Film and TV
- A Good Year - DVD
London banker Max Skinner (Russell Crowe) is a cutthroat workaholic who cares only about winning and making money. During his rise to the top, Max has forgotten the important life lessons that his favourite uncle, Henry (Albert Finney), taught him during summers at his vineyard in Provence. Estranged from Henry for years, Max is surprised to learn that his uncle has passed away and as his closest living relative, he is set to inherit the estate, La Siroque.
- Chocolat (DVD) - Joanne Harris
Chocolat is an enchanting, moving and heart-warming tale of love and temptation, a big-budget movie with its roots in European art house cinema.
Magical and almost fairytale-like in theme, it's the story of the mysterious Vianne and her arrival in a quiet, old-fashioned French town at the end of the 1950s.
Joanne Harris is the author of the Whitbread-shortlisted Chocolat (made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp) and many other bestselling novels.
For a full biography, please visit Joanne Harris - Author Page.
- James Martin's France - DVD
This set combines renowned TV chef James Martin s two French cookery series Brittany and Champagne into one special gift set. In the first series, James is our guide for a trip to Brittany, an area he first visited as a student, to explore the delights of its regional recipes and produce, the historic towns and villages and the magnificent scenery. He is joined by various culinary guests on the journey including The Hairy Bikers (Dave Myers and Simon King), Lawrence Keogh and Daniel Galmiche. Each episode combines mouthwatering recipes prepared at that day s campsite or by the beach with visits to places of interest including stunning markets for seafood and fresh Breton produce, a winery and a brewery, a goat s cheese factory, a local bakery, a strawberry farm and beautiful coastal oyster beds.
- Julie and Julia - DVD
Julie & Julia is a film that should be relished with gusto--accompanied by the freshest and best ingredients, pounds of butter, and bottles of the very best wine. It lovingly celebrates the life of one of American food's most influential and beloved figureheads: Julia Child - played here with zest, humor, and a sweet, subtle respect by Meryl Streep, whose performance is spectacular. Julie & Julia is based on the book by Julie Powell, a frustrated New York bureaucrat who wants to be a writer. "But you're not a writer until someone publishes you," she moans. So she gives herself a challenge: to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year, and to blog about it.
- Madame Bovary - DVD
Madame Bovary is adapted from the great French novel by Gustave Flaubert, and recounts the story of a young woman who longs for a more passionate life than her provincial world can ever accommodate. Unwilling to accept the confines of her marriage to the steady and conventional Charles (Hugh Bonneville), Emma Bovary (Frances O'Connor) embarks on self-deluding affairs that lead to tragedy. Selfishly amoral as Emma Bovary is, and even though her motivation is sometimes unfathomable in this version, we do feel for her plight and the story develops with cumulative power - though a ridiculous sex scene against a tree doesn't help. This is at least the 10th screen adaptation, the 1949 Hollywood take and the 1991 French version by Claude Chabrol being particularly notable.
- Oz and James' Big Wine Adventure - DVD
Oz Clarke - award-winning writer, critic and committed Francophile - is one of the world’s leading authorities on French wine. James May - overgrown boy racer, Top Gear presenter and journalist - knows nothing about wine and loathes what he calls 'wine ponces'. In Sideways style, they travel through the regions of France for 6 weeks. Oz teaches James about wine with the aim of turning him into a top sommelier, while the pair eat together, get drunk together and sometimes have to sleep together for a few nights under canvas.
- Swimming Pool - DVD
In terms of alluring female nudity, Swimming Pool shows a lot, but it's what remains concealed that gives this erotic thriller a potent, voyeuristic charge. With his Hitchcockian handling of secrets and lies, prolific French director François Ozon reunites with his Under the Sand star Charlotte Rampling to tell a seductive tale of murder and complicity, beginning when British mystery novelist Sarah Morton (Rampling) seeks peace and relaxation at her publisher's French villa, only to find his brash, sexually liberated daughter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) arriving shortly thereafter to disrupt her solitary reverie. What begins as mutual annoyance turns into something more sinister and duplicitous, alternating between Julie's predatory sex with men and Sarah's observant, perhaps jealous fascination.
All the best
