It has been said that most great twentieth century novels include scenes in a hotel, a symptom of the vast uprooting that has occurred in the last century: James Ivory begins Quartet with a montage of the hotels of Montparnasse, a quiet prelude before our introduction to the violently lost souls who inhabit them.
Adapted from the 1928 autobiographical novel by Jean Rhys, Quartet is the story of a love quadrangle between a complicated young West Indian woman named Marya (played by Isabelle Adjani), her husband Stefan (Anthony Higgins), a manipulative English art patron named Heidler (Alan Bates), and his painter wife Lois (Maggie Smith). The film is set in the Golden Age of Paris, Hemingway's "moveable feast" of cafe culture and extravagant nightlife, glitter and literati: yet underneath is the outline of something sinister beneath the polished brasses and brasseries.
When Marya's husband is put in a Paris prison on charges of selling stolen art works, she is left indigent and is taken in by Heidler and his wife: the predatory Englishman (whose character Rhys bases on the novelist Ford Madox Ford) is quick to take advantage of the new living arrangement, and Marya finds herself in a stranglehold between husband and wife. Lovers alternately gravitate toward and are repelled by each other, now professing their love, now confessing their brutal indifference -- all the while keeping up appearances. The film explores the vast territory between the "nice" and the "good," between outward refinement and inner darkness: after one violent episode, Lois asks Marya not to speak of it to the Paris crowd. "Is that all you're worried about?" demands an outraged Marya. "Yes," Lois replies with icy candor, "as a matter of fact."
Adjani won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her performances in Quartet: her Marya is a volatile compound of French schoolgirl and scorned mistress, veering between tremulous joy and hysterical outburst. Smith shines in one of her most memorable roles: she imbues Lois with a Katherine-of-Aragon impotent rage, as humiliated as she is powerless in the face of her husband's choices. Her interactions with Bates are scenes from a marriage that has moved from disillusionment to pale acceptance.
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory's screenplay uses Rhys's novel as a foundation from which it constructs a world that is both true to the novel and distinctive in its own right, painting a society that has lost its inhibitions and inadvertently lost its soul. We are taken to mirrored cafes, then move through the looking glass: Marya, in one scene, is offered a job as a model and then finds herself in a sadomasochistic pornographer's studio. The film, as photographed by Pierre Lhomme, creates thoroughly cinematic moments that Rhy's novel could not have attempted: in one of the Ivory's most memorable scenes, a black American chanteuse (extraordinarily played by Armelia McQueen) entertains Parisian patrons with a big and brassy jazz song, neither subtle nor elegant. Ivory keeps the camera on the singer's act: there is something in her unguarded smile that makes the danger beneath Montparnasse manners seem more acute.
Centuries before the world's oceans became a global trade highway, Chinese seafarers set sail to faraway lands to exchange commodities. Now, Historian Sam Willis retraces the golden era of maritime trade to uncover a legacy that culminated in one of the greatest armadas of all time, and discover parallels between the world then and now.
国际大都会纽约，迎来了繁忙的周一早晨。可就在这匆匆奔忙的时刻，曾经隶属苏联的太空垃圾坠落市中心，引起地铁事故。纽约铁路局相关人员进入现场调查，结果意外身亡。铁路局负责人杰森（帕特里克·马尔顿 Patrick Muldoon 饰）从验尸官那里得知，死者体内竟然藏着某种生物的卵。地铁系统持续瘫痪，种种异状又接连出现，杰森和同伴实地调查，目击了体型庞大、攻击性极强的成群蜘蛛横行的恐怖场面。它们来自外太空，隔绝异常的生活环境让这群生物拥有人类难以想象的威力。未过多久，军方在事发地设置隔离区，并倾尽全力寻找皇后之卵。
纽约人的生活彻底被打乱了，而死亡的阴影正悄悄蔓延到城市的每一个角落……
Madagascar, au tournant des années 1960 et des années 1970. Sur une base aérienne de l’armée fran?aise, les militaires vivent les dernières années insouciantes di colonialisme. Influencé par ses lectures de Fant?mette, Thomas, un enfant qui n’a pas encore 10 ans, se forge progressivement un regard sur le monde qui l’entoure…
情人节，洛杉矶，花店老板瑞德（艾什顿•库彻 Ashton Kutcher 饰）向女友莫莉（杰西卡•阿尔芭 Jessica Alba 饰）求婚，对方欣然应允，他欣喜若狂地跟好友朱丽叶（珍妮弗•加纳 Jennifer Garner 饰）分享。而后者的医生情人却不能共度佳节， 所以她只能去陪闺蜜。小白领利兹（安妮•海瑟薇 Anne Hathaway 饰）跟男友乔什欢度春宵后，马上去做带班秘书。体育记者凯文（杰米•福克斯 Jamie Foxx 饰）临时被拉去做情人节的报道，他采访了瑞德，这使得后者店里的生意超好，宾客盈门，甚至还包括12岁的小男孩。后者的保姆正欲同男友初尝禁果，而爷爷、奶奶却在回首往事。他的母亲、美军上尉凯特（朱莉娅•罗伯茨 Julia Roberts 饰）却在飞机上与陌生人霍顿聊得火热。正在众人想方设法示爱的同时，橄榄球名将西恩（埃里克迪恩 饰）想要在此时宣布一个惊人的消息，所以他联系了高薪公关秘书卡拉（杰西卡•贝尔 Jessica Biel 饰）……
A once promising baseball star is constantly hunted by two hitmen when a young boy asks him to sell his baseball jacket. A high school student acquires a sleep control device to help him with his exams, and ends up getting more acquainted with the seller in the process. A prison guard buys a guitar and plays one last song with a rock band after he finds out that his number has ...
A lover's doubt in the cold light of morning leads a chain of uneasy intimacies--counselors, disruptors, peacemakers and fire-starters--every one looking to have a little faith rewarded.
There There is director Andrew Bujalski’s latest collection of vignettes. The film tells a total of six separate stories, but some of the characters appear in multiple shorts. Each miniature sc...
