cryptexcode/MPST huggingface dataset:
The Emperor's New Clothes

Plot synopsis:
Napoleon is in exile on St. Helena after the battle of Waterloo, and his followers smuggle a look-alike to the island, and smuggle Napoleon to a ship headed back to Europe. The plan is for the imposter to masquerade as Napoleon until the Emperor has time to reach Paris, and then for the imposter to declare his role as imposter, so that the real Napoleon can announce his return to Paris. The people of France will then flock to their leader and rise in glory under Napoleon once again.The trouble is, the imposter quickly warms to the role, privileges, and fine life of an exiled Emperor. He refuses to reveal his true identity, and when one of Napoleon's generals in exile with him tries to turn the imposter in, the imposter has the general sent away, as having lost his mind in the isolation of St. Helena. Meanwhile, the real Napoleon can't just stand in the square in Paris and announce his return, because the people all believe he is on St. Helena. Almost none of the citizenry has ever seen Napoleon up close, and in any case he's older and seedier looking now. In fact, we learn that whole groups of inhabitants of the Paris insane asylum walk around in Napoleon costumes, claiming to be the emperor!So the real Napoleon is stuck. And then the imposter dies on St. Helena. The death of Napoleon is announced to the world, and all hope of the real Napoleon being recognized as such disappears. Happily, in the meantime he has developed a wholesome common-law marriage with the widow of one of his soldiers of the Grand Army. Even she believes his claim to be Napoleon is an illusion of grandeur, but she sweetly tells him he can be "her Napoleon."The movie raised interesting questions of identity. Clearly we are who we are, at least partly because others agree that we are who we are.

Tags: alternate history

Review:
A Warm December

Plot synopsis:
This bittersweet movie centers around Dr. Matt Younger (Sidney Poitier) recently widowed, who travels to England on a month long holiday with his charming young daugther Stephanie(Yvette Curtis). While there, his meets a beautiful and mysterious stranger Katherine(Ester Anderson). She elicits his help to avoid a man who is following her. It turns out that this gentleman is her bodyguard. Katherine is the niece of a prominent African diplomat, and they are in England on official business. Katherine also has a medical condition which necesitates her being watched closely by her bodyguard to prevent harm from befalling her. Dr. Younger begins to get to know her and quickly falls in love with her, but she keeps her medical "problem" to herself, preferring to disappear whenever she feels sick. While on a vacation trip to the English countryside with Katherine and Stephanie, Dr. Younger discovers her little secret. He wants to marry her regardless. In the end, she must make a choice between having a family , even if only for a short time, or continuing her life as it has been.

Tags: melodrama

Review:
Improvvisamente l'inverno scorso

Plot synopsis:
Luca and Gustav, two men in their 30s, have been a stable couple for eight years now. No significant news in a western European country, one would assume. One would, and wrong too. As a matter of fact, they live in Italy and it turns out there are still places out there in Euroland where the acknowledgment of Luca and Gustavs basic civil rights as a couple are an issue, and big news in fact. Suddenly, Last Winter, their quiet private life has been turned upside down. The Italian centerleft coalition in power as of March 2006, tackled the legislation concerning the rights of civil unions, including same-sex partnerships. The announcement of such plan immediately triggered a national debate. In a matter of days a spat turned into the hottest political and cultural issue on the national agenda at every level, including all media, civil society and political parties of all colours. In this context, the violence of unequivally intolerant homophobic attacks, launched daily from the pulpits and national TV talk shows, reached tones so dramatic even the less naïve among analysts and gay rights activists found worrisome. Gustav convinced Luca to look more in depth into all this, camera in hand. Its here their common journey through a sizeable portion of contemporary Italys sexual intolerance begins. The film is about what they have learned on the way, through interviews with passers-by, religious associations, conservative and liberal politicians alike, organized protests and rallies of all kinds.The films ironic approach reads through the verbose institutional impasse, the gratuitous criticism and the plain dumb arguments with increasing uneasiness. And eventually, frame after frame, the contradictory and unflattering picture of a country comes into focus. One where Luca and Gustav happen to live, somewhere in Europe.

Tags: queer

Review:
Thick as Thieves

Plot synopsis:
In New York City, we see veteran thief Keith Ripley (Morgan Freeman) walk into a health spa with a gun and shoot and kill a man in a hot tub. We later learn that it was Victor Korolenko who was Ripleys partner, but Victor body has disappeared. Later Ripley recruits younger crook Gabriel Martin (Antonio Banderas) to help him pull off one final job in order to repay his debt to the Russian mob. Martin is unsure of Ripley, but Ripley's goddaughter (Ripleys ex-partners daughter), Alexandra Korolenko (Radha Mitchell) convinces him other wise. Ripley doesn't like that the two are getting close. Ripley tells Martin the plan, that they are going to steal from a Russian Museum that has been smuggling Russian treasures into the country and bribing the NYPD with large donation and expensive equipment. The two infiltrate a party at the museum posing as cops to gather information about their vault.The Russian mob, led by Nicky (Rade Serbedzija), grow impatient with Ripley and kidnap Alexandra. They tell them they must steal two Fabergé eggs from the Russian Museum in order to get her back. When the duo get into the vaults of the museum with the eggs, Martin reveals he is an undercover cop from Miami planted to catch Ripley. He leaves Ripley locked in the vault and takes the eggs to the Russian mobster to free Alexandra. After Alexandra is released Martin is forced to meet with Nicky. Meanwhile, Lt .Weber (Robert Forster) and his squad enter the museum, but are detained by the security guards due to Martin telling the guards he was a cop as he escaped.Martin reports in to the police the next morning after the police have picked up Nicky, only to learn that the man they have in custody isn't the man Martin met, and that he was actually Victor Korolenko, who had faked his death with Ripley's help. It is then revealed that Ripley had escaped, letting the museum know cops were on the way and that they had cleaned out the vault of all the smuggled items (which had included the eggs) before the police could inspect it, meaning there was no evidence that anything had been stolen and that Martin's testimony would be worthless as his actions have been kept off the book to prevent Ripley from finding out and that Martin's involvement with Alex compromises him, and Ripley had to be let go.Ripley later calls Martin from a tarmac ready to leave with Victor to meet with a buyer for the eggs, letting him know that they knew Martin was a cop from the beginning, and that they plan on going into hiding, although Alex will continue to stay in New York (having been in on the plan the whole time) and where he can pick up his cut. Martin later meets up with Alex, who confesses that her feelings for him are real, and decides to become a thief.

Tags: psychedelic

Review:
Jack Be Nimble

Plot synopsis:
The film begins with two young siblings, Jack and Dora, witnessing their mother having a nervous breakdown. After the mother deserts the children, the father decides to place them in an orphanage. The misfortune in their young lives has only just began. Soon the two are separated and placed in different foster homes. While Dora is adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Birch, two kindly, doting parents, poor Jack falls into the hands of a grim farmer, Clarrie and his horrid wife, Bernice. Jack grows up being mercilessly mentally and physically abused by his foster father and mother and four evil step-sisters. Yet, despite their different fates, the brother and sister remain connected by a strong psychic bond and never stop thinking about each other.Eventually, Jacks takes his revenge on his cruel foster-parents and escapes from his bitter life to try to find his way back to Dora. Relying on the strength of their love and their mutual psychic abilities, they find their way to one another. Together, they set out to find their biological parents.Despite the struggles of their younger years, the road ahead is still not destined to be an easy one for the siblings. Dora is afraid that Jack's resentment toward their birth parents might cause him to strike out against them. Also, Jack is being trailed by his bitter, evil step sisters, who wish to exert their own revenge against Jack for his treatment of their parents.What kind of savage vengeance can of Jack expect from his stepsisters? Has his cruel childhood already inflicted too much damage, poisoning the siblings' hopes of a joyful reunion with their birth parents?

Tags: revenge, gothic, murder, violence

Review:
Ma vie en rose

Plot synopsis:
When the Fabre family move into their dream house with wonderful neighbors, everything seems perfect except for one thing – the youngest child Ludovic wishes to function as a girl; while she was born a boy, she feels that she is a girl and wants to live as a female. The rest of the family humor her as best they can, rationalizing that Ludovic is only trying to find her identity and will soon be over it .
Trouble begins when Ludovic befriends Jérôme, the son of her father's boss, and expresses a desire to marry him when Ludovic is finally a girl. When visiting Jérôme's house, Ludovic enters his sister's room and puts on one of her dresses, not realizing that the sister is deceased and the room was merely kept in memory of her. Jérôme's mother sees this and she and the rest of the neighbors are horrified. The community turns against Ludovic and, by extension, the rest of the Fabre family. After Ludovic stands in as Snow White in a school play, the parents of the other students send in a petition to have her expelled. Ludovic's father, under strain as an employee of Jérôme's father, is unable to cope and causes conflict within the family. After a particularly bad argument, Ludovic attempts to mend the situation by hiding in a freezer to commit suicide. She is found in time and allowed to wear a skirt to a neighborhood party. While the other neighbors greet her warmly, Ludo's father gets fired the next day and finds his house spray-painted with graffiti. Ludo runs out of the house, distraught. Hanna, Ludovic's mother, blames her for everything that has gone wrong. She wants to set Ludo straight, so she cuts her hair to make her look like her brothers. Ludo grows resentment towards her mother for doing this, ultimately deciding that she wants to live with her grandmother.
When Ludo and her grandmother go visit her parents one weekend, the father announces that he has a new job, but it is out of town and they have to move.
At their new house, Ludovic is befriended by Christine "Chris" Delvigne, a young girl who prefers to be seen as a boy. Chris' mother invites Ludovic to Chris' dress-up birthday party, which Ludo attends in a musketeer outfit. Chris, unhappy in a princess outfit, asks Ludo to swap and has the other young party guests force Ludo to do so upon refusal. When Ludovic's mother sees her in the dress, she fears that their troubles are beginning again and lashes out by hitting Ludo until the other party guests restrain her.
Hanna follows Ludovic to a billboard where she is shocked to see Ludo in the picture, running away with Pam, the protagonist of a program he used to watch. When she tries to follow, she falls through the ground and awakens at home. She and Ludovic's father assure Ludo that he may wear skirts if she wishes. In turn, she assures her mother that she never really intended to run away with Pam.

Tags: queer

Review:
Phoebe in Wonderland

Plot synopsis:
A 9-year-old girl, Phoebe (Elle Fanning), has apparent Tourette syndrome. While she deals with being odd and insecure, her mother (Felicity Huffman) and father (Bill Pullman) are dealing with complexities in their relationship with each other and their challenging child. Her younger sister (Bailee Madison) feels neglected as Phoebe gains more attention.
Phoebe seeks a role in her school's play, Alice In Wonderland, directed by her school's off-beat drama teacher, Miss Dodger (Patricia Clarkson). Phoebe flourishes on stage, relaxing and feeling normal, but her impulsive speech and behavior persist off stage. Her parents hire a therapist for her, but after he proposes medication, Phoebe's mother fires him. She does not want to accept that there is anything wrong with Phoebe; when the principal questions if Phoebe behaves oddly outside of the classroom, her mother denies it even though she has many times witnessed her daughter's self-destructive rituals at home. When Phoebe is taken out of the play due to her classroom behavior, her dreams are shattered. Her mother, desperate to help her daughter feel normal, works with the drama teacher to bring Phoebe back on stage.
Although Phoebe is put back into the play, her challenges continue as she is driven to behavior she doesn't understand. She hurts herself jumping off the catwalk onto the stage, and the drama teacher is fired. Phoebe's fellow-actors descend into chaos, but Phoebe alone clings to a sense of purpose. She urges her classmates to continue their rehearsals on their own, and they do. Her mother, who has resisted efforts to label Phoebe, tells Phoebe that she has Tourette syndrome, and Phoebe helps her classmates understand her by explaining the condition to them.

Tags: psychedelic, fantasy

Review:
Pen choo kab pee

Plot synopsis:
The story tells of a pregnant village girl, Nualjan, who left her hometown in search of her lost husband. En route to the big city (Bangkok), where her husband had set off to on a business trip, Nualjan stops at a large estate. The house is owned by a mysterious and rich widow named Ranjuan, who lives in a separate house in the same compound. Madam Ranjuan secludes herself in her boudoir all day, welcoming a mysterious lover into her chamber every night. Nualjan quickly discovers that the house and its members hide some fairly serious mysteries.After spending several fearful nights at the estate, she decides that she needs to continue on in her search for her husband. Unfortunately, fate has other plans for her, as she goes into labor. With a newborn infant, she is in no condition to wander the streets of Bangkok searching for her husband. Despite her reservations about the spooky old house she has found herself in, she settles in temporarily as she adjusts to the demands of new motherhood.She soon realizes that most of the staff and family at the estate are at the very least bizarre and most probably linked to the spirit world to some degree. Her only friend in the dark, brooding house, is a fellow servant woman called Choy, who tells Nualjan frightening stories about the history of the house and its in inhabitants. If the houses owner, Madam Ranjuan, is not strange enough, her Grandmother Erb is a crazy old woman who lives in a shack behind the garden and clutches a scary-looking baby doll. In her daily strolls around the grounds, Nualjan often finds a ghostly little girl who wants her to come and play. Additionally, there is the unknown lover who frequents Madam Ranjuan's bedroom who Nualjan never recalls seeing coming or going from the estate grounds.Nualjan soon begins to understand that the mysteries surrounding the strange house not only center around its unusual household members. She comes to realize that her coming to the estate may have been more than a coincidence. Her fate may also be inexplicably linked to the mysteries of this strange mansion in the woods.

Tags: insanity, horror, murder, flashback

Review:
Morituri

Plot synopsis:
Robert Crain (Marlon Brando) is a German pacifist living in India during the Second World War. He is blackmailed by the Allies into using his engineering experience to disable the scuttling charges of a German merchant ship carrying rubber from Japan. The Allies hope to recover the ship before it is scuttled by the captain because rubber is in short supply and essential for various uses in the war effort.
On board the ship, Crain finds the captain (Yul Brynner) to be a patriotic German who despises the Nazis. His first officer, however, is a fanatical Party member. Several of the crew are political prisoners pressed into service because of labor shortages. Eventually Crain enlists them in a plan to give the ship to the Allies. Complications arise when several American prisoners and two suspicious Germany Naval officers are brought on board from a Japanese submarine. One prisoner, Esther (Janet Margolin), a young German Jewess, joins the plot.
About to be exposed, Crain organizes a mutiny which fails, after which he sets off demolition charges. The surviving crew abandons ship, leaving behind Crain and the captain. The lard being transported in the hold spills and acts as a temporary stopper, keeping them afloat. Crain convinces the captain to radio the Allies for rescue.

Tags: suspenseful

Review:
Homeland

Plot synopsis:
1948 War . Lolek,a young Holocaust survivor arrives in Israel and thrown
in the middle of the desert.
A stranger to the language and the new identity he is given, he is assigned in an isolated post under a brutal commander and the burning sun.
Afflicted by homesickness and the heat, he sets out to look for some shade."Homeland offers not only a revisionist account of Israeli history, but of Israeli cinema as well. More than any other Israeli director, Dani Rosenberg explores the price paid by the individual for the demands put on them by the Zionist endeavor. Other Israeli filmmakers, no matter how critical of the Zionist project and of Israeli society, tended to mitigate the stress of this demand by placing their protagonists within the context of a collective-commonly represented by a small group of people or a family-and in doing so, submitted their anguish to its impersonal logic. By placing this community outside of the film's frame and by rendering the significance of the struggle against its demands uncertain, Homeland turns that anguish into a challenge to talk about Israeli history.."
Prof. Shai Ginsburg/Duke University"Through the story of two Jewish Holocaust survivors, who roast out in the hot dessert sun as the War of Independence rages, Rosenberg tackles issues such as the artificial construct of the "Sabra", and the connection between Jewish and Arab refugees. One of the characters (Itay Tiran) is a most recent immigrant who is actually trying to get to Haifa to find his girlfriend, and finds himself on a lonely hilltop in the middle of the dessert. The other (Mikki Leon) is waiting for him on that hilltop and has already become the Sabra. He is mustached, tan and muscular yet underneath that he is hiding the Diaspora Jew that Zionism tried to exorcise. This surrealistic situation, which recalls Rafi Bukai's film "Avanti Popolo", becomes even more strange and encumbered by the fact that all the dialogue is in Yiddish.The erotic, sadomasochistic relationship between the two- the pale weak Diaspora Jew and the tanned macho commander, express a concrete question about the ways in which, the Jew is attracted, in an almost Fascistic way, to power. The "discovery" of an abandoned Palestinian village by the character portrayed by Itay Tiran, who stumbles upon the body of a local boy, supplies the film with one of its most powerful moments and expresses the Holocaust survivor's attraction to death.The element of violence that the new immigrant identifies with on his way to becoming a "new Jew" leads to a surrealistic departure scene in which the character says good bye to the old Diaspora world. All of a sudden, the timeless discussion of Jewish victimhood is seen in a different light. This is an issue that has been already presented by new historiography of Zionism, but not yet by the contemporary cinema..."The History of Violence, Yair Raveh, Cinemascope

Tags: psychedelic

Review:
Nordvest

Plot synopsis:
Northwest is one of the most impoverished multi-ethnic areas of Copenhagen. 18-years-old Casper lives in Northwest with his mother, younger brother and his little sister. Casper struggles to make ends meet based on selling stolen goods to one of the neighborhood pack leaders. When organized crime hits Northwest the hierarchy of the neighborhood shifts and Casper is offered a chance to climb the ranks. Soon he is hurled into a world of drugs, violence and prostitution and as things escalates, his childhood playground becomes a battlefield. Consequently Casper finds himself and his family dead center in a conflict that threatens to destroy them.Northwest is a film about youth crime, the price of greed and a rootless, young man's longing for a sense of belonging and to show the world hes a real man.
The film is about Casper who, for his own gain, drags his younger brother Bastian into organized crime to get the young king and childhood friend Jamal down with his neck. But power is not something you get, it's a position you have to take and Casper realizes he does not have the ability to go from being a thief to a murderer and thereby he inadvertently presses his brother to commit murder.
Casper is driven by money and power but Bastian is driven by much stronger forces; the desire for a sense of belonging and longing for a father figure.
Northwest is a film about brothers, brother cabinet and how childhood friends end up fighting each other for power and glory.

Tags: violence, murder

Review:
Cleopatra

Plot synopsis:
Passion. Power. History.For over two-thousand years, the legend of the beautiful Queen of the Nile has stirred the imagination. Ascending to the throne at a mere seventeen years of age, Cleopatra (Leonor Varela) ruled as Egypt's last Pharaoh for twenty-two years. Easily winning the heart of Roman Emperor Julius Caesar (Timothy Dalton), they embark on a two-month voyage down the Nile and quickly become devoted to each other. She bears him a child whom they call Caesarion.Keeping a close eye on the relationship, the Roman Senators conspire to assassinate Caesar. His death devastates Cleopatra. In her grief, she turns to Marc Antony (Billy Zane), a Roman she can trust. Their alliance angers Rome even more and war is declared on Egypt. Cleopatra and Marc Antony's fate becomes sealed in each other's arms as the Roman army closes in. Beautifully directed and stunningly photographed, Cleopatra reigns as one of the greatest love stories in history.

Tags: violence, murder

Review:
Island in the Sky

Plot synopsis:
A simple group of commercial flyers, post WWII, one plane is downed in uncharted Canadian tundra, dead of winter, wicked cold. Limited resources. Other pilots start a search. Simple, huh? Remember...No GPS, No Radar, Limited radio and supplies! And that relentless bitter cold! But wait. These aren't ordinary commercial pilots. We soon learn these guys have some real history, military types, probably in WWII. They're tight, driven and fearless, and they're gonna find and rescue The Duke and his crew if it kills them! Like a fine wine, what starts out as a simple story draws us into the lives of these fine men, and their families as well. Before you know it, your heart is racing, and the tears are flowing! Perhaps an overused cliche, but truly, they just don't make films like this anymore! What's more, you get to see James Arness cry! Real men, these.

Tags: flashback

Review:
13th

Plot synopsis:
The 13th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution abolished slavery. But it also included a provision many people don't know about and that is what this documentary brings to view. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist." That exception justifies the use of forced labor as long as the laborer is a convict. This documentary makes the case that inclusion of this loophole is only one of the justifications for continuing domination of people of color. The 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865 and director Ava DuVernay supports her thesis through the use of both historical footage and interviews. Film clips of former President Richard Nixon call for 'Law & Order' which has resulted in exploding prison populations. The U. S. only has 5% of the world's population but has 25% of the world's prisoners. This Law & Order policy enabled government to imprison blacks. John Ehrlichman was Assistant to President Nixon for Domestic Affairs: "Did we know we were lying? Of course we did." The documentary makes the case that those drug busts, Jim Crow laws and segregation are all variations of domination of black America. Currently the 'Prison/Industrial Complex' is just a new version of the same old problem. Here DuVernay returns to the 13th Amendment and makes the case that the system cannot be dealt with by making small changes. The system itself has to be rebuilt.

Tags: tragedy, violence, cruelty, murder, sadist

Review:
The Woodsman

Plot synopsis:
Bacon plays Walter, a convicted child molester returning home to Philadelphia after a 12-year stint in prison. Walter finds that his friends and family have abandoned him, with the exception of his brother-in-law, Carlos (Benjamin Bratt). He gets a job at a lumber mill, where he meets Vicki (Kyra Sedgwick), one of the few women working at the mill, who quickly sleeps with him. She initially rejects him after learning of his past, but eventually becomes his girlfriend, convinced that he is a good man at heart.Walter receives frequent visits from a verbally abusive cop named Lucas (Mos Def), whose role is to make sure Walter is staying away from children.Now that he is out of prison, Walter must learn to deal with the community's contempt and avoid temptation, including an elementary school across the street from his apartment and a young bird-watcher, Robin (Hannah Pilkes). He also comes to suspect that a man he has seen watching children near his apartment building is also a child molester. Over the course of the film, Walter observes the man (Kevin Rice) offering young boys candy, chatting them up, and abducting them. Walter nicknames the man "Candy".Walter's life takes a further downturn when a suspicious coworker (Eve) learns of his crimes and alerts the entire mill. Seeking "relief", Walter goes to the park intending to molest Robin who confides in him that her father is abusing her. Finally realizing the damage he has caused, Walter changes his mind and tells her to go home. As she leaves she hugs him. On his way home, he sees Candy dropping off a young boy at his school at night. In a fit of rage and self-hatred, Walter beats Candy so badly he fractures his jaw.Soon after, Lucas visits Walter's apartment as he is packing to move in with Vicki and tells him that a man was beaten across the street the night before, asks if he heard anything. He tells Walter that the boy can make a positive ID of the assailant, and that the victim is wanted in Virginia for raping a young boy, clearing Walter's conscience. Walter later meets his sister, who he hasn't seen in years, and she becomes very angry and leaves him. As the movie closes, in a voiceover discussion with his therapist (Michael Shannon), Walter explains that he understands and accepts her anger, and expresses optimism for his own future.

Tags: dark, boring, thought-provoking, violence, dramatic, flashback

Review:
All That Jazz

Plot synopsis:
Joe Gideon is a theater director and choreographer trying to balance work on his latest Broadway musical with editing a Hollywood film he has directed. He is a workaholic who chain-smokes cigarettes, and without a daily dose of Vivaldi, Visine, Alka-Seltzer, Dexedrine, and sex, he wouldn't have the energy to keep up the biggest "show" of all — his life. His girlfriend Katie Jagger, his ex-wife Audrey Paris, and daughter Michelle try to pull him back from the brink, but it is too late for his exhausted body and stress-ravaged heart. In his imagination, he flirts with an angel of death named Angelique.
Gideon's condition gets progressively worse. He is rushed to a hospital after experiencing chest pains during a particularly stressful table read (with the penny-pinching backers in attendance) and admitted with severe attacks of angina. Joe brushes off his symptoms, and attempts to leave to go back to rehearsal, but he collapses in the doctor's office and is ordered to stay in the hospital for three to four weeks to rest his heart and recover from his exhaustion. The show is postponed, but Gideon continues his antics from the hospital bed, in brazen denial of his mortality. Champagne flows, endless strings of women frolic around his hospital room and the cigarettes are always lit. Cardiogram readings don't show any improvement as Gideon dances with death. As the negative reviews for his feature film (which has been released without him) come in, Gideon has a massive coronary and is taken straight to coronary artery bypass surgery.
The backers for the show must then decide whether it's time to pack up or replace Gideon as the director. Their matter-of-fact money-oriented negotiations with the insurers are juxtaposed with graphic scenes of (presumably Joe's) open heart surgery. The producers realize that the best way to recoup their money and make a profit is to bet on Gideon dying — the insurance proceeds would result in a profit of over USD$500,000. Meanwhile, elements from Gideon's past life are staged in dazzling dream sequences of musical numbers he directs from his hospital bed while on life support. Realizing his death is imminent, his mortality unconquerable, Gideon has another heart attack. In the glittery finale, he goes through the five stages of grief — anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance - featured in the stand-up routine he has been editing. As death closes in on Gideon, the fantasy episodes become more hallucinatory and extravagant, and in a final epilogue that is set up as a truly monumental live variety show featuring everyone from his past, Gideon himself takes center stage.
The final shot shows Joe Gideon's body being zipped up in a body bag.

Tags: tragedy, comedy, flashback

Review:
The Juggler

Plot synopsis:
After World War II, a German named Hans Müller (Kirk Douglas) is one of a shipload of Jewish refugees who debark at Haifa in 1949. Like many other concentration camp survivors, Hans has psychological problems, including survivor guilt. At one point, he mistakes a woman and some children for his murdered family.
At the first opportunity, he sneaks out of the refugee camp and goes into the city. When he spots a policeman, Hans panics and reacts by fleeing. The policeman chases him down and begins questioning him. Hans becomes very agitated and attacks, leaving the man unconscious in the street. Hans flees and ends up sleeping in the countryside, where he is found by a teenage orphan Sabra, Yehoshua "Josh" Bresler (Joey Walsh). Hans pretends to be an eccentric American, out to see Israel firsthand. Josh offers to be his guide. During their journey, Hans reveals that he was a professional juggler; Josh persuades him to pass on his knowledge. Meanwhile, police detective Karni (Paul Stewart) sets out to track the fugitive down.
On their journey, Josh is injured when he wanders into a minefield. He is taken to a hospital at a nearby kibbutz; fortunately, he has only broken his leg. While Josh recovers, Hans becomes acquainted with one of the residents, Ya'el (Milly Vitale). They are attracted to each other, but he at first strongly resists her attempt to persuade him to remain at the kibbutz. He reveals to her that he had ignored warnings from friends to flee Nazi Germany before it was too late, making the fatal mistake of counting on his fame and popularity to protect his family. Gradually, however, he begins to settle in.
Karni finally tracks Hans down and tries to take him into custody. Hans panics again and barricades himself in Ya'el's room with her rifle, but Ya'el and Karni get him to admit he needs help and to give himself up.

Tags: violence, romantic, flashback

Review:
No Strings 2: Playtime in Hell

Plot synopsis:
200 years ago a famous toy maker lost his family in a great fire. Unable to deal with the loss of his family the toy maker blamed God for their deaths and retreated deep into the woods. Lost is his rage and pain he began to hate the world and God. So on one dark night he cried out for vengeance and his cries were heard by the dark prince himself. The Devil in trade for his soul granted the toy maker immortality and the power to create unique toys. Toys that had demons sleeping within them. But once the ancient spell has been spoken and the demon has been awakened then all hell will break lose. Now one of these dolls has found it's way into the house of a Diane, a woman forced to deal with her husband leaving her for another woman. With the bills piling up she is forced to rent out the extra rooms of the house to a motley group of beautiful women. But once the clown doll begins to play none of them will live to see the morning light.

Tags: murder

Review:
Barood

Plot synopsis:
A eight-year-old boy is witness to his father, a reputed police officer, being murdered in broad daylight by four notorious smugglers on Juhu beach, Bombay, India,.Fourteen years later, the boy is now a champion motor cyclist and a breeder of Labradors. He, with the assistance of his pet Labrador Django, seeks revenge. In true Hollywood style, he beings to track down and eliminate the gang of smugglers. His endeavor leads to various places like Vegas, Madrid, Paris, Barcelona, and the coastal areas of Spain. A retired police detective is asked by another member of the gang who was not involved in the killings to investigate the series of murders. Along with him is the Mafia boss who heads the gang. The twosome are hell bent in their mission to stop him hammer the last nail in the coffin by killing the Mafia Boss, who incidentally is now a reputed vineyard owner cum wine manufacturer operating out of Madrid. The mafia boss incidentally has a lovely daughter who strips in true Core-de-Azur fashion to the delight of the Indian viewers. Little wonder that the hero falls for her.and all hells break loose. The climax is predictable, in the tradition of Indian mainstream masala hindi cinema.

Tags: revenge, murder

Review:
good movie. i got to see this movie yesterday on TV. very good movie indeed. i think it was very much ahead of its times. surprisingly,when most of the filmmakers were making movies in the jungles it was shot at a lavish scale in new york,las vegas, barcelona, madrid, Paris, Switzerland etc. but the film lacked good acting. rishi kapoor was just OK. shoma anand did not know how to act that time. reena roy was good but her role was very short. the story had many loopholes. like how did rishi kapoor's character earn so much money so that he can travel round the globe & how could he go scot free after killing various persons in the main cities of the world? was the police of these cities sleeping the whole time ?
Triumph des Willens

Plot synopsis:
TRIUMPH OF THE WILLThis is a documentary of a three day gathering of the Nazi Party faithful in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1934. The film can be subdivided into a number of sequences documenting arrivals, parades, preparations and speeches. Only one scenethe review of the German cavalryactually involved the German military. Characteristic of all the sequences are beautifully composed shots of Nazi flags and symbols, and of faces of enraptured people. Except during the speeches, there is martial music playing by a military band.[1] An airplane is flying through beautiful clouds, then over the city of Nuremberg, and lands at the airport. Nazi party bigwigs descend, finally Adolf Hitler, and there is a welcoming ceremony.[2] Adolf Hitler enters the city, standing in an open four door Mercedes Benz in a motorcade. Adoring crowds wave and give the Nazi salute, including children, women, uniformed soldiers. A woman hands him a bouquet of flowers while holding up a small child in her other arm. Flags with swastikas are flying or hanging on every street.[3] At a rally in a large indoor venue, the party faithful members hear speeches by a dozen party bigwigs. Only a couple of sound bytes from each are shown, ending with a brief speech by Hitler.[4] Night falls on the city of Nuremberg. There are parades through the old streets by small groups carrying torches. Patriotic songs are sung.[5] Dawn over the city. Aerial views of the quiet streets.[6] At an enormous campground of tents, young adult men are getting up, washing in communal basins. Breakfast is being prepared in enormous vats. They eat and sing and play good natured games, with lots of smiles all around.[7] At the enormous stadium built by the Nazis in Nuremberg, the crowds march in and sit and wait for a speech by Hitler.[8] There is a youth rally at another enormous venue, with another speech by Hitler.[9] Military parades follow. In fields outside the city, motorized and cavalry troups display their equipment in marches and advances. Then various military groups each in a different uniform march through the old part of the city, past the Cathedral. In a square next to the Cathedral Hitler reviews the marching groups.[10] Speech by Hitler to military groups.[11] Night falls again, there are fireworks and parades by torch bearing groups.[12] In another motorcade, Hitler is hailed by the populace. Many observe from windows opening onto the motorcade route. Others hail him after having climbed onto any high place, even up lamp posts.[13] In the same venue of the first speeches, Hitler gives a speech closing the proceedings. This speech, just like all the others documented, have no programs or explanations but are designed to create enthusiasm for a new Germany, united, that can do extraordinary things, that can solve problems and build for a better future, where the ordinary worker is treated with dignity, and all are motivated by patriotic love for the German nation.

Tags: historical

Review:
Me Myself I

Plot synopsis:
Pamela Drury is single and works as a serious journalist. She spends her birthday alone and becomes lonely and reflects upon her life and the choices she made and secretly wishes she had gotten married and had children. In a box of photos of old boyfriends, she reflects upon why she broke up with one in particular, Robert Dickson, 13 years earlier. She also meets an interesting man, Ben and follows him home, only to see through his window that he is with his family and looks very happy. Shortly afterwards, she is hit by a car while crossing the street.
The woman who was driving the car is also Pamela, but is Pamela Dickson; she is from an alternate universe in which she married Robert 13 years earlier. Pamela Dickson takes Pamela Drury to the Dickson family home and the two of them talk in the kitchen. Suddenly, Pamela Dickson's kids come home and she disappears, leaving the unmarried Pamela Drury in a house she has never seen before with three children she does not know. The children assume she is their mother, although they do not quite recognize her sometimes.
She soon finds out that her alternate version Pamela Dickson lives in a dull marriage and writes lightweight fluff articles for a mainstream ladies magazine, rather than being the serious reporter that Drury is. She meets Ben again, but in this time-line he was never married and still mourns the loss of the great love of his life, who was killed just before their graduation from college.
At first, Pamela Drury was pleased to be with Robert again after all these years apart, but she is soon unhappy and annoyed with married life, and quarrels with Robert. She embarks on an affair with Ben, not mentioning to him that she has a husband and kids (because she still doesn't think of herself as married or a mother). Ben visits her and learns the truth, and walks away angry and disappointed. Soon, Pamela Drury embraces having a family and falls for Robert again, and even stimulates him and enlivens her marriage. Then when Pamela Drury is in a restaurant bathroom, Pamela Dickson shows up again, and the two women switch back to their former lives. Pamela Dickson had been living the life of single Pamela Drury and enjoyed it but ultimately missed her husband and kids so she came back. Pamela Drury is single once more and embraces her life with a new appreciation of all that being single and having a career has to offer. She learns that while she was gone, Pamela Dickson began dating Ben, who actually is divorced from the woman she saw through the window, the same woman who alternate-Ben had thought was his soul mate. Ultimately she sees that both lives are appealing and offer a lot to appreciate.

Tags: romantic, alternate reality

Review:
Tu cara me suena

Plot synopsis:
Tu cara me suena (Your Face Sounds Familiar) is a talent competition that pushes a group celebrities to take on a new identity every week as an iconic music performer. Eight celebrities battle it out on stage to perform as a different iconic musical artist every week. They are competing to win the top cash prize for their charity. The performances are voted by a panel of judges and competing celebrities. Points are earned based on singing, style, believability, etc. There are no eliminations. The judges determine the most points, but the celebrities can also add an addition five points to their favorite competitor. The scores are tallied in each show, ranking the contestants from first to last. The winner of each show earns 3,000 in cash for his charity. After each performance, the celebrities must choose who they will impersonate the following week. The selection is made with a buzzer and a giant screen that displays multiple images of different singers in rapid succession. Once the celebrity presses the buzzer, the images stop and the selection is made. The image could be of an artist who is foreign, much older/younger, or even of the opposite sex. To help the celebrities bring their A-game to the stage, a team of top stylist, singing, dancing and acting coaches are available to prep them before every performance. The one with the most points at the end of the series receives the top prize of 30,000 for his charity.

Tags: humor

Review:
Monsters in the Woods

Plot synopsis:
Low budget filmmaker JAYSON (Glenn Plummer) has made the movie of his dreams but to his dismay, it cant sell in Hollywood. The distributors tell him, You have nothing exploitative in your movie. Add some sex scenes, more violence, and maybe well buy your film. The distraught filmmaker approaches his neophyte, semi-psychotic producer BRAVO (Blaine Cade) and tells him, Put together a cast and crew were going to re-shoot and give them what they want! Bravo nervously tells him, Were out of money. Jayson screams at him, I dont care. Do WHATEVER you have to do!Bravo enlists a young movie crew to follow them into the remote backwoods of the Great Bear Mountains by telling them, Theres no money, but when we sell this, youll all get a big piece of the profits for your efforts and great craft service! Various B movie actors, including stuntman BURT (Edward Hendershott) and his gorgeous wannabe actress girlfriend ASHLEY (Linda Bella), join them as Jayson has promised her a role in the movie. After a series of behind-the-scenes interviews of this quirky bunch, they begin filming. Jayson is accidentally killed by his inept crew, and in the midst of all the confusion, Bravo strangely convinces them to finish the movie. They reluctantly agree but soon after are attacked by an unrelenting swarm of deadly devil dogs from Hell. Burt, Ashley, and Bravo briefly escape the danger as they are rescued by two angels sent from Heaven to battle the monsters. Unknown to them all, Bravo has made a pact with the Devil to provide twelve souls (theirs) in order to get the movie made. Mayhem ensues as the survivors attempt to kill the demons and close the entrance to Hell before the whole Earth is consumed by evil!

Tags: violence, satire

Review:
Lust for a Vampire

Plot synopsis:
In the deserted chapel at Karnstein castle, Count [Mike Raven] and Countess
Karnstein [Barbara Jefford] conduct a satanic ceremony to resurrect the body of their
daughter Mircalla. Richard LeStrange [Michael Johnson] has come to the village to get
background for his books about witches, vampires and black magic. Warned
to beware of Karnstein castle, he takes no heed. Immediately upon entering
the castle, he is set upon by three women dressed in shrouds. They turn out to
be students on an educational tour from Miss Simpson's [Helen Christie] fashionable
finishing school. As LeStrange is being introduced to Miss Simpson and her
students, a new student arrives, one Mircalla Herritzen [Yutte Stensgaard]. LeStrange falls
in love immediately.Later that evening, when LeStrange relates his adventure to the men
at the village inn, one of the serving girls is found dead with two holes
in her neck, and LeStrange is convinced that the Karnstein story is not
mere superstition. When he chances to meet the recently-hired teacher of
English literature on his way to Miss Simpson's school, he tricks him into
going to Vienna and arranges to take his position at the school.
Shortly thereafter, Mircalla's roommate Susan Pelley [Pippa Steele] disappears. When
the headmaster Giles Barton [Ralph Bates] discovers the secret of Mircalla/Carmilla, he
offers himself to her. Later that day, after Barton's body is found,
LeStrange goes through his books and discovers what Barton had
learned--that Mircalla Herritzen is Carmilla Karnstein. LeStrange
confesses his love for her, and they make "strange love".Miss Simpson, worried sick about the disappearance of a student and
the death of her headmaster, decides not to call in the authorities or to
notify Susan Pelley's father, particularly when Countess Herritzen's
private physician agrees to certify Barton's death as a heart attack.
However, dance teacher Jenny Playfair [Suzanna Leigh] notifies both the police and Mr
Pelley [David Healy], all of whom arrive to investigate.
The Karnsteins manage to kill the policeman who has just discovered
Susan's body in the bottom of a well, but Mr Pelley arrives with a writ of
exhumation and a pathologist to investigate his daughter's death. Susan's
body is exhumed (it has just been conveniently buried by the Karnsteins),
and talk gets around that she was the victim of a vampire. Together with
the village priest, the villagers storm Karnstein castle with the intent
of burning it to the ground.
LeStrange also makes his way to the castle, looking to save Mircalla.
The villagers trap all three Karnsteins in the burning castle, where a
burning timber falls from the ceiling and drives itself through Mircalla's
heart. LeStrange is saved from the fire, but Count and Countess Karnstein
remain."Fire is not harmful to us," says the Count as the villagers watch the castle burn.
[Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl]

Tags: gothic

Review:
New in Town

Plot synopsis:
Lucy Hill (Renee Zellweger) is a high achiever shooting to become a Vice President. To show the President that she has the ability, she takes an assignment to restructure one of their small manufacturing plants in Minnesota. From the high life in Miami to the bitter cold, snow, and icy roads, Lucy must endure these hardships to succeed. Lucy is treated as an outsider when she arrives, and the locals give her a week before she leaves. Lucy is a fighter and wants to win. She meets Ted Mitchell (Harry Connick, Jr.) who is the union representative. At first, she has some conflicts with the workers, but soon they begin to accept her. The new product line is a bust, and she is ordered to close the plant and fire everyone. However, she has a better idea of making money for the company and saving everybody's job. Along the way, she finds something she didn't know she was looking for - "Love".

Tags: romantic, boring

Review: