Samuli Edelmann stars as Viktor Kärppä, a former Russian special agent haunted by his past. He settles in Finland, the country of his ancestors, and tries to make a living as both a private investigator and business facilitator for Russian migrants, but finds himself continually involved with organized crime. Kärppa isn't a killer, even if he looks like one. Can a man change his identity - or shed his loyalties - merely by crossing a border? Written by mHz network
"The Straight Story" chronicles a trip made by 73-year-old Alvin Straight from Laurens, Iowa, to Mt. Zion, Wis., in 1994 while riding a lawn mower. The man undertook his strange journey to mend his relationship with his ill, estranged, 75-year-old brother Lyle. Written by Christian Sandberg
Chef Dave Oberlin's (Ryan Rottman) career is in shambles when his altercation with a famous food critic goes viral. After being blacklisted by the elite restaurants, Dave is forced to take a teaching position at his friend's culinary arts school. When cardiologist, Dr. Nina Kirby (Maya Stojan), is up for a promotion at the local hospital the Head of Cardiology informs her if she gets Dave on board to teach the Healthy Living seminars she would be a shoo-in for the position. The only problem is Nina can't cook and she doesn't want to learn. With a little coaxing from her best friend and coworker, Olivia (Tanya Chisholm), Nina agrees to take Dave's class. When Nina presents Dave with the Healthy Living seminars he's disinterested in working with her due to her lack of class participation. In her effort to persuade him to get on board, Nina and Dave come across some unexpected common ground.
A partying teen and her friends decide to perform an ancient pagan ritual found online called 'The Midnight Game': Candles are lit. A drop of blood is spilled. Their worst fears are confessed and an entity is summoned. But if the rules are not followed exactly, punishment is promised. Tonight, the game is not being taken seriously. A demonic horror has been unleashed. And now, even daylight cannot stop the nightmares that may destroy them all. Written by Mark Bruno
This sweeping account of the life of Pu-Yi, the last emperor of China, follows the leader's tumultuous reign. After being captured by the Red Army as a war criminal in 1950, Pu-Yi recalls his childhood from prison. He remembers his lavish youth in the Forbidden City, where he was afforded every luxury but unfortunately sheltered from the outside world and complex political situation surrounding him. As revolution sweeps through China, the world Pu-Yi knew is dramatically upended. Written by Jwelch5742
In New York, Janice Templeton is happily married to executive Bill Templeton and they live in a comfortable and fancy apartment with their eleven-year-old daughter Ivy. One day, Janice is stalked by a weirdo and she tells her husband. Soon afterwards the stranger contacts them and invites the couple to meet him in a restaurant. Elliot Hoover tells Janice and Bill that his daughter Audrey Rose died eleven years ago, burned in a car crash, and her soul has been reincarnated in Ivy's body. Bill and Janice believe that Elliot is nuts, and Bill tells his lawyer to get a restraining order against Elliot. However, Ivy has dreadful nightmares and only Elliot is able to calm her down. When Elliot abducts Ivy, Bill and Janice go to court to have him arrested. But Elliot wants to prove that Ivy and Audrey Rose are the same soul. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Driving home along a generally unused country road following a speaking engagement, famed mystery novelist Tess Thorne experiences a flat tire on her car. She accepts the help of who she believes is a good Samaritan who stops to help her, but who instead rapes her, leaving her submerged in shallow water in a drainage pipe as dead. She found out that he actually orchestrated her getting the flat tire just moments before the rape. Alive, she, in shock, is able to make her way home, but she does not go to the hospital, dealing with her wounds herself, does not call the police, or tell any of her friends or acquaintances how she sustained her obvious injuries. Once the issue of what happened to her settles into herself, she decides to use her skills as an investigative writer to find out the reason behind what happened - if she was a random or targeted victim - and especially if the latter, how best to use that information to her advantage. Using her stories' grandmotherly heroine, Doreen... Written by Huggo
An adult nicknamed Misty is narrating a story about one summer in his life when he was an adolescent in the late 1960s. He was living in a Catholic orphanage in the Australian outback. His best mates were the "December boys" - Maps, Spark and Spit - the four of them so named because they were the boys in the orphanage born in the month of December. With a recent windfall, the orphanage decided to give each of the boys a group vacation for each of their birthdays, the December boys the first to go. Their vacation was to Lady Star Cove on the Australian coast, to stay at the home of Mrs. and Mrs. McAnsh - Bandy and "Skipper". Their relatively carefree Christmas vacation took a turn primarily from three events: learning the reason the McAnshes hosted the boys specifically at this time; Maps, the oldest in his mid-teens, exploring his sexuality with a girl named Lucy, who was also visiting Lady Star Cove for the summer; and Misty secretly learning that a young couple in the cove, Fearless... Written by Huggo
Skip and Harry are framed for a bank robbery and end up in a western prison. The two eastern boys are having difficulty adjusting to the new life until the warden finds that Skip has a natural talent for riding broncos with the inter-prison rodeo coming up. Written by John Vogel jlvogel@comcast.net
The small town of Haven becomes a hot-bed of inventions all run by a strange green power device. The whole town is digging something up in the woods, and only an alcoholic poet can discover the secret of the Tommyknockers. Written by Niz
The film tells the love story between Hans (Barry Atsma) and Margje (Noortje Herlaar) - sweethearts since school. Hans grows up in a strict religious environment, with a brutal father. He runs away from home at a young age and studies horticulture. After World War II, he starts a nursery in a village in the province of Gelderland. At first, he and Margje enjoy a happy family life and boundless love for one another. They also experience problems, however, with keeping the business going. One day, Hans meets Jozef Mieras (Marcel Hensema), who talks to him about God. After Hans hears God's voice in a vision, he becomes drawn ever deeper into his faith - a faith that will now determine the course of his life, and that of his family. The rifts between the different family members become greater and greater until Hans is completely in the grip of the religious sect. Yet Margje's unconditional love for him survives, in spite of all.
James has served time for drowning a little boy when he was a child, although the body was never found in the river. A visit from his victim's mother upon parole sends him on a quest to find the truth. With little time and danger at every turn, James risks his freedom and his life to uncover the trail of sins that might give closure to the grieving mother. Written by Downriver
The Elder boys return to Clearwater, Texas for their Mother's funeral. John the eldest is a well known gunfighter and trouble follows him wherever he goes. The boys try to get back their ranch from the towns gunsmith who won it from their father in a card game with which he was shortly murdered there after but not before getting through the troubles that come with the Elders name. Written by Christopher D. Ryan cryan@direct.ca
Sports physician Marcus persuades his unstable brother David to come with him and train for a bicycle race across the Rocky Mountains. Marcus doesn't tell David that he has a brain aneurysm which could render him paralyzed or dead at any given moment. While David powerfully heads for the victory, Marcus has to realize that the contest is now beyond his capabilities. / Features great views of the Rockies and an insight in the tactics of bicycle races. Written by Tom Zoerner Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de
The callous rich, portrayed by Lennox, think only of their own pleasure. Anna is but a poor country girl whom Lennox tricks into a fake wedding. She believes that it is true, but secret, while he has his way with her. When she is pregnant, he leaves her and she must have the baby, named Trust Lennox, on her own. When the baby dies she wanders until she gets a job with Squire Bartlett. David falls for her, but she rejects him due to her past and then Lennox shows up lusting for Kate. Seeing Anna, he tries to get her to leave, but she doesn't, and she tells no one about his past. When Squire Bartlett learns of her past from Martha, the town gossip, he tosses Anna out in a snow storm. But before she goes, she fingers the respected Lennox, as the father of her dead baby and the spoiler of herself. Written by Tony Fontana tony.fontana@spacebbs.com
Public schoolboy Roddy Berwick is expelled from school when he takes the blame for a friend's charge and his life falls apart in a series of misadventures. Written by Col Needham col@imdb.com
Brief vignettes about Lincoln's early life include his birth, early jobs, (unsubstantiated) affair with Ann Rutledge, courtship of Mary Todd, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates; his presidency and the Civil War are followed in somewhat more detail, though without actual battle scenes; film concludes with the assassination. Written by Rod Crawford puffinus@u.washington.edu
This is an English language film (made in America) adapted from a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque. The film follows a group of German schoolboys, talked into enlisting at the beginning of World War 1 by their jingoistic teacher. The story is told entirely through the experiences of the young German recruits and highlights the tragedy of war through the eyes of individuals. As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceptions about "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and bewildered. This is highlighted in the scene where Paul mortally wounds a French soldier and then weeps bitterly as he fights to save his life while trapped in a shell crater with the body. The film is not about heroism but about drudgery and futility and the gulf between the concept of war and the actuality. Written by Michele Wilkinson, University of Cambridge Language Centre, mw125@cus.cam.ac.uk
Wyatt Earp and his brothers Morgan and Virgil ride into Tombstone and leave brother James in charge of their cattle herd. On their return they find their cattle stolen and James dead. Wyatt takes on the job of town marshal, making his brothers deputies, and vows to stay in Tombstone until James' killers are found. He soon runs into the brooding, coughing, hard-drinking Doc Holliday as well as the sullen and vicious Clanton clan. Wyatt discovers the owner of a trinket stolen from James' dead body and the stage is set for the Earps' long-awaited revenge. Written by Doug Sederberg vornoff@sonic.net
When powerful publishing tycoon Earl Janoth commits an act of murder at the height of passion, he cleverly begins to cover his tracks and frame an innocent man whose identity he doesn't know but who just happens to have contact with the murder victim. That man is a close associate on his magazine whom he enlists to trap this "killer" - George Stroud. It's up to George to continue to "help" Janoth, to elude the police and to find proof of his innocence and Janoth's guilt. Written by Ron Kerrigan
In Korea, on 6 September 1950, Lieutenant Benson's platoon finds itself isolated in enemy-held territory after a retreat. Soon they are joined by Sergeant Montana, whose overriding concern is caring for his catatonic colonel. Benson and Montana can't stand each other, but together they must get the survivors to Hill 465, where they hope the division is waiting. It's a long, harrowing march, fraught with all the dangers the elusive enemy can summon. Who will survive? Written by Rod Crawford puffinus@u.washington.edu
In this engaging costume melodrama of skulduggery on the low seas set back in the 18th-century, the Royal Crown suspects a bit of smuggling is going on in this locale, and they send Captain Collier and his crew to check it out. As the Captain gets into his investigation, mysterious swamp phantoms cloud up the real issue which seems plain enough to see. Captain Collier suspects that the odd village vicar might be hiding something, and what better way to do that than by fortuitous ghosts to scare away the curious, or by posing as someone he is not? Written by Dylan Conner
In order to flee from powerful enemies, young Mayan king Balam leads his people north across the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of what will become the United States. They build a home in the new land but come into conflict with a tribe of Native Americans led by their chief, Black Eagle, while both Balam and Black Eagle fall in love the beautiful Mayan princess Ixchel. Written by Bruno Antony
Nerd. Milquetoast. Klutz. These are just three of the many undesirable words that can be used to describe Professor Julius Kelp. But all that changes when the chemistry expert invents a potion that transforms him into a suave, sexy chick magnet, whom Julius aptly names Buddy Love. Unfortunately, there's one side effect: Buddy can't control when he'll change back into Julius, an event that always happens at inopportune times. How will Julius/Buddy resolve his Jekyll-and-Hyde dilemma? Written by alfiehitchie
Penniless, Baron Frankenstein, accompanied by his eager assistant Hans, arrives at his family castle near the town of Karlstaad, vowing to continue his experiments in the creation of life. Fortuitously finding the creature he was previously working on, he brings it back to a semblance of life but requires the services of a mesmerist, Zoltan, to successfully animate it. The greedy and vengeful Zoltan secretly sends the monster into town to steal gold and 'punish' the burgomaster and the chief of police, which acts lead to a violent confrontation between the baron and the townspeople. Written by Doug Sederberg vornoff@sonic.net
During World War One, the British troops are entrenched at Passchendaele, Belgium. Among the volunteers there is a young British soldier, Arthur Hamp, who is the sole survivor of his original company. Hamp spent three years in the trenches and this makes him a veteran. He has never been accused of cowardice but one day he simply decides to leave the war behind him and walk all the way home to Britain. In Calais, France, he is challenged by a Military Police patrol who promptly arrests him for leaving without permission. Hamp's commanding officers decide to convene a Court Martial and charge him with desertion. If found guilty, Hamp could be shot by a firing squad. Captain Hargreaves is assigned to be Hamp's defending attorney but he seems skeptical about his chances of acquittal for the deserter. During their first talk, Captain Hargreaves is impressed by his client's utter sincerity and naivete. He learns that his client volunteered on a dare by his friends back home, spent three ... Written by nufs68
Stodge City is in the grip of the Rumpo Kid and his gang. Mistaken identity again takes a hand as a "sanitary engineer" (plumber) by the name of Marshal P. Knutt is mistaken for a law marshal! Being the conscientious sort, Marshal tries to help the town get rid of Rumpo, and a showdown is inevitable. Marshal has two aids - revenge-seeking Annie Oakley and his sanitary expertise... Written by Simon N. McIntosh-Smith Simon.N.Smith@cs.cf.ac.uk
Pseudolus is the laziest slave in Rome and has but one wish, to purchase his freedom. When his master and mistress leave for the day he finds out that the young master has fallen in love with a virgin in the house of Lycus, a slave dealer specializing in beautiful women. Pseudolus concocts a deal in which he will be freed if he can procure the girl for young Hero. Of course, it can't be that simple as everything begins to go wrong. Written by John Vogel jlvogel@comcast.net
The great hypnotist Professor Montserrat has developed a technique for controlling the minds, and sharing the sensations, of his subjects. He and his wife Estelle test the technique on Mike Roscoe, and enjoy 'being' the younger man. But Estelle soon grows to love the power of controlling Roscoe, and the vicarious pleasures that provides. How far will she go, and can the Professor restrain her in time? Written by Kieron O'Hara koh@psyc.nott.ac.uk
Neddy Merrill has been away for most of the Summer. He reappears at a friend's pool. As they talk, someone notices that there are pools spanning the entire valley. He decided to jog from pool to pool to swim across the whole valley. As he stops in each pool his interactions tell his life story. Written by John Vogel jlvogel@comcast.net
Director Billy Wilder adds a new and intriguing twist to the personality of intrepid detective Sherlock Holmes. One thing hasn't changed however: Holmes' crime-solving talents. Holmes and Dr. Watson take on the case of a beautiful woman whose husband has vanished. The investigation proves strange indeed, involving six missing midgets, villainous monks, a Scottish castle, the Loch Ness monster, and covert naval experiments. Can the sleuths make sense of all this and solve the mystery? Written by Joel Preuninger Jhpreunin@aol.com