Flick Pick

The White House and the Pentagon don't find the French very funny these days, but you might. The Denver Film Society's five-week Comédies à la Française series begins Wednesday, February 9, with Cedric Klapisch's rollicking sex farce L'Auberge Espagnole (2003), in which seven coeds living in a Barcelona apartment confound a straitlaced French boy played by Romain Duris.

The series continues on Wednesday, February 16, with a compilation of twenty animated shorts made in France between 1990 and 2001, and on February 23, there's another chance to catch Sylvain Chomet's Les Triplettes de Belleville, an Academy Award nominee last year for Best Animated Feature. On March 2, it's Hop, writer/director Dominique Standaert's touching comedy about childhood and immigrant life, centered on an African family that has come to France illegally. The series concludes March 9 with 2001's Ma Femme est une Actrice, the underrated Yvan Attal comedy about the trials of a beleaguered husband grappling with the much-admired beauty and fame of his movie-star wife. Attal portrays the husband, lovely Charlotte Gainsbourg the wife. The bonus is that they're husband and wife off-screen, as well.

Admission to the French comedy series is free for those with a valid student ID; non-student prices range from $5.50 to $8.50. Screenings are at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. in the Starz FilmCenter, in the Tivoli building on the Auraria campus. For information, call 303-820-3456.