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Despite the increase in pop-culture amnesia, there are actually a lot of great rom-coms that predate the Reagan era

For many pop-culture websites, which we will not name here, the history of cinema apparently begins somewhere around the release of “Star Wars” (1977), with almost everything that preceded it to the big screen being sloughed off as quaint, forgettable and irrelevant.

It’s the sort of thing that people who love movies and movie history can often ignore with the roll of an eye, but when one site recently trumpeted its list of the 50 Best Rom-Coms of All Time — which featured exactly one movie made before 1980 and zero prior to 1970 — we could sit by no longer.

Here is an alphabetical list of 50 classic romantic comedies that merely scratches the surface of great movies made during ye olden times of 1979 and earlier:

“The Awful Truth” (1937): Cary Grant and Irene Dunne star...

Fifteen years have passed since Penélope Cruz broke new ground as the first Spanish woman to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Although her performance in Pedro Almodóvar’s Spanish-language film “Volver” was passed over in favor of Helen Mirren’s in “The Queen,” she bounced back two years later by triumphing in the supporting category for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” Now, based on her work in Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers” (their seventh collaboration), she may have another shot at lead glory. If she does land in the lineup, she will join an exclusive club as the fifth leading lady to be recognized for two non-English language performances.

The first woman to accomplish this feat was Sophia Loren, who was nominated for “Marriage Italian Style” (1965) after winning for “Two Women” (1962). Both are Italian-language films directed by Vittorio De Sica. After losing on her second outing to Julie Andrews (“Mary Poppins...

Victor Lanoux, who starred in the lovely 1975 French romantic comedy Cousin Cousine, which was nominated for three Academy Awards, has died. He was 80.

Lanoux died Thursday in a hospital in Royan, Charente-Maritime, France, his agent told the Agence France-Presse wire service.

A very popular actor in his home country, Lanoux also starred as Louis Roman, an antique dealer who works as a private detective in his spare time, on the 1998-2013 TV series Louis la Brocante.

President Francois Hollande called Lanoux a "beloved actor of the French," and Minister of Culture Audrey Azoulay said the Paris native "embodied the vitality of postwar France...

Author: Stefan Pape

When presenting a biopic whereby the subject is an esteemed artist, there’s an even greater pressure to ensure the cinematic reimagining of their life is an aesthetically gratifying one, and auteur Daniéle Thompson’s does not disappoint, with an alluring, picturesque backdrop worthy of the great painter Paul Cézanne. Sadly, any such homage paid to the film’s supporting lead – the revered, naturalistic novelist Emile Zola – falls short, with a hackneyed screenplay that does not do justice to the great wordsmith, which comes as surprise since it’s penned by Thompson, who was once nominated for an Academy Award in such an area, for the 1975 release Cousin Cousine.

Set in the latter half of the 19th century, we study the caustic, lifelong friendship between Cézanne (Guillaume Gallienne) and Zola (Guillaume Canet), told through flashbacks, looking over their school years, up until their later ones. It had been a perpetually tumultuous affair,...

Those Who Love Me Can Catch the Train Wreck: Thompson’s Latest Flat, Overstuffed

Familial relationships and transportation, two favorite themes of writer/director Daniele Thompson, figure heavily in her latest feature, It Happened in Saint Tropez, a breezy situational comedy that suffers from a hokey forced charm, beginning with its misleading English title translation (the original title, Des gens qui s’embrassent should be something along the lines of People Who Embrace). A cousin in tone to something like Anne Fontaine’s 2009 bauble headed The Girl From Monaco, it unfortunately fails to match the effervescent enchantment of some of Thompson’s past titles, like her lovely 2006 film, Avenue Montaigne.

Noga (Lou de Laage) is a young cellist living in New York with her intense musician parents, Irene (Valerie Bonneton) and Zef (Eric Elmosnino). Familial drama rears its head in their isolated universe by the upcoming wedding of Zef’s...

DVD Release Date: July 10, 2012

Price: DVD $29.99

Studio: Zeitgeist/KimStim

Chiara Mastroianni (r.) ties to make it work with Louis Garrel in Making Plans for Lena.

Chiara Mastroianni (Park Benches), Marie-Christine Barrault (Cousin Cousine) and Louis Garrel (The Dreamers) star in the 2009 French film drama Making Plans for Lena, directed by acclaimed auteur Christophe Honoré (Love Songs).

But it’s not all that easy: From the moment she arrives in Brittany, she is confronted with unwanted advice from her overly critical mother (Barrault) and pregnant sister (Marina Fois), character analysis (that borders on character assassination) and a few other unexpected surprises. But that’s what family is all about, right…?

Making Plans for Lena arrives on DVD following its well-received theatrical release in France, screenings at film festivals around the world and a limited theatrical run in theaters in the U.S. in August, 2010.

Presented in French with optional English subtitles,...

"TCM Remembers 2011" is out. Remembered by Turner Classic Movies are many of those in the film world who left us this past year. As always, this latest "TCM Remembers" entry is a classy, immensely moving compilation. The haunting background song is "Before You Go," by Ok Sweetheart.

Among those featured in "TCM Remembers 2011" are Farley Granger, the star of Luchino Visconti's Senso and Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and Strangers on a Train; Oscar-nominated Australian actress Diane Cilento (Tom Jones, Hombre), formerly married to Sean Connery; and two-time Oscar nominee Peter Falk (Murder, Inc., Pocketful of Miracles, The Great Race), best remembered as television's Columbo. Or, for those into arthouse fare, for playing an angel in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire.

Also, Jane Russell, whose cleavage and sensuous lips in Howard Hughes' The Outlaw left the puritans of the Production Code Association apoplectic; another Australian performer, Googie Withers, among...

"Fred Baker, a filmmaker, actor, director, screenwriter and jazz musician, died of natural causes on June 5 in New York City," reports Variety. "He was 78. Baker was among the subversive, experimental, underground filmmakers of the 1960s and 70s, turning out films such as Events, The Murder of Fred Hampton and 1992's White Trash. He was an uncredited exec producer on Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 classic The Battle of Algiers. A longtime friend of comedian Lenny Bruce, Baker was best known for his 1972 documentary Lenny Bruce Without Tears."

Fred Baker Film & Video Co, founded in the 70s, acquired and distributed such films as David Lynch's Eraserhead, Luchino Visconti's The Innocent, Marco Ferreri's Tales of Ordinary Madness and Jean Charles Tacchella's Cousin Cousine. In October 2010, Baker launched a blog called Slink where he began posting chapters of a "non-fiction novel," Balls... life's secret scenarios — and it's quite a read. In the most recent entry,...

Marie-France Pisier, the stunning actress who launched her career as go-to gal for the leading filmmakers of the French New Wave, died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer, Var, France on Sunday, April 24. She was 66 years old.

Beginning in the early 1960s, Mme Pisier appeared in seminal films of the Nouvelle Vague by Francois Truffaut (Love on the Run, Stolen Kisses), Jacques Rivette (Celine and Julie Go Boating) and Andrew Techine (1969’s Pauline is Leaving, Techine’s first film). She became a staple in French cinema and television over the years, appearing in dozens of TV and film productions, including the international cross-over comedy Cousin Cousine. She even did a little slumming in Hollywood, popping up in such silly fare as French Postcards and the high-trashy TV miniseries Scruples.

A hardworking career actor, Mme. Pisier was seen most recently in the 2009 French TV legal drama Les Chasseur.

Much of Marie-France Pisier’s movie canon...

French actor, novelist and director who starred in films by Truffaut and Buñuel

Those who followed the adventures of Antoine Doinel (played by Jean-Pierre Léaud) in a series of lyrical and semi-autobiographical films directed by François Truffaut – incorporating adolescence, marriage, fatherhood and divorce – will know that Doinel's first and (perhaps) last love, Colette Tazzi, was played by the stunningly beautiful Marie-France Pisier, who has been found dead aged 66 in the swimming pool of her house near Toulon, in southern France.

Doinel and audiences first caught sight of Pisier in Antoine et Colette, Truffaut's enchanting 32-minute contribution to the omnibus film L'Amour à Vingt Ans (Love at Twenty, 1962), during a concert at the Salle Pleyel in Paris of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. She is conscious of Antoine's stares, and pulls down her skirt. We soon realise that Colette is going to break Antoine's heart.

Léaud and Pisier were born in...

This weekend's releases offer up some tantalizing choices: Do you want to go witty and urbane with a sharply observed dinner comedy from France? Or would you rather indulge in a gritty, adrenaline-fueled historical action film? Why not see both? (Oh, that's Mmp for you -- always willing to take the bold stand.) In Change of Plans a group of friends get together for a lovely, summer dinner party. But since the festivities are being presided over by director Danièle Thompson -- who previously gave us such sly inquests into human behavior as Cousin Cousine and Avenue Montaigne and here uses an unusual, fractured timeline to give us frequent glimpses into the attendee's futures -- the social niceties will not be all they seem and the relationships, sexual and otherwise, are going to be more elaborate than anyone could imagine. With...

PARIS -- The surprise French hit Orchestra Seats was named late Wednesday as France's bid as best foreign-language film at next year's Oscars. The film, directed by Daniele Thompson and produced by Thelma Films, is a tale that takes place after the curtain falls at the famed Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris. A committee set up by the ministry for culture made the selection. Released by Mars Distribution in February, the comedy drama attracted almost two million admissions in France and grossed nearly €11.5 million ($14.6 million). Daughter of recently deceased filmmaker Gerard Oury, Thompson was previously nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay in 1977 for Cousin, Cousine.

PARIS -- The surprise French hit Orchestra Seats was named late Wednesday as France's bid as best foreign-language film at next year's Oscars. The film, directed by Daniele Thompson and produced by Thelma Films, is a tale that takes place after the curtain falls at the famed Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris. A committee set up by the ministry for culture made the selection. Released by Mars Distribution in February, the comedy drama attracted almost two million admissions in France and grossed nearly €11.5 million ($14.6 million). Daughter of recently deceased filmmaker Gerard Oury, Thompson was previously nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay in 1977 for Cousin, Cousine.