Ann-Gisele Glass Movies

In this controversial French drama, Loic (Jeannick Gravelines) is a photographer who is trying to leave his working-class background behind and make a name for himself as an artist. Loic's best friend Tony (Emmanuel Nicolas) has become involved with both hard drugs and Loic's former girlfriend Virginie (Karole Rocher), while man-about-town Vincent (Nils Tavernier), who has plenty of connections in the art community, has developed a keen interest in Loic's sister Sophie (Emma de Caunes). However, Loic and Sophie are very close -- perhaps closer than a brother and sister should be -- and Loic is not comfortable with Vincent's obviously sexual interest in her. Emma de Caunes' performance in Un Frere earned her a Cesar Award (the French Oscar) as Most Promising Actress of 1997. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This buddy-movie chronicles the exploits of two aspiring artists and their girlfriends as they try to achieve their dreams. The film is set in Antwerp during 1959. Jack is a sax player and his girl, Anita, a singer. As the story begins, they are seen practicing a bee-bop song in a small hall. Jack dreams about playing like Charlie "Bird" Parker in New York City. Instead, he works at the docks during the day and plays Belgium tea parties in the late afternoon. Jack's friend is Andre an avant-garde sculptor. Andre is only a little crazy. He gets involved with Lucy, who is also a little crazy. She causes Jack and Andre's friendship to disintegrate after she spends an innocent night in Jack's bed. Eventually Jack gets his chance to go to New York. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Ernesto and Valentina are sure of their relationship. It is late in the 19th century in Europe, and this sophisticated married couple consider that a little openly conducted outside dalliance only adds spice to their partnership. When the architect (Ben Kingsley) and his wife (Marie-Christine Barrault) spy an attractive and very much in love set of newlyweds at the resort hotel they are staying at, they set their sights on seducing both of them. However, though their effort to bring about the corruption of the newlyweds' innocence succeeds, it brings them far less satisfaction than they imagined it would. Though this is an Italian and French co-production, it was filmed separately in English and French. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Writer-director Jean-Charles Tacchella, who had a huge international hit with Cousin, Cousine in 1975, helmed this drama 12 years later. In post-WWII France, three friends are intent on starting a film club for different reasons. Nino (Thierry Fremont), a rich playboy, thinks that it would be amusing to become a director. He hooks up with Donald (Simon de la Brosse), a young man from the countryside who is a serious student of film and hopes to become more urbane by getting involved in cinema. They join forces with Barbara (Ann-Gisele Glass), a young woman who knows how to get into a film warehouse. Their plan is to steal old prints from the warehouse and start their own enterprise. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

After serving his apprenticeship as a screenwriter for director André Techiné, former movie critic Olivier Assayas wrote and directed this film. In the story, a penniless girl and two similarly impoverished boys with ambitions of becoming a successful rock group are sorely in need of some instruments to play on. They decide to break into a music store and manage to get their hands on the instruments they need -- killing the proprietor in the process. Though the police never catch up with them, something else waylays these "tough" kids -- their consciences. Despondent over the killing, one of the young men commits suicide. The others are then confronted with their own feelings about their crimes and each other and cannot easily give themselves over to their quest to become musicians. One of the film's musical highlights is a performance of the Woodentops. This teen drama won the critic's prize at the 1987 Venice Film Festival. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Renowned director Constantin Costa-Gavras (whose 1969's feature Z won multiple international awards and was a box office success) tries his hand at an unusual mix of comedy and crime in this story. When a father (Johnny Hallyday) gets out of prison, he comes home to his wife (Fanny Ardant) and two teen-age kids to pick up where he left off. That is to say, he intends to raise his kids right and continue burglarizing his way into the easy life. He joins up again with his old partner Faucon (Guy Marchand), but early on Papa's wily son cons him into making him a partner too. The years go by, and just when the family seems poised for the big time, an obstacle pops up from a totally unexpected sector. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this argumentative, fractious drama about a warped sense of male-female love, Bruno (Jacques Bonnafe) who is clearly not playing with a full deck, devises a means to test the love of his girlfriend Isabelle (Ann Gisel Glass). Since Isabelle had been in love with Alain (Xavier Deluc) in the past, Bruno invites Alain to a surprise birthday party for her at a hotel -- what better way to judge her feelings than to get them together? Alain arrives with his current girlfriend Lio (Fanny Bastien) to find that the "party" is only a foursome. Soon after the two couples start the evening off, their polite exteriors deteriorate as they bicker on, and on, and on. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

After several years of making films to please only himself, French director Jean-Luc Godard once more invites the audience to the party with The Detective. Not that there's anything so blase as a linear plot or appealing characters, but at least some of Godard's isolated vignettes are accessible this time around. Set in the Hotel Concorde at St. Lazare, the film is set in motion when miserably married Nathalie Baye and Claude Brasseur attempt to collect a debt from mob-plagued boxing manager Johnny Hallyday. Meanwhile, hotel detective Jean-Pierre Leaud tries to solve an old murder case. These two gossamer plot strands are used to tie together Godard's scattershot views on modern life, with emphasis on the voyeuristic potential of the recent video-camera boom. The director dashed off The Detective to raise money for a film he truly cared about, the controversial Hail Mary. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A hybrid of the post-nuke action and gross-out gore film, this passably entertaining venture from splatter-maven Bruno Mattei (directing here as "Vincent Dawn"), aided by Claudio Fragasso (as "Clyde Anderson"), features killer rats attacking bikers in an apocalyptic wasteland. A nuclear bomb made the surface world unlivable, so most of humankind lived underground for many years. This drove rats to the surface, where they became super-intelligent flesh-hungry mutants. After about a hundred years, a group calling themselves the "new primitives" returned to the surface to try and revitalize society. The action picks up in 225 A.B. (that's After the Bomb), when a motley group of cycle-riding toughs led by flamethrower-toting stud Kurt (Richard Raymond) and his girlfriend, Diana (Cindy Leadbetter), bed down at an abandoned research lab for the night. They see lab equipment and a bunch of mangled corpses being gnawed on by vermin, but don't know what to make of it. Says one: "Computers and corpses make a bad mixture." After the usual nighttime sexual hijinks, the rats come out to play. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide