Ridley Scott’s Napoleon movie inspires some musings on Napoleon’s final, final resting place in a tomb in a museum in Paris.
Category: Films
Films Set in Venice: Don’t Look Now
Since the only sort of travel any of us are actually engaging in during the COVID-19 era is some very hearty channel surfing, this seems like a good a moment as any to indulge in movies about travel and, more specifically, films set in Venice, Italy. And so I watch a bit of an oldie,…
Watch The Trip to Greece Film
Limited to armchair traveling, the Bashful Adventurer fires up the latest Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon collaboration. But will watching The Trip to Greece do more than bring on a bout of nostalgia?
Cong Beyond The Quiet Man
If you are not into the film, should you bother visiting Cong? As robust as one’s Netflix account might be, some of us just are not big fans of The Quiet Man, the John Ford-John Wayne-Maureen O’Hara film about a boxer who returns to his family’s native Ireland and, of course, falls in love. Filmed…
Free Radical: The Lesson of Louise Bryant
A Russian Revolution Chronicler’s Extraordinary Life I am late to the life of Louise Bryant. I become interested in her long after watching Reds, and reading her husband’s book, Ten Days That Shook the World, and going to Russia, where she reported on its revolution, and going to Paris, where she died at the relatively…
Austrian Anomalies
Looking for Understanding in France and New York I don’t know much about Austria beyond the Sound of Music. Little makes sense to me about Austria despite my efforts to understand. How could the homeland of Marie-Antoinette, who herself struggled under the rigidity of French culture, devolve to such a hierarchical and peevish monarchy less…
American Red
A Romance with Revolution Rewatching the 1981 Warren Beatty film Reds, about journalist and eventual collaborator John Reed’s coverage of and interest in the Russian revolution, I remember that Reed is buried at the Kremlin, a point that I neglect to pursue when I am actually at the Kremlin. Lenin’s Tomb is closed when I…
Depressed in Paris?
There are some places on the planet where gloom just doesn’t settle: Key West, Fla.; New Orleans; Paris. Does anyone visiting these destinations ever have a bad time? How could they? So it is surprising to watch a film about an American living in Paris who just can’t get out of his slump, despite a…
French Film: Crazy on a Bad Day
Given that adventuring is all about random encounters, romance, and a little bit of train travel, the film Just a Sigh (2013) provides just the right amount of escapism for anyone contemplating Paris or pursuit of a whim. Emmanuelle Devos, playing a broke actress seeking work in Paris, is having a bit of a bad…
From the Top of Notre Dame: Could This Be a Flying Monkey?
Remembering a trip to Paris, the Bashful Adventurer recalls her time on the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral.