Claudio Abbado once remarked that, “With Beethoven, you never stop learning“ and indeed: the 75-year-old Milanese maestro has constantly reworked the symphonies of the master from Bonn (1770-1827). When they performed and recorded all nine Beethoven Symphonies at the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the nationwide Italian newspaper La Repubblica simply called it: “The most wonderful symphonic cycle of the past decade.” Each of the symphonies is of course a masterpiece in itself – each represents the composer’s musical idiom at a particular stage in his development. Be it the famous Pastorale, his 6th symphony, the popular 9th, with its characteristic motifs, the less commonly performed 4th or the 7th, which marked his leaning toward romantic undertones – Abbado’s interpretations are the fruit of decades of involvement with Beethoven.
Manny the mammoth, Sid the loquacious sloth, and Diego the sabre-toothed tiger go on a comical quest to return a human baby back to his father, across a world on the brink of an ice age.
A player in a famous orchestra finds sexual experiences with a Russian opera singer, which he enjoys much because his wife has just left due to the fact that he has purchased a porno movie.
A man signs up as a driver for a group of criminals on a dangerous job. On the way to the hit the man hears the lottery numbers and realises he's got the winning ticket on him.
Tony desperately needs some cold hard cash to help finance his next big business venture. He left Brooklyn years ago to get away from his old man and now is shacked up with his main squeeze, Aphrodite, in a Venice flophouse.
Resurrectus Est is a hand painted film which suggests, from the first, a spread of fragments of plants and flowers, individual petals and bits of twig with multiple colors, with much green "leafiness".
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.
During China's Warring States period, a district prefect arrives at the palace of Qin Shi Huang, claiming to have killed the three assassins who had made an attempt on the king's life three years ago.
