28/02/2010

A Likely Story (1947)

Barbara Hale plays artist Vickie North


A Likely Story on IMDB

Ex GI Bill Baker mistakenly believes he is about to die. When he meets and falls in love with aspiring artist Vickie North he decides to take out life insurance to help her career. However he later discovers he is in good health and needs to get out of the life massive insurance policy, which was partly funded by gangsters who now have a hit out on him.

27/02/2010

Blood and Chocolate (2007)

Hugh Dancy plays artist Aiden








Blood and Chocolate on IMDB

Vivian is a nineteen-year-old loup-garou girl. She was born in Bucharest, Romania to American parents who then moved back to America. When Vivian was nine years old, her parents and siblings were killed by a hunter and she moved back to Bucharest to live with her aunt Astrid, then the mate of the pack's leader. To Astrid's distress, Gabriel left her after seven years in accordance with pack law to choose a new mate. The culmination of another seven years is a only few months away and Gabriel wants the reluctant Vivian as his mate.

Gabriel and Astrid have a son, Rafe, with whom Vivian has an uneasy relationship. Rafe, considering himself the future pack leader, has hunted and killed a human girl on his own in violation of his father's law which allows the loup-garou to hunt only as a pack. Every full moon the pack hunt a human prey who is either a danger to the pack or has offended one of its members (the first victim witnessed being a drug dealer). After having been cut to leave a blood scent, the human is sent to flee through the woods and if he manages to cross the river, is spared. However, no one has ever managed to reach the river.

One night, Vivian breaks into an abandoned church containing loup-garou iconography. There she meets Aiden, an graphic novel artist who also broke in for inspiration. Aiden is instantly smitten and pursues her for several days before she finally agrees to start seeing him. They meet in secret and fall in love. They are soon discovered by Rafe, and his four friends. Rafe informs Gabriel about the relationship between Vivian and Aiden and is ordered to do whatever is necessary to get Aiden out of the city, either by bribing or by threatening. Following a note from Vivian, Aiden goes to a chapel outside the city, where he is apprehended and threatened by Rafe (who actually sent the note). During the altercation, Rafe is revealed as a loup-garoux and tries to kill Aiden, who manages to kill his attacker with the help of his silver medallion (silver being poisonous when entering a loup-garou's blood stream).

Gabriel and Astrid are devastated at the death of their son. Aiden is caught at the train station and is chosen as prey for the monthly full moon hunt. Running for his life, Aiden spreads his blood around on the trees to confuse his pursuers and stabs two wolves with a silver knife. He finally crosses the river but a furious Gabriel attacks him nonetheless. Vivian, in her wolf-shape, jumps in and pushes Gabriel into the river. Not recognizing her in her wolf-shape, Aiden slashes her arm with the knife. When she changes back into her human shape, he is stricken with guilt and tries to help her. They flee to deserted film company which the loup-garou would not dare enter as it is riddled with silver dust. After a few tender moments, Astrid appears and confronts them with a gun. Vivian pleads for Aiden's life, appealing to Astrid's unhappy love for Gabriel, and Astrid lets them go. The two retrieve an antidote for Vivian from a human pharmacist working for Gabriel. However, the pharmacist alerts the pack to their presence, Vivian is captured while Aiden escapes.

Vivian is caged and confronted by Gabriel, who disparages humans and relates to her a prophecy about a female loup-garou leading her people into an "age of hope"; he had hoped her to fulfill the prophecy but now decides that the two must decide the conflict by hunting each other. Before the hunt can begin, Gabriel is shot by Aiden, who had been watching from a skylight. In the ensuing battle, Aiden blinds some of Gabriel's henchmen with silver dust, traps some and sets the building on fire. Gabriel attacks Aiden but before he can strike a possibly fatal blow, Vivian aims a gun at Gabriel. He taunts her that by shooting him she would become the hunter that once killed her family and shifts into his wolf-shape. Aiden pleads with Vivian to shoot Gabriel but she repeatedly refuses. However, when Gabriel sets out to kill Aiden, she shoots and kills Gabriel. Feeling guilty, she strokes Gabriel's fur. As the building explodes, she frees the trapped loup-garou and runs away together with Aiden. The two escape the city in Gabriel's car (with several people in the street saluting the car by baring their throats as submissive wolves do). The two discuss two destinations, either the "age of hope" or Paris, as they drive through Bucharest's Arcul de Triumf.
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24/02/2010

À la folie... pas du tout / He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (2002)

Audrey Tautou plays artist Angélique





À la folie... pas du tout on IMDB

In the opening scene, Angélique (Audrey Tautou) purchases a single pink rose at a flower shop to be delivered to her lover, Dr. Loïc Le Garrec (Samuel Le Bihan). Both she and the delivery boy leave the shop and depart in opposite directions.

Angélique is a successful art student who has won a scholarship. In between creating her art projects, she has a part-time job at a cafe and house sits for a wealthy vacationing family. Angélique's friend David (Clément Sibony) disapproves of Angélique's affair with Loïc, who is married, but Angélique insists that Loïc will leave his wife for her.

When Loïc's wife, Rachel (Isabelle Carré), has a miscarriage, the pair separate and Angélique prepares to leave with Loïc on a romantic getaway to Florence, Italy. However, Loïc doesn't meet Angélique at the airport, having chosen to mend things with his wife. This is the last straw for Angélique, who is thrown into a self-destructive cycle of clinical depression, ultimately losing her job and scholarship. While watching the news one night, she learns that Loïc has been arrested for assaulting one of his patients, Sonia Jasmin (Nathalie Krebs). She goes to Sonia's house to convince her to drop the charges. The conversation turns into a scuffle and Sonia, who has a heart condition, has a heart attack and dies. Angélique plants evidence to make it look like a robbery.

Thinking that this will win him back, Angélique goes to see Loïc at his office, arriving just in time to see him being arrested for Sonia Jasmin's murder, and embracing his wife as he is dragged away. Angélique returns home, turns on the gas and lies down on the floor.

At this point the film pauses and rewinds to the opening scene when Angélique bought the pink rose. This time the film follows the delivery boy and the subsequent events play out from the viewpoint of Loïc.

Loïc receives the pink rose and assumes that his wife sent it to him. It is revealed that Loïc barely knows Angélique, and they cross paths only incidentally due to the fact that Angélique is house-sitting the home that belongs to Loïc and Rachel's neighbour. However, Loïc receives Angélique's gifts and messages, not knowing who sent them. It is revealed that Rachel's miscarriage was caused by "someone" running her down with a moped; earlier in the film, Angélique is briefly shown having borrowed and ruining her friend's moped.

Loïc comes to believe that his stalker is Sonia Jasmin, one of his patients. He physically attacks Sonia, demanding she reveal that she is his stalker. Sonia presses charges for assault, and after she is murdered, Loïc is arrested as the prime suspect. At his arrest, Rachel tells the police that he was with her on the night of the murder, which clears him of all charges.

That night, Loïc hears police sirens and sees an ambulance pull up to his neighbour's house where Angélique has just tried to commit suicide. As a doctor, Loïc performs mouth to mouth resuscitation which causes Angélique to regain consciousness. Now aware of Angélique, he considers the possibility that she is his stalker. Loïc explores the house that Angélique was house-sitting, and there he finds a life-sized garbage mosaic of himself.

After being released from the hospital, Angélique visits Loïc at his clinic. Loïc tells her that they never had nor will ever have any connection. As he turns his back on her, Angélique strikes him over the head with a brass figurine. She is then arrested, diagnosed with erotomania and remanded to a mental institution. Rachel stands by her husband as he recovers from his injuries, with a scene showing the couple in a house filled with their children as Loïc hobbles around on a cane.

The epilogue of the film is set five years later, when Angélique is released from the mental institution. Her therapist praises her progress and tells her, "If you keep taking your medication, you will be fine." However, when the cleaning man is clearing Angélique's room, he discovers her pills have been glued to the wall behind the wardrobe in a mosaic of Loïc.
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17/02/2010

Public Wedding (1937)

William Hopper plays artist Anthony 'Tony' Burke


Public Wedding on IMDB

Down on their luck carnival troupe decide to stage a fake wedding to drum up some publicity. But when the groom runs away with the money an arranges for artist Anthony Burke to take his place the bride decides to become the artist's manager.

15/02/2010

Passion in the Desert (1997)

Michel Piccoli plays artist Jean-Michel Venture de Paradis



Passion in the Desert on IMDB

'In 1798, Napoleon I has launched an invasion of Egypt. A frail and elderly artist, Jean-Michel Venture de Paradis (Michel Piccoli), has been commissioned by Napoleon to sketch the landscape and monuments of Egypt. French soldier Augustin Robert (Ben Daniels) has been assigned to keep Venture from being harassed by the other soldiers. The unrelenting burden of this task soon takes its toll on Augustin. Mameluks attack the regiment's small encampment. In the aftermath, Augustin and Venture are now separated from their regiment. Walking in the arid landscape, under the blaze of the desert sun, they begin to suffer an unquenchable thirst.'
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10/02/2010

Prime (2005)

Bryan Greenberg plays artist David Bloomberg





Prime on IMDB

The film is a character comedy set in New York City. Rafi (Uma Thurman) is a recently divorced, 37-year-old career woman from Manhattan. David (Bryan Greenberg), a talented 23-year-old Jewish painter from the Upper West Side, falls in love with her. Rafi shares all her secrets with her therapist Lisa (Meryl Streep). Unbeknownst to Rafi, Lisa happens to be David's mother.

Following the relationship of this unlikely couple, the story touches upon the difficulties of marriage and partnerships. It explores the possibility that love is not enough to make a relationship work and becomes a philosophical display of emotion and comedy.

The mother, naturally, realizes the ethical and moral dilemma this poses her, she consults her own therapist. It is decided that she should continue the treatment and do what is best for her patient, as long as it is only a fling, which all signs do indicate of it being.

However, after several graphic therapy sessions, the relationship appears to be serious, and so Lisa has to tell Rafi that she is the mother of her new boyfriend. Rafi and David, however, break up at one point when the couple argue after Rafi finds David had brought a friend over and in a panic at Rafi's earlier than expected arrival, had immaturely hidden him in the closet. A couple weeks later, David is enjoying a night on the town with his best friend; he gets drunk, and ends up sleeping with Sue, Rafi's friend from work.

David and Rafi start seeing each other again the same day, after coincidentally bumping into each other in the supermarket, and going back to David's place. They also try to make the relationship stronger by both going to the Friday night dinner at Lisa's apartment. The rift between Rafi and David's mother is patched up, although Rafi brings up the possibility of kids, which Lisa strongly reacts to. A few days later, Sue discusses the situation with David with a friend of hers at work, and realizes that David and Rafi got back together. Her friend just says 'Don't say a word' as Rafi comes in and overhears it. David and Rafi have a large fallout. After sulking for some time, David goes to seek Lisa's help as both his mother and as a therapist. She advises him to do what he can to keep the relationship, because it was through Rafi that Lisa was able to understand David's career as an artist. David goes back to Rafi to apologize and offer to give her a child because that is what she wants the most. Rafi realizes how deep David's love must be in order to make such a sacrifice on his part. Ultimately, they both realize that love is not enough to keep a relationship and they break up.

A year later, David with his friend walking out of a restaurant. A while later, he realizes he forgets his hat and goes back to the restaurant, where we recognize it as the first restaurant they had a proper date. He spots her but she doesn't see him so he rushes out the door, and hides. He defrosts the glass a bit to watch her and she turns around and just sees him. They share a smile before parting ways.
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03/02/2010

The Girl (2000)

Agathe de La Boulaye plays The Artist / Narrator








The Girl on IMDB

The film is narrated by Agathe De La Boulaye as "The Artist". She is obsessed with a nightclub singer (Claire Keim) whom she calls "The Girl". One night the girl takes the artist to the hotel where she lives and they make love. The girl, who does not usually sleep with women, tells the artist that it is "just one night" but they begin seeing each other. The girl continues to see men and the artist has a long term lover, Bu Savè (Sandra Nkake), who accepts the artist's obsession.

The artist draws and paints the girl, but gradually grows frustrated with her work. She notices a man (Cyril Lecomte) watching her and the girl. The man behaves aggressively and possessively towards the girl. He starts following the artist and sends threatening letters to the girl telling her to get rid of the artist. The girl refuses. The man follows the artist and tries to attack her. The artist asks advice from Bu Savè, who gives her a gun.

When the artist cannot find the girl, she discovers that she has gone away with the man, who turns out to be the owner of the nightclub where the girl sings. When the man and the girl return, the artist gives the girl the gun.

The artist gets beaten up by the man and his friend. Later when she goes to meet the girl at the hotel, she finds the man there, naked and asleep. She leaves. The next day she returns and tells the girl that she is leaving her. The artist puts all her energy into her painting. One day she goes back to the hotel. As she climbs the stairs, she hears gunshots. She finds the man dead and the girl with a gun shot wound to her side.
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01/02/2010