Tanya Lopert Movies

Director Roman Polanski teams with playwright Yasmina Reza to adapt Reza's Tony Award-winning play about four New York parents who gather for a civilized discussion that becomes anything but after their children get into a scuffle at a local park. Alan (Christoph Waltz) and Nancy (Kate Winslet) are the parents of Zachary, a young schoolboy whose recent fight with classmate Ethan resulted in two of Ethan's teeth being broken. Convinced that they can find an amiable solution to the problem rather than dragging lawyers into the picture, Ethan's parents Penelope (Jodie Foster) and Michael (John C. Reilly) invite Alan and Nancy to their home to discuss the matter in a comfortable setting. At first the conversation is cordial, with both sets of parents stating their own perspectives over coffee and dessert. But once the booze starts to flow and the guards come down, things begin to turn combative. As the evening wears on, both sets of parents are slinging venomous insults and engaging in underhanded behavior that makes their kids' tooth-chipping tussle look like child's play. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Noted French filmmaker Josée Dayan directs this portrait of a celebrated love affair between legendary novelist, scriptwriter, essaying, film director and television personality Marguerite Duras and Yann Andrea, a man who is almost half Duras's age. The film opens with Andrea (Aymeric Demarigny), an ardent fan who wrote her numerous letters, showing up at her doorstep of her apartment in Brittany. Though Duras (played by French film icon Jeanne Moreau) at the age of sixty five was not looking for a relationship, Andrea soon pushes his way into her life, typing her manuscripts for her and generally becoming her constant companion. Together, they would spend every moment drinking, smoking, and having passionate conversations about everything under the sun. As portrayed in the film, Duras was both a woman of great charm and generosity, but also a profoundly moody character given to great egotism. In spite of this, Andrea and Duras's relationship lasted for sixteen years until her death in 1996. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Based on the novel by John Fante, this film follows the trials of the Bandini family as they try to struggle through hard times in 1920s Colorado. Out of work and in need of money, Svevo Bandini (Joe Mantegna) tries to scrounge up the money his family needs to make it through the winter, while putting up with his nasty mother-in-law (Renata Vanni), his anxious wife (Ornella Muti), and his two young boys. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

Claire (Marianne Basler) has her vacation go from dream to nightmare in this prison melodrama. Claire is arrested by the puritanical cop Kasta (Vittorio Mezzogiorno) after she is seen by him topless and necking with her boyfriend on a secluded beach. When Claire refuses to sign a confession, Kasta frames her for drug dealing. Clair is sent to an island prison where she contends with the usual women-in-prison problems of leering lesbians, murderers, drug addicts, and sadistic guards. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Based on a novel by Robert Rossner, this routine detective-thriller focuses on the unfortunate Thierry (Alain Souchon), a released convict who returns to dig up the loot he buried near, a tree 15 years earlier. To his dismay the tree is so huge it is impossible to simply take his money and run. As he devises a way to tunnel out his cash, a vengeful police inspector (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is closing in with his own murderous intent. His police buddy was shot to death during Thierry's bank hold-up years before, and in the inspector's mind, justice has not been served. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Director Gérard Lauzier shoots diatribes at "liberals" from his own conservative perspective in this movie about a rebellious teenager leaving his bourgeois parents. Humor lightens the theme more than once, as when the besieged father -- after listening to a garbled harangue on Marx from his inspired son during a drive together, -- immediately seeks out motorists on the street to find out if he oppresses them. The son first rebels by moving upstairs to a maid's room and then moves out to stay with a supposedly "emancipated" family -- only to have everyone in the family try to seduce him -- brother, sister, mother, and father but not necessarily in that order or combination. Disillusioned, the son has to reconfigure his belief system and retrench. The salty French title of this film is typical of Lauzier's comic-strip humor, and his cartoon "Memoirs of a Young Man" provided the basis for P'tit Con. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This sometimes confusing erotic drama about the incestuous relationship of a mother and daughter is based on the autobiography of Italian theater actress Piera Degli Esposti though it focuses more on her mother Eugenia (Hanna Schygulla). The liberated Eugenia and her spaced-out, husband (Marcello Mastroianni) -- a professor -- live in a small provincial Italian town, where Eugenia is noticed as she zooms around on her bicycle and chats up strangers at the train station. While still no more than a grown child, Piera -- in tight dresses -- goes with her mother for a threesome when she engages in sexual relations with other men and subsequently suffers both from poor health and the lack of a normal home. The shadow of the future already clouds the household when Eugenia is committed again and again to the psychiatric clinic. By the time Piera has become an adult, both of her parents are in separate mental hospitals -- and both (even the father) are still sexually eccentric, to say the least. (Hanna Schygulla) won the "Best Actress" award at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival for her portrayal of Eugenia. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This tragic musical drama chronicles the star-crossed love between beloved French singer Edith Piaf and World Middleweight boxing champion Marcel Cerdan who died in a plane crash. The tumultuous affair is paralleled by the love affair of a French POW and his young pen pal who get engaged after writing to each other for four years and having never met. Their romances are framed by the sad, torchy songs of Piaf. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Ben Gazzara delivers a gutsy, four-barreled performance as skid-row poet and storyteller Charles Bukowski (rechristened Charles Serking onscreen) in Tales of Ordinary Madness, blackly comic Italian director Marco Ferreri's adaptation of Bukowski's roman à clef Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness. Half soused, with a 2 a.m. shadow and street urchin rags, Serking waltzes through the scummiest neighborhoods of the City of Angels, soaking up booze, poetry, and copulation, and lounging in flophouses and on grimy public buses. His bedmates are a midget, a string of seedy whores, and various earthy L.A. denizens, played by Susan Tyrell, Ornella Muti, and others; he eventually falls for a prostitute who can express her affection only via self-mutilation. Ferreri lets Bukowski's ribald humor flow throughout and exposes the dark erotic currents at the heart of the author's narratives. Laced with perverse, shocking imagery, this unbridled celebration of life's dark underbelly has been praised by critics such as The New Yorker's Pauline Kael and Playboy's Bruce Williamson for its "genuine audacity and risktaking." ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Vincent (Jacques Dutronc) is a world-weary lawyer who quits his job after he fails to successfully defend a client. He drops out of society and travels to Paris in hopes of establishing a relationship with his estranged daughter Alice (Helene Rolles). Alice is living under the protective domain of Vincent's former in-laws, who make it difficult for him to see his child. Vincent enlists the help of George (Arthur Wilkins) and Martha (Tanya Lopert), two Americans struggling to keep their Parisian restaurant from going under. He manages to gain access to his father-in-law's computer and obtains secret information in hopes of regaining the custody of his daughter. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The first English-language film from Alain Resnais, this drama about a spiteful, alcoholic novelist contains the French director's typically playful surrealist touches and recurring use of characters shackled by memory. John Gielgud stars as Clive Langham, a drunken author in failing health who spends an increasingly intoxicated evening at his Rhode Island estate working on his new novel. Clive bases the characters in the melodramatic story on his own family, including his two sons, Claude (Dirk Bogarde) and the illegitimate Kevin (David Warner), as well as Claude's wife Sonia (Ellen Burstyn). Imagining a bitter love triangle full of spite between the three protagonists of his tale, Clive uses generous doses of imagination and symbolism, including a discordant soccer player (Denis Lawson) related to Kevin and werewolves. When his real-life family appears for a meal with Clive, however, they are not quite the embittered, devious players in the author's booze-fueled fiction. Although dividing critics between those delighted with Resnais' comic flourishes and others annoyed by his arty pretensions, Providence (1977) swept the Cesar Awards, France's Oscar equivalent, winning seven including Best Director for Resnais. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

A tabloid newspaper reporter becomes confused with guilt after one of his stories causes the death of an innocent man, and he must think of a way to make up for his sin in this drama. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi