cryptexcode/MPST huggingface dataset:
Les chevaliers du ciel

Plot synopsis:
This is the French "Top Gun" circa 2005, and the title would be better translated "The Knights of the Sky"."Walk'n" Marchelli (Benoît Magimel) and "Fahrenheit" Vallois (Clovis Cornillac) are given an assignment to shoot down a rogue Mirage 2000 that has been hijacked by a secret French agency to test preparedness in a post-9/11 France during a Farnborough Air Show. Walk'n shoots down the plane after it locks onto his wing-man, and they are promptly side-lined and ostracised by the French air Force authorities and 'forced' to train two female pilots from the USA. Stopped from flying with a commercial airline, 'Walk'n" and "Fahrenheit" sign on to that "Special Missions" organisation, that then gets them into a series of situations in which their expertise and moral fibre are tested further.Notably, they fly a race against a flight of F-16s. The flight of three Mirage in which they are flying is forced to the ground and taken captive by mercenaries after an air-to-air refuelling plane is hijacked. They watch one of their fellow pilots be killed, and a female pilot is carried off. They escape: while Walk'n is giving a lesson to a renegade pilot, he disables that man and then activates the ejection seat, lands and picks up Fahrenheit. They straff and destroy one of the other planes before escaping. Meanwhile, one aircraft is disassembled and returned to the Paris region. It then takes off from a disused airfield to join a fly-over of Bastille Day celebrations at which there is also a major European meeting of heads of state.The two heroes work out what is happening, return to the flight line, and join the fly-past to find the rogue aircraft. The 'lost' female pilot is in it, now revealed as a terror sympathiser all along. She ejects, and Walk'n shoots down the plane after waiting for it to leave the built-up area and go over an area of forest within the Paris metropolitan area.Walk'n gets the girl: the "Special Missions" operative.The pace is 'fast', and the characters and the air-to-air photography is 'authentic'.

Tags: murder

Review:
The Last Schnitzel

Plot synopsis:
In not too distant future, Earth is dying.The UN calls for an immediate evacuation to Mars. But while leaders of states launch mass evacuations, the President of the Grand Turkish Republic has his own agenda. He demands to eat a chicken schnitzel for once before leaving Earth or else, no one is going anywhere. Kamil, the Chief aid to the President, is charged with the task to find the last schnitzel.Kamil, unsure what to do, first turns to the Minister of Nutrition for help. But all that the Minister can offer Kamil is a bottle of chicken-flavored pills. Kamil then contacts the Worlds Museum of Live Food in Copenhagen upon the suggestion of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Unfortunately, Danish Minister of Museums Skov Jensen tells him that the exhibition was never real. But the simultaneous broadcast of the US Presidents speech exposes Jensens dishonesty. As it turns out, Jensen and other EU States has eaten the whole museums exhibits, which outrages the US President, as he was not invited to the party. In retaliation, he responds by launching all of nuclear warheads, which will hit Europe in one hour.Pressed with time, Kamil takes matters in his own hands making one of the hardest decisions in his life. But his personal sacrifice pays off. He serves the last schnitzel to the President in the nick of time, and to his surprise, the President loves every bit of it.With grand relief, the Grand Turkish Republic shuttles leave for Mars as Earth explodes behind them.

Tags: satire

Review:
A Patriot Act

Plot synopsis:
In this off-shoot of George Orwell's 1984, set in modern-day USA in a small Florida town, Tony is a young waiter who is going through life not doing anything out of the ordinary. The War on Terrorism has been going on for a few years now. A little curious of current events concerning terrorists, he goes to a few Internet websites and checks out their Jihadest agenda, political views, Aljazera web TV broadcasts, and on-line beheadings.Tony goes through life as usual, once in a while covering a shift for a friend at work, once in a while hooking up with Kaleam, an Arab co-worker with a great connection to hash that Tony likes to smoke once in a while. Problem is that Kaleam is on the terrorist watch list. His cell is tapped and since Tony has been talking to Kaleam for a while, he is watched as well by unseen Homeland Security agents.One night, Kaleam phones Tony with something special, something that will take him to paradise. Some of the best hash & some killer X for he and his girlfriend to have a great long weekend together. Listening in on this phone conversation, this sets off the alarms. Later that night as Tony sleeps, the TTF (Terrorist Task Force) does a sneak and snatch of his apartment.It's a long holiday weekend. The apartment is raided and Tony and his girlfriend, Jessica, are bagged and swept, drugged and taken away by Homeland Security soldiers. Tony and Jessica are seperated and they go through CIA style questioning from threats of drug charges to the edge and what some would consider torture of beatings since Tony visited Internet sites supporting terrorists and because of his association with Kaleam. Days pass as the interogations continue.The TTF (terrorist task force) realize that Tony is just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time and indeed has no connections to terrorists. The couple are drugged, "programmed" and placed back at home.Tony wakes up the next day, knowing something is wrong but his girlfriend is convinced that they did too much partying. Still thinking something is wrong, he goes to the bathroom to shower and knock the webs out of his head. While shaving, he notices a small needle mark on his neck. He leans into the mirror for a better look. We spin around looking back at Tony through the mirror following a cable up the wall to a blinking box with an antenna attached to a hidden camera on the other side of the mirror.Cut to a plain white van sitting on the side of the road. Going through the blocked out window, we see a man sitting in a surveillance van watching a monitor showing Tony looking at himself in the bathroom mirror. Pulling back, we see the man watching Tony as well as many other people also on surveillence video screens.US Library of Congress register / WGA register 2005

Tags: violence

Review:
One, Two, Three

Plot synopsis:
C.R. "Mac" MacNamara is a high-ranking executive in the Coca-Cola Company, assigned to West Berlin after a business fiasco a few years earlier in the Middle East (about which he is still bitter). While based in West Germany for now, Mac is angling to become head of Western European Coca-Cola Operations, based in London. After working on an arrangement to introduce Coke into the Soviet Union, Mac receives a call from his boss, W.P. Hazeltine, in Atlanta. Scarlett Hazeltine, the boss's hot-blooded but slightly dim 17-year-old socialite daughter, is coming to West Berlin. Mac is assigned the unenviable task of taking care of this young whirlwind.
An expected two-week stay develops into two months, and Mac discovers just why Scarlett is enamored of West Berlin: she surprises him by announcing that she's married to Otto Piffl, a young East German Communist with ardent anti-capitalistic views. When the southern belle is confronted about her foolishness in the matter of helping him blow up anti-American "Yankee Go Home" balloons (how the couple met) she simply replies with, "Why, that ain't anti-american, it's anti-yankee... And where I come from, everybody's against the yankees..." Mac tries to come to terms with the fact that he let his boss's daughter marry a communist and learns the horrible truth: The couple are bound for Moscow to make a new life for themselves ("They've assigned us a magnificent apartment, just a short walk from the bathroom!"). Since Hazeltine and his wife are coming to Berlin to collect their daughter the very next day, this is obviously a disaster of monumental proportions, and Mac deals with it as any good capitalist would — by framing the young Communist firebrand and having him picked up by the East German police, using all his wiles, as well as his sexy secretary Fraulein Ingeborg, to get his way. After Otto is forced to listen endlessly to the song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" during interrogation, he cracks and signs a confession that he's an American spy.
Under pressure from his stern and disapproving wife Phyllis (who wants to take her family back to live in the U.S.), and with the revelation that Scarlett is pregnant, Mac sets out to bring Otto back with the help of his new Soviet business associates. With the boss on the way, he finds that his only chance is to turn Otto into a son-in-law in good standing — which means, among other things, making him a capitalist with an aristocratic pedigree (albeit contrived by adoption). In the end, the Hazeltines approve of their new son-in-law, upon which Mac learns from Hazeltine that Otto will be named the new head of Western European Operations, with Mac getting a promotion to VP of Procurement back in Atlanta. Mac reconciles with his family at the airport and to celebrate his promotion, offers to buy them Cokes. Ironically, after handing out the bottles to his family, he discovers that the Coke machine actually has been stocked with Pepsi-Cola.

Tags: comedy, entertaining

Review:
Brothers

Plot synopsis:
Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) and Tommy Cahill (Jake Gyllenhaal) are brothers. A Marine captain about to embark on his fourth tour of duty, Sam is a steadfast family man married to his high school sweetheart, Grace (Natalie Portman), with whom he has two young daughters, Isabelle and Maggie (Bailee Madison, Taylor Grace Geare). The film opens with Tommy being released from jail for armed robbery, not long before Sam departs for Afghanistan in October, 2007.
Soon news comes that Sam's helicopter has crashed over the water, killing all of the Marines aboard. In reality, he and a hometown friend, Private Joe Willis (Patrick Flueger), have been taken prisoner in a mountain village. With Sam "gone", Tommy attempts to redeem himself in the eyes of his family by wrangling old friends to help with kitchen repairs for Grace and the kids. Grace slowly sheds her previous resentment towards her brother-in-law.
As months pass, Grace and Tommy bond over their mutual mourning, culminating in a passionate fireside kiss. They regret it afterward, and do not take this attraction any further, though Tommy continues to win the favor of his nieces. Meanwhile, Sam and Joe are abused and tortured by terrorists, forced to make videotaped dismissals of the military and their mission, though only Joe cracks. The captors eventually deem him useless and force Sam, at gunpoint, to beat Joe to death with a lead pipe. He does so and reacts angrily. Sometime later, Sam is rescued.
Sam returns home, clearly traumatized by his experience. He drifts through encounters in a cold, paranoid daze, refuses to explain to his family what happened while he was in Afghanistan, and lies to Joe's widow that he does not know how Joe died. He also believes Tommy and Grace had a sexual relationship in his absence. During Maggie's birthday party, a resentful and jealous Isabelle claims that Sam's paranoid assumptions are true: that Tommy and Grace slept together. Sam becomes enraged, destroying the newly remodeled kitchen with a crow bar and pulling a pistol on Tommy who arrives and tries to calm his brother's violent tantrum. The police arrive, and after a frantic confrontation in which Sam holds the gun up against his head and nearly commits suicide, Sam surrenders.
Sam is admitted to a mental hospital. Grace visits him and tells him that if he does not tell her what is tormenting him, he will lose her forever. Faced with this decision, Sam finally opens up about the source of his pain, confiding in her that he killed Joe and they embrace. A letter between husband and wife is read in voice over, with Sam wondering if he will be able to continue living a normal life.

Tags: melodrama, murder, home movie

Review:
Tale of a Vampire

Plot synopsis:
Alex [Julian Sands] is a vampire but he drinks only the blood of animals. Anne Baker [Suzanna Hamilton] has just suffered the death of her boyfriend. Anne and Alex have never crossed each other paths until a mysterious man in a hat gets Anne a job at the Library where Alex comes each evening to read aged documents in search of information about a 19th century woman named Virginia Clemm. There is a resemblence between Anne and Virginia which Alex cannot help noticing, and the two become friends. The day after Alex "kisses" Anne for the first time, the mysterious stranger appears to warn her that Alex's "love bite" is actually the bite of a vampire. Anne goes to Alex's house, intending to kill him while he sleeps, but instead she asks him to make her a vampire. Alex refuses. Anne disappears. Alex finds her lying on his bed, dead, wrapped in red ribbon, a thank-you present for Alex's "undying love". From the shadows springs the mysterious man. He impales Alex with a sword and finally identifies himself as Edgar Clemm [Kenneth Cranham], the husband of Virginia. Edgar is also a vampire, and he is the one responsible for Anne's death (among others). In addition, he reveals to Alex that he has imprisoned Virginia in a lead box under the North Sea, there to suffer alone the vampire "undeath" until the end of time. This is to be her punishment for betraying him. As Edgar bends to kiss Anne, Alex impales him with a pole and tosses his body into the river below. Alex attempts to "awaken" Anne but to no avail.

Tags: violence

Review:
Kill Me Again

Plot synopsis:
Jack Andrews (Val Kilmer) is a seedy low-rent private detective barely staying above ground, and in debt to Reno loan sharks. Fay Forrester (Joanne Whalley) and Vince Miller (Michael Madsen) drive up to a couple of crime gambling delivery thugs and steal a suit case full of $800,000 dollars, an amount that Vince thought would be a lot lower. Vince tell Fay that they need to leave the state because for such a large amount the gangsters will surely track them down, but Fay wants to go to Vegas, so she slugs Vince over the head and steals the money. When Fay approaches Jack with a request to help her fake her own death so that her abusive ex-husband cant find her, Jack is both eager for the work but is attracted to the woman apparently in trouble. Jack manages a feasible scheme by obtaining blood and staging a seeming murder in Fays motel room. When Jack returns to get paid he discovers that Fay has left town, and the Police are eager to know from him all the details of the murder. Jack catches up to Fay just as the crooks do and they escape and have a moment of real affection, but realize that the police are tracking them down. Fay suggests that Jack create a fake death for the both of them just as he did before, so they bury the cash in the desert and go into action. Vince however has tracked them down as Fay and Jack attempt to retrieve the money. The plan to escape faces additional challenges as Jack realizes his fate.

Tags: neo noir, murder

Review:
Chinaman's Chance: America's Other Slaves

Plot synopsis:
AMERICA THE LAND OF THE FREE, THE HOME OF THE BRAVE, A MECCA FOR IMMIGRANTS WHERE THE AMERICAN DREAM IS AN INALIENABLE TRADITION. A YOUNG MAN IS ACCUSED OF MURDER. HES ON THE RUN, AN UNDERDOG AND A MAN AGAINST THE ODDS. HE BECOMES A FUGITIVE AND IS VICIOUSLY HUNTED DOWN, IN A TIME WHEN STEALING A HORSE GOT YOU HUNG BUT KILLING A CHINAMAN WAS NO CRIME. CAN THIS YOUNG CHINESE IMMIGRANT (RAILROAD WORKER) FIND JUSTICE? SURVIVE WHILE STRUGGLING FROM WITHIN AND CONFRONTING GREED, RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL DIVIDES. PERSEVERING BIGOTRY, CHEAP LABORAT WHAT PRICE? THIS UNTOLD TALE OF AMERICAS PAST WILL TRANSPORT YOU ON A PROVOCATIVE EAST MEETS WEST JOURNEY. INTERTWINED WITH THE ROOTS OF THE CHINESE THE AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE MEXICANS DRAMATICALLY CLASH WITH AN EMERGING NEW AMERICA. CAN NON-VIOLENCE, PEACE, LOVE REDEMPTION AND FORGIVENESS TRANSFORM THIS VIOLENT LAWLESS, WILD WEST INTO A MORE PEACEFUL, MORAL AND ENLIGHTENED AMERICA? THE STORY BEGINS; I AM SOMEBODY; NO CHANCE IN HELL... 1854: THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DECLARED THE CHINESE AS NON PEOPLE. 1857: THE UNITED STATE GOVERNMENT PASSED THE DRED SCOTT DECISION, DENYING EQUAL JUSTICE AND CITIZENSHIP TO PEOPLE OF COLOR, ALLOWING THEM TO BE BOUGHT AND SOLD AS MERCHANDISE. 1882: THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PASSED THE CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT PROHIBITING THE CHINESE FROM CITIZENSHIP AND ENTERING THE UNITED STATES UNTIL 1943. 2009: THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DECLARED AN OFFICAL APOLOGY TO THE CHINESEAFTER 127 YEARS.

Tags: violence, murder, romantic

Review:
Getting That Girl

Plot synopsis:
In the final days of her senior year Mandy Meyers (Gia Mantegna) is forced to change high schools when her father's business moves the family from Washington D.C. to Southern California. As attractive as she is intelligent, Mandy sees McDermott High as a chance to start fresh, have some fun, and try things shes never done before.On Mandys first day of school, Jini Jacobs (Elizabeth Nicole) and Jenna Jeffries (Inbar Lavi), McDermott Highs two prettiest yet cruelest seniors befriend Mandy and attempt to show her the wild side of Southern California high school life. Likewise, the entire male senior class has also taken notice of Mandy, and shes soon being chased by both Andy Wasilewski (Escher Holloway), an apathetic yet charismatic stoner, and Tommy Bush (Drew Gallagher), a star football player. Shocking to many, Mandy falls head over heels for Andy.Although his heart is in the right place, hes rough around the edges and in dire need of parental guidance, spending most school nights in his fathers mansion smoking pot and getting drunk by himself. As Andy and Mandy proclaim their love for each other, Andy gets cold feet; hes never had a long-term girlfriend before. Suffering major commitment issues, he self-destructs and impulsively has sex with freshmen hottie Erika Jacobs (Alexandra Mason), who happens to be Jini Jacobs little sister, in the English Building restroom. Mandy immediately dumps Andy, and he falls into a life-altering depression.Tommy once again pursues Mandy and asks her to the prom. Still furious at Andy, she tells Tommy that shell think about it. To further persuade her, Tommy throws a pre-prom party on Mandys behalf. Thoroughly defeated, Andy decides not to go to Tommys party. But just when he thinks his chances of getting back with Mandy are completely over, his two best friends Ferrat Barrett (Luke Eberl) and Ned Fouler (Will Rothhaar) show up at his house and urge him to come back with them to the party. Mandys still in love with you, they shout at him.Meanwhile, Bill Beauchanon (Daniel Booko), Tommys best friend and Jinis on again/off again boyfriend, drunkenly decides its his turn to pursue Mandy. As Bill forcefully and inappropriately hits on Mandy, she rejects his advances and decides its time to go home. Bill becomes enraged and pushes her to the ground. Luckily, Andy shows up and challenges Bill to a fight. Andy and Bill beat the pulp out of each other, which Andy finally ends by knocking Bill out with a brutal right hook. Andy then looks around, but Mandy is nowhere to be found. Ferrat and Fouler point west, and Andy runs after her. Amidst the streetlights and empty road, Andy catches up to Mandy and proclaims his love for her. Thunder crashes, lightening strikes, and rain falls from the sky... and they kiss.

Tags: romantic

Review:
Red Hill

Plot synopsis:
Shane Cooper (Ryan Kwanten), a young police officer, relocates to the small town of Red Hill with his pregnant wife Alice (Claire van der Boom). On his first day on the job, he is shown hostility from Old Bill (Steve Bisley), the head of the police force, for being unable to find his gun and getting shot on duty when he couldn't bring himself to fire his weapon on an armed boy.
Shortly afterwards, the police learn that Jimmy Conway (Tom E. Lewis), a convicted murderer who was arrested by Old Bill for killing his wife, has escaped from prison. Knowing that Jimmy will return to town to seek revenge, Old Bill orders his officers and a group of civilians to arm themselves and shoot Jimmy on sight.
Old Bill's men prove to be no match for Jimmy, who remorselessly kills officers and armed civilians. The convict encounters Shane but lets him live. When Shane finds Old Bill, he confronts Bill over the fact that Jimmy spared his life and learns that Bill has refused to call for backup from a nearby town. Shane draws his gun on Bill, but again finds himself unable to fire it and is subsequently knocked out and handcuffed to a table.
Shane escapes and uses a satellite phone at Gleason's farm to contact the nearby police for backup. During the call Shane discovers Gleason (Cliff Ellen) on the verge of hanging himself; when Shane talks to him, the farmer reveals that Jimmy Conway is innocent of the murder of his wife. The murder was the work of Old Bill and his men, who set fire to Jimmy's house after raping and killing his wife, revenge for Jimmy's interference in a proposed railroad extension that would have gone through Red Hill. Gleason informs Shane that he has a written document of what really happened, before committing suicide. Now knowing the real reason why Jimmy returned to Red Hill, Shane returns home to get his gun, which Alice found while he was on duty.
Near the outskirts of town, Old Bill sets stacks of hay on fire to attract Jimmy's attention. Jimmy arrives and kills Bill's last remaining deputies, but is stopped from finishing Bill off when two of Bill's friends arrive and hold him at gunpoint. Shane also arrives and saves Jimmy by shooting Bill's friends after informing Bill that he knows the truth.
The police backup arrives and confront Jimmy as he prepares to get his revenge on Old Bill. Despite Shane's efforts to get him to drop his gun, Jimmy kills Old Bill and is promptly shot by the police. Before dying, the seemingly mute Jimmy tells Shane that his wife was pregnant with his son.

Tags: revenge, suspenseful, murder, violence, flashback

Review:
Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Plot synopsis:
A group of Canadian kids, from elementary to high school ages, of different cultural and economic backgrounds, come together once a week at night and share their love of horror by telling scary stories. Their ritual is that each week one kid in the group tells a story. He/she throws sugar into a campfire and declares their story's title. The rest of the episode features the story on-screen. Some of the stories are meant to be scary, others are meant to be funny, but each one usually has a lesson on various topics (bullying, science gone wrong, animal rights, respecting the elderly, friendship, good manners, poverty, moving to a new place, etc.).The show was in competition with Goosebumps, Eerie Indiana, The X-Files, Tales From the Crypt and several other similar shows from the Nineties. At one point, all the members of the midnight society, excluding Tucker, are replaced with younger and very immature kids, and this was the point when the show began to go downhill. Some members of the Midnight Society only lasted two or three episodes, most notably Stig (his name may be short for Stigma). He's a chubby, overweight and lazy kid who never changes his clothes. Nonetheless he told the story 'The Tale of the Dead Man's Float', which became one of the most popular episodes of the show among fans. Two recurring characters were Dr. Vink (a jolly but evil and sadistic old man) and Sardo (a sleazy and shady but benevolent magic shop owner). Both characters often get involved in stories. Dr. Vink usually has dark schemes to lure kids into things, and Sardo usually gets caught up in helping the kids he sells his junky products to.

Tags: good versus evil, paranormal, psychedelic, horror, storytelling

Review:
Scream Blacula Scream

Plot synopsis:
After a dying Voodoo queen, Mama Loa, chooses an adopted apprentice, Lisa Fortier (Pam Grier) as her successor, her arrogant son and true heir, Willis, (Richard Lawson) is outraged. Seeking revenge, he buys the bones of Mamuwalde the vampire from the former shaman of the voodoo cult, and uses voodoo to resurrect the vampire to do his bidding. However, while it brings Mamuwalde back to life, he quickly bites Willis upon awakening. Willis now finds himself in a curse of his own doing: made into a vampire hungering for blood and, ironically, a slave to the very creature he sought to control. Meanwhile, Justin Carter (Don Mitchell), an ex-police officer with a large collection of acquired African antiquities and an interest in the occult, begins to investigate the murders caused by Mamuwalde and his growing vampire horde. Justin meets Mamuwalde at a party Justin hosts to display the African collection pieces before being moved to the University's museum. They discuss the artifacts, unbeknown to anyone else, that were from the region of Africa Mamuwalde hails from, including pieces of jewelry once worn by his late wife Luva. Mamuwalde also meets Justin's girlfriend, Lisa Fortier, at the party and he discovers that Lisa is naturally adept at voodoo. Lisa discovers Mamuwaldes' true nature after a friend of hers, Gloria, falls victim to his bite and resurrected as a vampire who nearly feeds on her if not for Mamuwalde's intervention. He later asks her for help to cure him of his vampire curse. Justin, with the help of L.A.P.D. Lieutenant Harley Dunlop (Michael Conrad), pulls together several other cops to go to the Mamuwalde residence to investigate the recent deaths. While Lisa is performing the ritual to cure Mamuwalde, using a voodoo doll fashioned to look like him, Justin, Harley and their men raid the house, fighting against Blacula's vampire minions which include several friends of theirs. Willis is killed during this scuffle. Justin manages to find Lisa and Mamuwalde and interrupts the ritual. Lisa refuses to help Mamuwalde after she witnesses him kill the other police officers in the house in a fit of rage. As Mamuwalde, now calling himself Blacula, is about to bite Justin, Lisa stabs the prince's voodoo doll killing Mamuwalde and destroying the menace of Blacula forever.

Tags: blaxploitation

Review:
Pearlie

Plot synopsis:
Pearlie is an animated series about a fashionable young urban fairy in charge of Jubilee Park, a magical oasis in the centre of a bustling big city. Pearlie is a park fairy with a giant-sized heart and a wardrobe to match. Appointed by Fairy HQ, she keeps Jubilee Park in sparkling order. She's full of nutty, over the top plans, parties and events for the park and its residents. She has assistance in Jasper, her right hand elf, although he prefers chilling out to real work. Theres also Opal, an outback fairy from Australia sent to learn the ropes of park management from Pearlie.
But all isn't perfect in Jubilee Park. Pearlie's cousin Saphira is jealous of Pearlie's popularity in the fairy world and desperately wants her job. With her incompetent assistant Ludwig the bat, Saphira sets out to spoil perky Pearlie's day any way she can.
Pearlie is based on the books by Australian comedienne and broadcaster Wendy Harmer.

Tags: fantasy

Review:
Flesh and Bone

Plot synopsis:
While helping his grifter father burgle a house in rural Texas, young Arlis Sweeney watches him murder the entire family, leaving only a crying baby. Fast forward 30 years. Arlis has settled into a bleak routine restocking vending machines on a route that includes "a place to eat, a place to sleep, and a woman" in every dusty roadside town. Into this routine falls Kay Davies, another damaged soul down on her luck and stranded away from home and her abusive ne'er-do-well of a husband. Arlis is going that way and agrees to give her a ride. While the two are at her house, movers arrive to take the furniture, which her husband sold to pay gambling debts. Seeing nothing to remain for after a confrontation with her husband, Kay leaves with Arlis. Arlis and Kay begin to fall for each other. In the middle of a rainy night, a knock on their motel door introduces Ginnie, a young woman who makes her living stealing jewelry off corpses in funeral homes. Pleading car trouble, she leads Arlis to her car where his estranged father Roy, who exudes sleaze and criminality, is waiting with a back full of buckshot. Arlis patches up his father and lets the pair spend the night in his room. The next day, they go their separate ways. As Ginnie and Roy pass an abandoned house, Ginnie remarks that it's the same house that's in a photograph that Kay is carrying with her. Roy realizes that Kay must be the crying baby he spared 30 years ago. Roy hates loose ends. Arlis comes to the same realization, and tries to break it off with Kay, leaving her in the motel room with some goodbye cash while he goes on a business errand from which he doesn't plan to return. Possibly changing his mind, he calls Kay's motel and learns that she left with Ginnie. Judging by the directions that the motel clerk said Ginnie asked for, Arlis guesses that they're headed for the old house. In fact, Roy was setting a trap for him. Ginnie tells Kay that there's a surprise in store for them at the old house. Arlis soon arrives, and after Roy sends the girls out for a walk, he and Arlis have a confrontation. Roy says he can't trust Arlis not to tell Kay that he murdered her family, so one of them will have to kill Kay. Instead, Arlis shoots his father. Arlis finds it too painful to be with Kay, and too painful to try to explain her past to her (she was told by her foster parents that her family died in a car crash). He tells her "Some things, it just don't do no good to talk about." Kay doesn't understand, but realizes that she and Arlis aren't going to make it. As he told her, he's a creature of habit, and she doesn't fit in. Regretfully, they part.

Tags: murder

Review:
The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Plot synopsis:
The gypsy Esmeralda captures the hearts of many men, including those of Captain Phoebus and Pierre Gringoire, but especially Quasimodo and his guardian Archdeacon Claude Frollo. Frollo is torn between his obsessive lust for Esmeralda and the rules of the Notre Dame Cathedral. He orders bandits to kidnap her, but the hunchback is captured by Phoebus and his guards, who save Esmeralda.
The following day, Quasimodo is sentenced to be flogged and turned on the pillory for one hour, followed by another hour's public exposure. He calls for water. Esmeralda, seeing his thirst, approaches the public stocks and offers him a drink of water. It saves him, and she captures his heart.
Later, Esmeralda is arrested and charged with the attempted murder of Phoebus, whom Frollo actually attempted to kill in jealousy after seeing him trying to seduce Esmeralda. She is sentenced to death by hanging. As she is being led to the gallows, Quasimodo swings down by the bell rope of Notre-Dame and carries her off to the cathedral under the law of sanctuary, temporarily protecting her from arrest.
Frollo later informs Gringoire that the Court of Parlement has voted to remove Esmeralda's right to sanctuary so she can no longer seek shelter in the cathedral and will be taken away to be killed. Clopin, the leader of the Gypsies, hears the news from Gringoire and rallies the citizens of Paris to charge the cathedral and rescue Esmeralda.
When Quasimodo sees the Gypsies, he assumes they are there to hurt Esmeralda, so he drives them off. Likewise, he thinks the King's men want to rescue her, and tries to help them find her. She is rescued by Frollo and her phony husband Gringoire. But after yet another failed attempt to win her love, Frollo betrays Esmeralda by handing her to the troops and watches while she is being hanged.
When Frollo laughs during Esmeralda's hanging, Quasimodo pushes him from the heights of Notre Dame to his death. Quasimodo later goes to Montfaucon, a huge graveyard in Paris where the bodies of the condemned are dumped, where he stays with Esmeralda's dead body until he dies. About eighteen months later, the tomb is opened, and the skeletons are found. As someone tries to separate them, they crumble to dust.

Tags: tragedy, romantic, cruelty, murder, melodrama

Review:
Mutant Chronicles

Plot synopsis:
The story is set in the year 2707. The world is loosely based on that of the Mutant Chronicles role-playing game, where many technologies are steam powered and mankind has exhausted Earth’s natural resources. The protagonists must battle against mutated humans that were accidentally unleashed.
The plot revolves around a "machine" which came from space 10,000 years ago. The "machine" mutates people into barely intelligent killing drones, known as "mutants", that drag new victims to the machine for conversion. Sealed away thousands of years ago by human tribes, the machine is accidentally uncovered during a large battle in Eastern Europe between two of the four corporations that now rule the world. Within six weeks the world is almost completely conquered by the mutant gangs. Some of the population has been evacuated to Mars, but millions remain on the doomed Earth. A group of soldiers are assembled to take another ancient device to the heart of the machine in an attempt to destroy it in a suicide mission. In return, their loved ones receive coveted tickets to Mars.
En-route their spaceship is shot down by a kamikaze airship piloted by a mutant. The group is forced to battle through the mutants in underground tunnels to reach the machine, hoping to save the last of humanity. In their attempt to reach the machine most die, with Mitch being partially transformed into a mutant and Brother Samuel being fully transformed. Mitch is able to halt his own transformation, but is forced to kill Brother Samuel. Mitch, being the last survivor, is ultimately successful in activating the ancient device, causing the machine (which was actually part of a spacecraft) to blast off into space.
A dying and mutated Samuel tells him to "have faith" as Mitch jumps from the slowly ascending rocket, landing in an underwater lake beneath the rocket. Crawling onto land he sees the rocket disappear into the sky, realizing he is the prophesied savior of mankind, despite not believing in a god. Grievously wounded and partially mutated, he lights a final crooked cigarette. An ultimate sequence shows the rocket heading for Mars.

Tags: violence, sci-fi, flashback

Review:
Woman on the Run

Plot synopsis:
As the film opens, a man, Frank Johnson (Ross Elliott), is walking his dog in the city at night. He witnesses a man in a car talking about a crime. The man then gets shot. But whoever shot that man then sees Frank and shoots at him. The shot misses, however, because it is mistakenly aimed at Frank's shadow. The killer then flees in the car.
When the police arrive it is explained that the shooting victim was going to testify in a court case against a gangster. Since Frank saw the shooter, the cops now want Frank to testify. They plan to take him into protective custody. But Frank, while the police inspector (Robert Keith) has momentarily turned away, gives police the slip, leaving his dog (named Rembrandt because his owner is a painter) behind. The police think he is running to escape possible retaliation from the mob. So they contact Frank's wife, Eleanor (Ann Sheridan) to solicit her help in finding him. But she suspects he is actually running away from their unsuccessful marriage.
Later learning that her husband has a heart condition, Eleanor gets the needed medicine and goes looking for him, aided by a newspaperman, Danny Leggett (Dennis O'Keefe) who says he is looking for an exclusive story. The two conduct their own investigation, giving only limited aid to the police. But the police remain determined, since they need a trial witness. Eleanor is aided in her search by Frank's efforts to contact her. In a letter left with a mutual contact he gives her cryptic instructions on how they can secretly meet. The instructions require that she remember a significant event from their life together. But she has trouble doing so.
As the search continues it is gradually revealed to the audience that Danny the newspaperman is really the killer. He is simply using Eleanor to find Frank. Once Eleanor figures out the cryptic reference, she and Danny go to a beachside amusement park at night and there manage to locate him. Wanting time alone with Frank, ostensibly to get his newspaper story and pay Frank $1,000 for it, Danny puts Eleanor on the roller coaster. As she rides she suddenly realizes what Danny has really been up to. But she is trapped until the ride ends in what becomes the frantic climax of the film.
As Eleanor finally gets off the roller coaster, Danny is on the verge of killing Frank. The two fight and shots ring out. Eleanor breathlessly arrives on the scene to discover that the police inspector has just shot the killer. She rushes to her husband and the two embrace.

Tags: murder

Review:
Paheli

Plot synopsis:
The movie is narrated by two puppets, voiced by Naseeruddin Shah and his real-life wife Ratna Pathak Shah.
Enthusiastic young Lachchi (Rani Mukerji) is to be married to Kishan (Shah Rukh Khan), the son of the rich merchant Banwarlal (Anupam Kher). Kishan is a dutiful son who honors his father's wish to start a new, far-away business on a predetermined auspicious date, which happens to be the day after the wedding ceremony. On the wedding night, Kishan turns away from his wife to finish his bookkeeping, and in the early morning hours sets off on a business trip that is to last five years. Lachchi is devastated; Gajrobai (Juhi Chawla), her husband's sister-in-law, consoles her, empathizing on the grounds that Gajrobai's husband Sunderlal (Sunil Shetty) has also disappeared. The next day, a ghost appears, having taken Kishan's shape and voice because of his own attachment to Lachchi.
Lachchi is thus presented a riddle (hence the title "paheli") between the representation of all of her desires in the form of the ghost and her real husband. She takes this new, fond, sexual, magical, social, self-confident version of Kishan as hers. As Kishan, the ghost befriends all of the real Kishan's family and keeps Bhanwarlal happy by providing him with magical, possibly illusory, gold coins. His only blunder is in his treatment of the messenger Bhoja, who is perplexed by the idea that Kishan has sent a letter from his business trip only to receive it himself in his own house and offended when the ghost (who appears as Kishan) does not offer him a drink of water. Lachchi's bliss goes on until four years later, when she is pregnant and the real Kishan returns to see if the rumours about his wife's pregnancy are true. He returns to find the ghost in his (Kishan's) own form. Kishan's family is unable to determine which of the doppelgangers is the real Kishan (the ghost refusing to confess). They decide to visit the king so that he can arbitrate.
On the way to the king they meet an old shepherd Gadariya (Amitabh Bachchan) who helps them out. He asks the real son of Bhanwarlal to pick up hot coals, asks the real husband to gather the sheep, and asks Lachchi's real paramour to enter a water-bottle. The real Kishan is found out and everyone returns home. Lachchi is devastated over the loss of the ghost. In the very end it is revealed that the ghost has escaped the bottle and taken control of Kishan's body to live with her. By now Lachchi has given birth to a daughter, Looni Ma, by whom the ghost exposes his identity to Lachchi. The puppets close the story, remarking that the plot is "an old story".

Tags: fantasy

Review:
Sea of Love

Plot synopsis:
New York City homicide detective Frank Keller is a burned-out alcoholic. His wife left him and married one of his colleagues, and he is depressed about reaching his 20th year on the police force. He is assigned to investigate the murder of a man in Manhattan, shot dead while face down in his bed, naked, listening to an old 45rpm recording of "Sea of Love." Keller has three clues — a lipstick-smeared cigarette, a want-ad that the dead man placed in a newspaper, and fingerprints of the perpetrator.
A second man dies in the same manner in Queens. Detective Sherman Touhey from the local precinct suggests that he and Frank collaborate. Both victims had placed rhyming ads in the lonely hearts column of the newspaper, seeking dates. The detectives track down Raymond Brown, the only other man with a rhyming ad. He's a married man who admits placing the ad but swears that he threw away all the letters and never saw anyone. Frank gets an idea to place a rhyming ad in the paper, meet women who respond in a restaurant and take the prints from their drinking glasses. Frank's precinct chief is skeptical, but changes his mind when Brown turns up dead in the same manner as the other two murder victims.
Frank has dinner with several women, while Sherman — posing as a waiter — puts their glasses into evidence bags. One woman, divorcee Helen Cruger, shows no interest in Frank and leaves without taking a drink, so Frank is unable to get her fingerprints. Frank bumps into her again at a market, but this time she is more friendly. Helen manages a chic upscale shoe store. Frank does not reveal his true occupation.
Frank takes her to his place, against his better judgment and a warning from Sherman not to do so. They start getting passionate, but Frank panics after finding a gun in her purse and treats her roughly. It turns out to be a starting pistol. Frank apologizes, and they have sex.
Frank and Helen begin a romance. He has a chance to obtain Helen's fingerprints on a glass but decides to wipe the glass clean. Their relationship becomes strained when she discovers that he is a cop. One night when he is drunk, he nearly gives away the fact that Helen was involved in a sting. He starts to confess his feelings for her, but then discovers that she responded to each of the victims' ads. When he confronts her, Helen refuses to admit to anything, so he throws her out.
Moments later, the real killer bursts into the apartment: Helen's ex-husband Terry, who has been stalking Helen and murdering the men she dates. At gunpoint, he makes Frank lie on his bed and show how he made love to Helen, just as he had done to his other victims before murdering them. Frank manages to overpower Terry and tries to call the police, but Terry lunges at him and, in the ensuing struggle, Frank throws Terry through the bedroom window to his death.
Several weeks later, a newly sober Frank reunites with Helen. She forgives him, and they resume their relationship.

Tags: mystery, neo noir, murder, haunting

Review:
Oro, plata, mata

Plot synopsis:
Oro Plata Mata traces the changing fortunes of two aristocratic families in Negros during World War II. The Ojeda family is celebrating Maggie Ojedas (Andolong) debut. In the garden, Trining (Gil) receives her first kiss from Miguel Lorenzo (Torre), her childhood sweetheart. Don Claudio Ojeda (Ojeda) and his fellow landowners talk about war. The youngest guests mock Miguels refusal to join the army and brand him mamas boy. The celebration is cut short by news of the fall of the Corregidor. As war nears the city, the Ojedas accept the invitation extended by the Lorenzos, their old family friends, to stay with them in their provincial hacienda. Nena Ojeda (Lorena) and Inday Lorenzo (Asensio) try to deny the realities of war by preserving their pre-war lifestyle. Pining for her fiancé, Maggie goes through bouts of melancholy. Miguel and Trining turn from naughty children into impetuous adults.Two more family friends a doctor, Jo Russell (Valdez), guerillas and Viring (Villanueva) join them. As the enemy advance, the families move to the Lorenzos forest lodge. A group of weary guerillas arrive and Jo tends to their injuries. The guerillas leave Hermes Mercurio (Lazaro) behind. Miguel endures more comments of the same kind when he fails to take action against a Japanese soldier who came upon the girls bathing in the river. It is Mercurio who kills the Japanese. Maggie comforts Miguel, who decides to learn how to shoot from Mercurio. Meanwhile, Virings jewelry is stolen by Melchor (de la Cruz), the trusted foreman. He justifies his action as a reward for his services. He tries his to break the other servants loyalty, but they force Melchor to leave. Later, Melchor and his band of thieves return. They raid the food supplies, rape Inday and chop off Virays fingers when she does not take off her ring. Trining goes with the bandits, despite all the crimes they have committed against her family. These experiences committed Maggie and Miguel closer together. Miguel urges the survivors to resume their mahjong games to help them cope. Miguel is determined to hunts the bandits down and bring Trining back. He catches them, but his courage is replaced with bloodlust, driving him to a killing spree. An epilogue follows the violent climax. The Americans have liberated the Philippines from Japan. A party is held in the Ojeda home to announce Maggie and Miguels betrothal. The survivors attempt to reclaim their previous lifestyle, but the war has changed the world, just as it has forever marked each of them

Tags: insanity, violence, sadist

Review:
And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself

Plot synopsis:
Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa (Antonio Banderas) finds himself without adequate funding to finance his war against the military-run government. He also finds himself at odds with the Americans because of the Hearst media empire's press campaign against him. To counter both of these threats, he sends emissaries to movie producers to convince them to pay to film his progress and the actual battles. Producer D.W. Griffith (Colm Feore) is immediately interested and convinces Mutual Film Studios boss Harry E. Aitkin to send a film crew. Aitkin's nephew Frank Thayer is initially a mere errand boy for the studio, but he makes a good impression with Villa, who demands that Thayer be placed in charge of the project. Thayer and a camera crew team film Villa leading his men to victory in battle. Despite the failure of this initial footage (which draws derisive laughter from potential backers) Thayer convinces Aitkin to invest even more money in a second attempt, and also convinces Villa to participate in making a more narrative film.
Thayer returns to Mexico with a director, actors, producers, cameramen and screen writers, and begin to film Villa's previous exploits using a younger actor, future film director Raoul Walsh (Kyle Chandler). The filming goes well, although Villa becomes angry that the screenwriters and the director have changed history to make a more dramatic film. However, he agrees to do a cameo appearance as an older version of himself. Meanwhile, Frank begins a romance with actress Teddy Sampson (Alexa Davalos) whom he's had a crush on since they first met. One night Villa announces that they will attack a Federal held fort at Torreon and win the revolution. The film's director and his crew tell Villa that they are not coming with him to film the battle. Villa scares them into going to the battle by having a firing squad shoot over their heads.
The next morning, Villa assembles his men to attack Torreon. Thayer and his team go into film the action. After a skirmish on the way to the fort, Villa's army arrives at Torreon and lays siege to the fortress. Villa orders an attack and personally leads the charge. Villa's army is initially successful, but they suffer heavy casualties and are forced to withdraw. That night, Villa orders his army to bombard Torreon into submission, and, after a long, brutal bombardment, Villa's cavalry finish off the last of Torreon's Federal defenders. However, Thayer and his camera crew team witness Villa personally shooting a Mexican widow in cold blood with his handgun during the aftermath of the battle. Disgusted, the team leaves.
'The Life of General Villa' is shown in theaters in America, and to great success, although Thayer and his camera crew members regret making the film.
Nine years later General Villa is driving his car with an associate and two of his bodyguards through Parral, Chihuahua. His car is flagged down by a Mexican civilian, when several Federals suddenly appear with machine guns. Villa reaches for his pistol, but is shot several times and is killed.

Tags: violence, murder

Review: