Pierre Grise Movies

Three modern Parisian women form the basis of this epic musical comedy from famed director Jacques Rivette. The story is set in summer and follows the predestined path of each woman. Louise has just awoken from a five year coma and has been released from the hospital. She moves to a hotel where she learns from talking to her father on the phone that her late aunt has bequeathed her a large chateau in Paris. Ninon works as a courier. She has recently run away from her creepy boyfriend, a criminal, and though she is trying to go straight, she can't help but rob the company cashbox and use the money to go out dancing. The third woman, Ida, is a librarian in a decorative-arts reading room. As a child, she was adopted and now wants to find her real parents. Her only clue to finding her mother is an old song that she vaguely remembers. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this fascinating and unconventional examination of the creative process, an artist near the end of his career finds new inspiration in a young model. Edouard Frenhofer (Michel Piccoli) is a famous and well-respected artist who lives in a comfortable estate in the French countryside. At the age of 60, Frenhofer considers his career as a painter to be over; he says he no longer feels any inspiration to create, and his last attempt at a major work, a nude study of his wife Liz (Jane Birkin) called "La Belle Noiseuse" (The Beautiful Nuisance), has sat unfinished for ten years. Just as Frenhofer has lost his enthusiasm for his art, he has also lost his passion for Liz; their relationship is polite and friendly, but without enthusiasm. When Frenhofer tells Nicolas (David Bursztein), his young protégé, that he no longer feels the desire to paint, Nicolas suggests that he needs a more inspiring subject, and he offers his girlfriend Marianne (Emmanuelle Béart) as a model. Frenhofer is taken with Marianne's beauty, and, with Liz's cool approval, he and Marianne spend several arduous sessions together, exchanging ideas and opinions as Frenhofer methodically attempts to create a final masterpiece. While La Belle Noiseuse runs 240 minutes, director Jacques Rivette also prepared an alternate version, La Belle Noiseuse -- Divertimento, which runs 120 minutes, features a different framing sequence, and incorporates takes unused in the original cut. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This nutty low-budget thriller initially resembles a kind of suburban Repulsion, with harried, neurotic housewife Alice Lynn Adams returning from a brief stint in a psychiatric hospital after chopping her smug husband's Bill Blass suits into itty bitty pieces. Upon her release, her husband sets her up in their nearly-completed new home, where she is visited by mysterious nocturnal handyman Ed (Wings Hauser, perennial "B"-movie psycho-man) who completes the work botched by the lazy, inept contractors and lashes out against anyone who wrongs her. Just when it's becoming apparent that the carpenter is a figment of her imagination, he is revealed to be the ghost of the house's previous owner, who was sent to the chair for murdering agents of the bank who foreclosed on him. From this point forward, the film shifts into slasher-horror mode, with Ed having at Alice's tormentors with his power tools. This amusing blend of horror themes comes across a bit muddled at times but still delivers the gory goods. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

This amateur horror film finds Tony Washington (Jon-Mikl Thor) returning from the dead with the help of a voodoo priestess (Manuska Rogaud) after he is killed by joy-riding teenagers. He seeks revenge against the terrible teens as well as the local police captain (Adam West). This is the film debut of Tia Carrera. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi