Achilles and the Tortoise (2008)

Director
Takeshi Kitano

Main cast
Takeshi Kitano; Kanako Higuchi; Kumiko Asou; Aya Enjoji; Masatō Ibu

Genres
Comedy, Drama

Description
Machisu is a painter. He never had the success he thinks he is entitled to. Regardless of this, he always remains trying to be successful. His wife Sachiko keeps supporting him, despite all setbacks. Machisu, the only son of a rich collector, has a childs love for painting. Praise from a famous artist friend of his father inspires the young boy to dream of becoming a painter himself. s a young man, poor loner Machisu manages to attend art school with money earned from working. He is introduced to an unconventional world of bold creativity but he also gets his first bitter taste of harsh criticism from a dealer. Encouragement comes in the form of attractive clerk Sachiko who is convinced that she alone understands him. Marriage is soon followed by a daughter, as love and hope drive Machisu to commit even more deeply to his art ...


Similar movies

Three stories happening in New York. The first, by Scorsese, is about a painter who creates his works helped by high volume music and an attractive assistant; second, by Coppola, is about a rich and bold 12 years old who helps her separated parents to reconciliate; third, by Allen, is a witty piece of comedy about the impossibility of getting rid of the son's role.
Boeun (Moon Geun Young) is an ordinary high school girl who worries about grades and has a crush on her school's baseball team ace, Jungwoo. One day, Boeun's grandfather orders her to marry Sangmin (Kim Rae Won) because of a pact he made with Sangmin's grandfather during the Korean War. Despite the grandchildren's opposition, they are forced to marry because of Boeun's grandfather's strong influence. She pretends that she doesn't have a husband and starts dating Jungwoo. Everything goes smoothly until Sangmin visits Boeun's school as a student teacher. There a teacher called Miss.Kim flirts with Sangmin and she later finds out that Sangmin and Boeun are married.
Bhaskaran is a happy-go-lucky guy, who is yet to complete his B.A. degree, writing arrear examinations annually for years. His only friend is Nallathambi who owns a barber saloon, which he received as a dowry for marrying a two-month pregnant woman. He lives with his mother, Sivakami, brother Saravanan who is a successful veterinarian and sister, Nithya. When his brother marries Nandhini, he gets to meet Nandhini's younger sister Chandrika and wishes to marry her. When he approaches his family for a chance, everyone talks very frankly of his unemployed status which rankles him and he leaves his house to prove himself. With the support of Nallathambi, he establishes a tutorial for Class 10 students and despite early setbacks makes it work, while also convincing Chandrika, who eventually reciprocates his love. However despite all this, Chandrika's father is against her marriage with Bhaskaran for a reason which is revealed in the end.
Beat Takeshi lives the busy and sometimes surreal life of a showbiz celebrity. One day he meets his blond lookalike named Kitano, a shy convenience store cashier, who, still an unknown actor, is waiting for his big break. After their paths cross, Kitano seems to begin hallucinating about becoming Beat.
An English family relocates to sunny Greece in the months before WWII.
Out 1: Spectre begins as nothing more than scenes from Parisian life; only as time goes by do we realize that there is a plot—perhaps playful, perhaps sinister—that implicates not just the thirteen characters, but maybe everyone, everywhere. Real life may be nothing but an enormous yarn someone somewhere is spinning...
Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam (Oscar Levant) is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel (Georges Guétary). A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts (Nina Foch) takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.
Starting from childhood attempts at illustration, the protagonist pursues his true obsession to art school. But as he learns how the art world really works, he finds that he must adapt his vision to the reality that confronts him.
Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with no publisher, and Schaunard, a post-modernist composer of execrable noise.
Falsely accused for cheating in a martial arts competition, two boyhood friends are banished from their Shaolin Temple and go their separate ways. As adults, they join opposing sides in a civil war. When one betrays the other, they settle their differences mano-a-mano.
A young man searches for the "master" to obtain the final level of martial arts mastery known as the glow. Along the way he must fight an evil martial arts expert and rescue a beautiful singer from an obsessed music promoter.
A comedy of manners, its cast of characters devouring each other in a small world awash with big money. Set against the backdrop of contemporary London and the international art scene, it casts an eye over the appetites and morality of some of its major players. Dealers, collectors, artists, wannabees vie with each other in a world in which success and downfall rest on a thin edge.
The illiterate General of Canton, General So, advocates a lazy, happy lifestyle of sex and money. His spoiled and also illiterate son, Chan (Stephen Chow), is his most faithful disciple. For the love of a woman, Chan attends the national exams for Martial Arts Scholar in Peking. Chan is victorious on the physical test, but before he is to be crowned, he is found to have cheated on the written exam. The Emperor sentences Chan to be a beggar. Initially Chan is unable cope with his new role, but with some mystic help, he takes on the position as King of the Beggars Association. Leading this motley crew into battle against an evil warlord in the Emperor's entourage, Chan rescues the Emperor, and gains respect for the beggars.
An elderly artist thinks he has become too stale and is past his prime. His friend (and agent) persuades him to go to an offshore island to try once more. On the island he re-discovers his muse in the form of a young girl.
A career driven professional from Manhattan is wooed by a young painter, who also happens to be the son of her psychoanalyst.
An uptight documentary filmmaker and his wife find their lives loosened up a bit after befriending a free-spirited younger couple.
Follows seemingly unrelated people as their lives begin to intertwine while they fall in, and out, of love. Affections languish and develop as Christmas draws near.
A love story between a middle aged professor, a young female student who prepares a movie and a student/filmmaker who drinks too much.
In the crowded by lanes of old Delhi, Shuklaji runs a small photo studio as a front for small time crime. Over the years he has groomed a bunch of youngsters in the art of pick pocketing and petty crime. Then one day a girl comes into their midst and then everything collapses.
A connected series of love notes scribbled in library art books convinces gawky grocery store clerk Hyun-chae (Bae Doo-na) that a mystery man - known only as 'Vincent' - is pursuing a relationship with her. Meanwhile, an infatuated pal from her high-school days - shy, quirky subway driver Dong-ha (Kim Nam-jin) - relocated to Seoul to ACTUALLY pursue a relationship with her, which she rejects in favor of the ersatz paper chase provided by her mystery man, going so far as to pawn Dong-ha off on her friend at one point.
A romantic comedy about a mysterious love letter that turns a sleepy new england town upside down.
Former teen idol Nam Hyeon-soo is now in his thirties and working as a radio DJ. One day a young woman named Jeong-nam shows up and claims to be his own daughter. She also has a son whom she claims to be Hyeon-soo's grandson. Their relation is proven via DNA tests by Hyeon-soo's brother. This leads to Hyeon-soo attempting to avoid a scandal concerning him having children "unknown" to the media.
A young African-American couple navigates the tricky paths of romance and athletics in this drama. Quincy McCall (Omar Epps) and Monica Wright (Sanaa Lathan) grew up in the same neighborhood and have known each other since childhood. As they grow into adulthood, they fall in love, but they also share another all-consuming passion: basketball. They've followed the game all their lives and have no small amount of talent on the court. As Quincy and Monica struggle to make their relationship work, they follow separate career paths though high school and college basketball and, they hope, into stardom in big-league professional ball.
Maggie, an alluring free spirit who won't let anyone - or anything - tie her down. But she meets her match in Jamie, whose relentless and nearly infallible charm serve him well with the ladies and in the cutthroat world of pharmaceutical sales. Maggie and Jamie's evolving relationship takes them both by surprise, as they find themselves under the influence of the ultimate drug: love.
A meditation on love and its various incarnations, set within a community of friends in Oregon. It is described as an exploration of the magical, mysterious and sometimes painful incarnations of love.
It has been three spring-times since Belldandy came to Earth to grant Keiichi one wish. Things seem to be fine with them while living in the temple with Belldandy's sisters Urd and Skuld, but little do they know that a fallen god from Belldandy's past has escaped from his lunar prison. He has plans for everyone which do not include what the goddess and her human lover wanted for themselves.
An acclaimed writer, his ex-wife, and their teenaged children come to terms with the complexities of love in all its forms over the course of one tumultuous year.
With a reputation for seducing members of the opposite sex, regardless of their marital status, a notorious womanizer discovers a beauty who seems impervious to his charms. However, as he continues to pursue the indifferent lady, he finds himself falling in love.
CUAK, which roughly translates to 'cold feet', follows the story of Adam on the verge of getting married and having second thoughts as he goes through the events that lead up to this moment - how they first met, the in-laws and best friends and making tough decisions such as converting ones religion to get married. The film is uniquely told by 5 directors who each direct each of these events as segments of the film, combining together to make one full narrative in a variety of different styles - ranging from drama and comedy to noir and mockumentary - making CUAK a truly Malaysian movie with themes that resonate with a universal audience regardless of race or religion.
Shakespeare's comedy about two couples in love with the wrong partners, and how they are finally brought together rightly, thanks in part to the bungling work of Puck. It is completely in the language of the Bard, with Pfeiffer as the Fairy Queen and Kline as the one turned into her evening's lover with donkey ears.
Deals with the lives of the three Irish Catholic McMullen brothers from Long Island, New York, over three months, as they grapple with basic ideas and values — love, sex, marriage, religion and family — in the 1990s. Directed, written, produced by and starring Edward Burns.
Georgia Rule follows a rebellious, uncontrollable teenager who is hauled off by her dysfunctional mother to spend the summer with her grandmother. Her journey will lead all three women to revelations of buried family secrets and an understanding that - regardless what happens - the ties that bind can never be broken.
After her husband leaves her, a woman travels to London for the funeral of the pop star, Victor Fox, she's adored all her life. There, she meets the lover of the dead pop star, and convinces him to come back to Chicago with her to figure out who killed the singer. Written by Anonymous
1983. Tom Highway is a well-decorated career military man in the United States Marine Corps, he who has seen action in Korea and Vietnam. His current rank is Gunnery Sergeant. His experiences have led him to become an opinionated, no nonsense man, who is prone to bursts of violence, especially when he's drunk, if the situation does not suit him, regardless of the specifics or people involved. Because of these actions, he has spent his fair share of overnighters behind bars. Close to retirement, one of his last assignments, one he requested, is back at his old unit at Cherry Point, North Carolina, from where he was transferred for insubordination. He is to train a reconnaissance platoon. His superior officer, the much younger and combat inexperienced Major Malcolm Powers, sees Highway as a relic of an old styled military. Highway's commanding officer, Lieutenant Ring, the platoon leader...
Bad Santa co-screenwriters Glenn Ficara and John Requa re-team for this fact-based black comedy starring Jim Carrey as a Virginia police officer-turned-con man who makes the leap to white-collar criminal after being sent to prison and falling in love with his sensitive cellmate. Steve Russell (Carrey) is a small-town cop. Bored with his bland lifestyle, Russell turns to fraud as a means of shaking things up. Before long, Russell's criminal antics have landed him behind bars, where he encounters the charismatic Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor). Smitten, Russell devotes his entire life to being with Morris regardless of the consequences.
In a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in forty-five days or are transformed into beasts and sent off into The Woods.
Personal setbacks turn a working man into a notorious thief.
Jim is a shy, withdrawn loner, pervert, and virgin. Lana is a friendly and outgoing born again Christian who has renounced her promiscuous drug filled past. They have never met until they step into an elevator together one day. The elevator gets stuck between floors, and they start to get to know each other...
Annie Garriet is a young woman who moves with her irresponsible husband Ross and their seven-year-old daughter Taylor from Colorado to a ranch in northern California where Ross abandons them after he fails to land a job. With no money and no friends, and Taylor and Annie's prized racehorse, Tolo, to look after, Annie lands a job at a ranch hand and stable person at a stud farm owned by the stern Mary Lou O'Brien who is hiding some person demons of her own. Despite Annie's own setbacks in life, she decides to find an outing by entering her horse in a high-stakes riding competition. But when her horse goes blind from a race illness, Annie must struggle with her hardships to put the impossible to the test.
Loner freshman Jake Taylor is forced to join the wildest fraternity on campus when the frat brothers refuse to accept his geeky cousin/roommate unless Jake agrees to pledge with him. As the semester progresses, Jake struggles to maintain his grades as well as his affair with Paige, a beautiful sophomore who hates all fraternities. Through naked scavenger hunts, sorority ass-signings and all night
People who have build a wall around themselves. A sculptor Jun-hyeok, an art critic Min-woo, and a modern dance student Mi-ran. A mystery melodrama about the love and secrets of the three people.
Rob Haley (Dougray Scott), an up-and-coming chef and restaurateur in London, is grief-stricken when he loses his wife. With encouragement from his infamous friend and real life TV Chef Gordon Ramsay, Rob decides to spice up his life by turning a run-down country pub into a gourmet restaurant. His food catches the eye - and taste buds - of beautiful American food critic Kate Templeton (Claire Forlani) and they soon both write a recipe for love that leaves both their hearts - and their stomachs - in full.
As a director faces a series of setbacks in life including debt and divorce, his elderly father suddenly regains his youth.
Like many adolescent boys, Roy Darpinian had the hots for movie divas, and one in particular was his wet dream as half of America's in the 1950s: Marilyn Monroe. The difference is, one summer holiday he actually decided to enlist his spineless buddies, Scott Foreman and Ned Bleuer, to actually drive all the way to Hollywood and make as many desperate attempts as it takes to meet her or get arrested trying, and no setback or embarrassment (even publicly bare-ass) can stop or distract him. Against all odds, he finally even got a chance to help her...
Celeste and Jesse met in high school and got married young. They laugh at the same jokes and finish each other’s sentences. They are forever linked in their friends’ minds as the perfect couple – she, a high-powered businesswoman and budding novelist; he, a free spirit who keeps things from getting boring. Their only problem is that they have decided to get divorced. Can their perfect relationship withstand this minor setback?
Calvin is a young novelist who achieved phenomenal success early in his career but is now struggling with his writing – as well as his romantic life. Finally, he makes a breakthrough and creates a character named Ruby who inspires him. When Calvin finds Ruby, in the flesh, sitting on his couch about a week later, he is completely flabbergasted that his words have turned into a living, breathing person.
Subramaniapuram (Tamil: சுப்ரமணியபுரம்) is a 2008 Tamil film produced, written, and directed by M. Sasikumar. The low budget film received critical acclaim for its original script, expert direction, screenplay, editing, accurate sets and costumes to resurrect Madurai from the 1980s. Sasikumar cast then relatively new actors Jai, Swathi, Ganja Karuppu and himself in pivotal roles for the film. Shot in a remarkable eighty five days, the film became a huge box office grosser. Sasikumar is now considered one of the promising young directors in Tamil film industry.
Manchester 1976: Cambridge educated Tony Wilson, Granada TV presenter, is at a Sex Pistols gig. Totally inspired by this pivotal moment in music history, he and his friends set up a record label, Factory Records, signing first Joy Division (who go on to become New Order) then James and the Happy Mondays, who all become seminal artists of their time. What ensues is a tale of music, sex, drugs, larger-than-life characters, and the birth of one of the most famous dance clubs in the world, The Hacienda - a mecca for clubbers as famous as the likes of Studio 54. Graphically depicting the music and dance heritage of Manchester from the late 70's to the early 90's, this comedy documents the vibrancy that made Mad-chester the place in the world that you would most like to be.
As single mom Grace juggles work, bills, and her affair with a married doctor, her daughter, Ansiedad, plots a shortcut to adulthood after finding inspiration in the coming-of-age stories she's reading for school.
1944 : Occupied France. Juliette (Vice) is Wehrmacht General Bamberg's mistress and enjoys a privileged life. Her younger sister Justine (Virtue) is about to marry Jean who is in the Resistance and come to Juliette for help. Both sisters end up at "la Commanderie", where Juliette becomes SS Colonel Schonberg's mistress and Justine is detained with other pretty girls who must satisfy the sexual needs of high-ranking nazi officials. Inspired by "Justine ou les infortunes de la vertu" by the marquis de Sade
Inspired by a true story, a comedy centered on a 27-year-old guy who learns of his cancer diagnosis, and his subsequent struggle to beat the disease.
Happy is a 2011 feature documentary film directed, written, and co-produced by Roko Belic. It explores human happiness through interviews with people from all walks of life in 14 different countries, weaving in the newest findings of positive psychology. Director Roko Belic was originally inspired to create the film after producer/director Tom Shadyac (Liar, Liar, Patch Adams, Bruce Almighty) showed him an article in the New York Times entitled "A New Measure of Well Being From a Happy Little Kingdom". The article ranks the United States as the 23rd happiest country in the world. Shadyac then suggested that Belic make a documentary about happiness. Belic spent several years interviewing over 20 people, ranging from leading happiness researchers to a rickshaw driver in Kolkatta, a family living in a "co-housing community" in Denmark, a woman who was run over by a truck, a Cajun fisherman, and more.
This film tells the story of a successful writer called Harry Block, played by Allen himself, who draws inspiration from people he knows in real-life, and from events that happened to him, sometimes causing these people to become alienated from him as a result.
A charming and ambitious young man finds many ways to raise himself through the ranks in business and social standing - some honest, some not quite so. If he can just manage to avoid a certain very predatory woman...
The chief spokesperson and lobbyist Nick Naylor is the Vice-President of the Academy of Tobacco Studies. He is talented in speaking and spins argument to defend the cigarette industry in the most difficult situations. His best friends are Polly Bailey that works in the Moderation Council in alcohol business, and Bobby Jay Bliss of the gun business own advisory group SAFETY. They frequently meet each other in a bar and they self-entitle the Mod Squad a.k.a. Merchants of Death, disputing which industry has killed more people. Nick's greatest enemy is Vermont's Senator Ortolan Finistirre, who defends in the Senate the use a skull and crossed bones in the cigarette packs. Nick's son Joey Naylor lives with his mother, and has the chance to know his father in a business trip. When the ambitious reporter Heather Holloway betrays Nick disclosing confidences he had in bed with her, his life turns upside-down. But Nick is good in what he does for the mortgage.
After taking a job managing a little league team, a homeless man inspires the kids to reach for it all and they inspire him to reclaim his life.
This film is a smart, rueful and dead-on portrait of life's unending quest to fit in; and the girl who solves it by completely breaking out - introduces a feisty outsider hero unlike any other seen on screen. Esther Blueburger's quest begins when she escapes from her Bat Mitzvah party and is befriended by Sunni.., the effortlessly cool girl who is everything Esther thinks she wants to be. With the help of Sunni, Esther goes away from her ordinary life and leaves behind her malfunctioning Jewish family to hang out with Sunni's far breezier and super-hip single mom Mary and attend Sunni's forbidden public school as a Swedish exchange student.
Co-pilot Kazuhiro (Tanabe Seiichi) is up for promotion, but before he can get his captain's wings he has to get through a flight evaluation, and things aren't exactly going his way. He just crashed and burned on a simulated flight test, and his friendly examiner has been replaced with the tough-as-nails Harada (Tokito Saburo). On the same plane is cabin attendant Etsuko (Ayase Haruka) who's flying her first international flight and trying hard to not mess up. Elsewhere in the Happy Flight universe, staff are bustling back and forth with various problems and gripes - all to make this ordinary yet fateful flight a safe and happy one.
A deck-chair attendant (James Booth) at a British resort promotes a film festival featuring a French sexpot (Marisa Mell).
In the 20th live broadcast of Frau Plastic Chicken’s TV show entitled Nexxt, the first guest comes from the sixties: it is the hero of Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange, the notorious murderer Alexander Grushkin, that is, Little Alex. With the help of Egodoki, Frau PC has the Ludovico Technique applied on him, and beside the broken Alex she has Rex Madison, the protagonist of American Psycho brought in, with handcuffs on. The self-assured gigolo breaks down at the appearance of Maggie, his first love, and it is he who wins the confessional show led by Mrs Cardinal Paula Aquarius, which incurs pardon to be given. Rex, freed from his shackles, shoots the majority of those present, rapes PC and leaves together with Alex by helicopter. The show continues on the moon.

© Valossa 2015–2024