Our House (2003)

The American title of this film was "Duplex" which doesn't mean much in the UK but which is better since it means an apartment/flat on two floors which is what the yuppie couple here played by Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore purchase -- except this comes with an old lady sitting tenant on the top floor who turns out to be the neighbour from Hell.  Stiller who is an OK comedian has been rather too much in evidence of late and small doses would suffice; Barrymore is a pleasant enough actress but without the talent of her family two generations back.  Anyhow this movie is definitely a comedy of embarrassment and the stars have no one but themselves to blame since they were both executive producers to director Danny De Vito.  All manner of physical and mental tortures are heaped upon them as they try to get rid of their tenant in more and more convoluted ways.  I'm not spoiling your viewing pleasure (dubious term in this context) by telling you that they have to give up in the end -- although there is one further twist which the wideawake viewer will see coming.

On a considerably more cultural and life-affirming level, I went to the Tate Modern yesterday to see the Henri Rousseau exhibition before it closes on Sunday.  My first love remains early Flemish painting, but I do like Rousseau for the naive primitive quality of his jungle scenes.  So why am I telling you this other than to let you know that I have more than one string to my bow?  Well, one of the exhibition rooms was an archive of prints, publications, etc. showing the Paris of Rousseau's day and on one wall they had two screens running in loops.  The first of these were documentary portraits of the time showing 'feeding time at the zoo' for example; but the second was showing three Pathe shorts which were hilarious of so-called big game hunters being chased by leopards and the like.  You see my film interest receives satisfaction in the most surprising places.