The battle of the sexes heats up in The Ugly Truth. Abby Richter (Heigl) is a romantically challenged morning show producer whose search for Mr. Perfect has left her hopelessly single. She's in for a rude awakening when her bosses team her with Mike Chadway (Butler), a hardcore TV personality who promises to spill the ugly truth on what makes men and women tick. Mike is so confident that he knows exactly how men think that he makes a deal with Abby that he can help her get Mr. Perfect ((ndash)) she just has to follow his instructions, no matter how much she disagrees with them. Is he too successful for his own good?

Please don't hold P.S I Love You and 27 Dresses (which I happened to like) against Butler and Heigl respectively. I know at least one person (you know who you are) who uses them as the benchmarks of bad chick flicks. Let's give them a fresh start. Gerard Butler is sexy, even when he's being crass and vulgar (even without the Scottish accent), while Heigl is beautiful and sexy, all the time. So there's enough here for everyone to enjoy. I want to see plenty of men in this audience so we have a balanced crowd. Who knows, we might all learn a thing or two about living with the opposite sex.

It is New Years' Eve and as 1936 approaches the outskirts of Paris, the movie begins ((ndash)) there is singing, dancing, gangsters, politics, sex and death in the working-class Chansonia theatre ....and outside the theatre, a young boy innocently playing the accordion. A most engaging mix.

The movie centres on the efforts of the Chansonia's stage-manager Pigoil (Jugnot), who has lost his dancer wife (Élisabeth Vitali) to another man and his accordion playing son Jojo (Maxence Perrin) to the state. Determined to rise above his adversity, Pigoil persuades Jacky (Merad), a gawky song-and-dance man and Emile (Cornillac), an idealistic young political firebrand and street singer, to reopen the theatre in volatile partnership with Galapiat (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) the local gangster kingpin. In typical French tradition, the opening forays into the revitalized world of vaudeville theatre are excruciatingly embarrassing. Then, the bright shining light of Douce (Arnezeder), a gorgeous young chantoosie saves the day in more ways than one gorgeous young chantoosie should ever be expected to...and she does so while being the desire of affection of both Emile and Galapiat.

Paris 36 opened this year's French Film Festival in Australia. While it is not the absolute joy of La Vie En Rose (which opened the 2007 French Film Festival) nor is it quite in the Moulin Rouge league, it is a sentimentally, nostalgic film which should delight one and all.