Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

MartinHafer I am sure that there are many out there that enjoyed this film a lot more than me and I think this film is a wonderful example of a film that you'll either love or hate. This is because the idea of people breaking into lip-sync songs is pretty peculiar and may not be for everyone! I actually didn't mind this concept, but strongly disliked the execution. Instead of singing long numbers and perhaps dancing or getting into the moment, instead the characters sang a line or two or three from a song and then very abruptly stopped. The shift in mood was just too abrupt and the surreal moments were never allowed to develop and captivate the audience. It really was as if they tried to cram way too many songs into the film so they abbreviated them so much that the viewer was left confused by how disjoint the film was. A nice attempt at something different, but not especially worth seeing.

m67165 You probably know already that people in this movie simply start singing out of the blue but, unlike We usually see in musicals, no one starts dancing. Frankly, I almost lost interest in the fate of the characters, but managed to see this movie to the end, and It was funny enough, even though I did not know most of the songs. So I guess this can be fun to watch even if You, like myself, do not know much about French pop.

Ruby Liang (ruby_fff) Reminiscent of Jacques Demy's 1968 "The Young Girls of Rochefort" where characters now and then burst into song (and dance) to convey the story, and Eric Rohmer's flavor of intertwined relationships and coincidental meetings of characters that wrap around a tale, Alain Resnais' treatment here in 1997 "Same Old Song" has his characters burst into lines of songs in between dialogs. Irrespective of the mix and match of a male vocal coming out of a female character or vice versa, they are excerpted strains and words chosen from certain songs that propel the storytelling. It's as if the characters are thinking aloud in songs on the situation or predicament at hand. It is rather fun once you get a sense of what Resnais was trying to deliver. Being an Alain Resnais film, intellectual exchanges and philosophical tones are never lacking.Definitely reminded me of his treatment on 1980 "Mon oncle d'Amerique" where he has scientific mice experiment scenes juxtaposed against the human (brain) reactions to relationships and love. In this 1997 "On connait la chanson", his fascination with how people think - how the brain cells work in each of the characters, is again deftly demonstrated. At the last segment, where a theoretical explosion of the minds occur as gray matters collide - there was an appearance of a graphical ear-shape (in quiet wavy motion) in the center of it all - it's amazing to see how Resnais' mind at 75 was still so very much into studying and unraveling human emotions, offering us life lessons in love.The story centers around two sisters, Camille the tour guide who's also writing a thesis (Agnes Jaoui) and her popular and successful sibling Odile (Sobine Azema), and four men in their lives: an old flame of Odile - Nicolas (Jean-Pierre Bacri), husband of Odile - Claude (Pierre Arditi), writer of radio plays and quiet admirer of Camille - Simon (Andre Dussollier, more casually groomed than usual), and profiteering real-estate agent of Odile, fanciful beau of Camille and arrogant boss of Simon - Marc (Lambert Wilson). Typographically oriented, I can't help noticing the sequence of treatment to the credit roll at the end of the film: it started with a centrifugal look of the names of les chanteurs, followed by horizontal scroll from right to left of the main cast and crew, then a quick shooting upwards to facilitate the conventional bottom to top scroll of rest of the credits.It may not be a French film for just anybody, it certainly is delightful to experience. (An Artistic License and Merchant-Ivory Films production indeed!) The subtitles, translated by Ian Burley, were super: the lyrics actually rhyme in English, e.g., "resist", "exist", "egotist"!This film was dedicated to Dennis Potter, a cerebral genius he was. Check out his 1996 "Karaoke" (a multitude of colorfully complex characters) and "Cold Lazarus" (quite a sci-fi notion not completely implausible) - both centers around Albert Finney being the main character, and as always, a tour de force performance Finney delivered.

emperor-4 This film, a tribute to Dennis Potter (pennies from heaven, the singing detective), is the best french comedy I've ever seen. Basically it's a typical well-made french film about relations, with great acting, set in Paris. But it's more than that: it's also a musical. Here are some reasons why I think it's a great movie. First, the chansons, play-backed by the actors, are brilliant. Imagine a Wehrmachtofficer lipsinging to an Edith-Piaf chanson (in the opening act). The best thing about the chansons, is the fact that they actually support the story, as they serve as moments of reflection and introspection for the players. Maybe it's the contrast between the extreme sentimentality and the 'serious' acting that makes this film so great. Go see it.