Saturday, February 28, 2015

What's on tv

This week we see the debut of a new comedy series called Péplum. In French, the word péplum describes any show or film that takes place in ancient Rome or Greece, what we Americans might call a "toga and sandals" show or movie. The word actually comes from the ancient Greek for a woman's tunic.

The series stars a number of the standard French comedy personalities of the day, including Franck Dubosc, François Berléand, Kad Merad, Michèle Laroque, Manu Payet, Bruno Solo, and Yvan Le Bolloc'h.

This week's magazine also includes a memorial to recently deceased star, Roger Hanin.

What not to watch this week. Our tv magazine rates shows and movies using a star system: one star is ok, four stars is best. They use another symbol for really bad movies: the red dot. It means "à zapper" (change the channel!). The editors often include comments about the movie that make me laugh.

Well, it had to happen. I can't find a movie with a red dot this week. Instead, I'll share this one-star Canadian made-for-tv movie, if for no other reason than its alliterative title: Pop Star Puppy.

Pop Star Puppy. Made-for-tv. Canadian. Directed by A. Van Slee. 2013.
With Tyler Cook, Louie Anderson.
Twelve year-old Austin discovers that the dog his father gave him has a gift: it knows how to sing. Austin decides to enter the dog in a television talent show.
A television movie that spares no cliché, stirs up one feel-good emotion after another, and is ultra-predictable. All told, this film is tiresome.
For all audiences.

6 comments:

  1. Walt, this is a fun weekly look at French TV. What shows do you like to watch on a regular basis, other than tennis?

    Thanks to pluzz, which I read about here, I'm able to watch a gardening show with subtitles in French, Silence ça pousse..

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  2. I learned some French vocabuary: brasser, à la pelle, à la longue, lassant.
    The TV overview is always fun; thanks.

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  3. carolyn, I like that gardening show, too, but for some reason I don't watch it often. Otherwise, it's Des racines et des ailes, Thalassa, anything with Julie Andrieu in it (she does cooking/travel shows), Ushuaïa Nature (all re-runs these days), and the news. I also watch a lot of Cuisine TV and many nature and science documentaries.

    evelyn, :)

    chris, it helps me to learn new vocabulary and expressions, too.

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  4. I can recommend Pluzz as well. Silence, ça pousse is excellent, but a litttle difficult to watch on a mobile. Thanks for the tip that there are subtitles! Pauline

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