJ (Félix de Givry) and his part in creating French house music (specifically "Garage"). However, I felt that the film was much more about Paul's passion for the music he was creating and his stubbornness to move on as he grows up. Eden 's pacing mixed with Mia's reserved directional style, affected my viewing experience for better and for worse In another director's hands, some of the events in Paul's life, like breakups or his drug addictions, could have been depicted in a more melodramatic or sensational way, but here, Mia never spends very long dwelling on any of this. While refreshing to see her approach, the same approach never made me feel like anything affected Paul all that much. Not to say that Félix's or anyone else's performances were poor, but I found myself wanting to stick around a bit longer when Paul is with his friends or his ex-lover(s). ...