Name Pierre Salvadori Born Tunisia. 1964 Background A former actor and TV sitcom writer. Salvadori made his feature debut with Wild Target in 1993. a deadpan farce concerning a middle-aged hit man (Jean Rochefort) and his young apprentice (Guillaume Depardieu). The writer-director has gone on to specialise in comedies. including the Parisian odd-couple tale Les Apprentis. which paired Francois Cluzet and Guillaume Depardieu and Apres-Vous. which starred Daniel Auteil as an uptight good Samaritan embroiled in a romantic triangle.
What’s he up to now? Salvadori's latest. the bittersweet comedy Priceless echoes Breakfast at Tiffany's. Set in the opulent surroundings of the French Riviera. it sees Audrey Tautou's gold- digging Irene torn between wealthy. elderly benefactors and charming. handsome waiter Jean (Gad Elmaleh)
What he says about comedy ‘To me comedy is a very cinematic genre. I would love to do a burlescwe comedy without any dialogue: it would be movement. ellipsis. poetry. montage. rhythm. irony and pure situation. and it would reflect on the human condition without being explicitly psychological.
What he says about love ‘The problem with romantic comedies is that they provide love as a solution to everything. when often it's the beginning of a lot of problems. I think Irene goes with Jean not so much because of love. but out of animal instinct. out of jealousy.’ What he says about Audrey Tautou 'She's such a cinematic actress. I needed her to save Irene's character. Irene is so cruel and tough. and so I had to have somebody who is charming, and ironic. and poetic in order to make her Ioveable. There's something childish about Audrey's look. If I had taken a tall blonde to play Irene. she would have been terrifying.‘
Interesting fact Salvadori's favourite film is Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise. (Tom Dawson) I Priceless is on selected release from Fri 73 Jun.
54 THE LIST’ 5—19 Jun 2008
COMEDY/ROMANCE IN SEARCH OF A MIDNIGHT KISS (15) 99min 0..
Writer/director Alex Holdridge’s dispatch from the frontline of the LA dating scene is exactly what it depicts: a witty, slight affair. Wilson (Scoot McNairy) is a detached single desperate for a date to provide him with a midnight kiss that will allow him to see in the New Year with hope. After putting a ‘misanthrope seeks misanthrope’ advert on Craigslist, he meets Vivian (Sara Simmonds), an aspiring actress who may or may not match Wilson’s emotional unavailability.
Both are gripped by a need to escape unhappiness in their pasts, the couple muddle their way through some scenic LA locations, intercut with a subplot following Wilson’s flatmate Jacob (Brian McGuire) and his attempts to propose to Min (Kathleen Luong).
SPOOFCOMEDY SUPERHERO MOVIE (12A) 85min 0.
The presence of Airplanes David Zucker amongst the executive producers and Leslie Nielsen amongst the cast raises hopes that Superhero Mowe might offer a classier strain of parody than Date Movie or Meet the Spartans. Alas. writer-director Craig Mazin's attempt to deflate comic-book pomposity comes up short on laughs as it details the transformation of Rick Riker (Drake Bell). This high-schooler is bitten by a rare species of insect and eventually harnesses his special powers as caped crusader Dragonfly to fight crime in the nasty form of Christopher McDonald's HOurglass.
Superhero Movie has a few fragments of inspiration. When Rick and Jill (Sara Paxton) meet for a secret moonlight tryst. a voice shouts from a nearby window: ‘You no-good slut. y0u'll come to no good. just like your mother.‘ ‘Who was that?’ Rick asks. 'My mother.‘ Jill deadpans nicely. Other jokes. including extended riffs on Tom Cruise's scientology and some cruel references to Stephen Hawking. fall heavily flat. with Nielsen's contribution as Rick's Uncle Albert is disappointing.
A skit where Nielsen repeatedly fires nails into people‘s groms as least shows he's still got comic timing. his final scene. overenthusiastically dry humping a corpse in a cemetery. doesn‘t exactly leave you wanting more. mucn like Superhero Movie itself. (Eddie Harrison)
I General release from Fri 6 Jun.
In Search of a Midnight Kiss is flawed by an overtly self-effacing central character who, like the film, is so desperate to be liked that it’s off-putting. And unlike the free-flowing conversation of Jesse and Celine in Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise/Sunset films, Holdridge unwiser attempts to shoehorn a supposedly spontaneous evening into the old-hat structure of a conventional rom-com.
Yet it’s impossible to feel too mean-spirited about a film that ends with the central characters giving an off- key and seriously hungover rendition of the Scorpions’ power-rock anthem ‘Wind of Change’. Acerbic and warmly human throughout, Holdridge’s debut feature rises to provide the same mixture of crude sexual chat with sophistication that makes it worth a look for admirers of Clerks or Knocked Up. (Eddie Harrison)
I Selected release from Fri 73 Jun.