Month: November 2020

Set during the 1997 general election ‘A Night In 97’ follows Bertie Oldcross, Labour’s candidate for Scarborough and Whitby, and his campaign manager Simon, as they attempt to cover up a crime on the eve of polling day.

Three stories that mingle during the performance: **** Story 1: Raniero marries Fosca, his second wife. Immediately the honeymoon in Venice becomes tragic, because Raniero’s weight is too much for Fosca, although he does not want it, the fact of having to face up to the “perfection” of his first wife, praised by Raniero. In the end, Fosca desperate suicides, just like his first wife. **** Story 2: The vulgar Ivano is married to Jessica, and their wedding journey becomes an uncompromising tour of discos. Soon the two realize that they have nothing in common to share because they know too much, and so they invent strategies to learn to “meet” again, without success, sinking into a state of depression and boredom. **** Story 3: The timid Giovannino is married to Valeria and is about to leave in a cruise ship; but at the last moment Giovannino can not even leave, because he must look after his elderly father, abandoned by the caretaker, while Valeria must think of her sister, who pretends…

In this dramatization of the 2000 Presidential election, Al Gore concedes the Presidency to George W. Bush, but recants when he learns of irregularities in the Florida vote count. Democratic strategists Ronald Klain and Michael Whouley race to Florida to uncover the truth, as do Republicans under James Baker III. Between faulty voting equipment and the vagaries of Florida’s Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a thirty-six-day stalemate ensues.

Dr. John Holden ventures to London to attend a paranormal psychology symposium with the intention to expose devil cult leader Julian Karswell. Holden is a skeptic and does not believe in Karswell’s power. Nonetheless, he accepts an invitation to stay at Karswell’s estate, along with Joanna Harrington, niece of Holden’s confidant who was electrocuted in a bizarre automobile accident. Karswell secretly slips a parchment into Holden’s papers that might possibly be a death curse. Recurring strange events finally strike fear into Holden, who believes that his only hope is to pass the parchment back to Karswell to break the demonic curse.

An evening of drunken prank calls becomes a nightmare for two teenagers when a stranger turns their own game against them, with deadly consequences.

To make Sidney’s slump all the more painful, Clifford Anderson, a student of one of Sidney’s writing seminars, has recently sent his mentor a copy of his first attempt at playwrighting for Sidney’s review and advice. The play, “Deathtrap”, is a five character, two-act thriller so perfect in its construction that, as Sidney says, “A gifted director couldn’t even hurt it.” Using his penchant for plot, and out of his desperate desire to once again be the toast of Broadway, Sidney, along with Myra, cook up an almost unthinkable scheme: They’ll lure the would-be playwright to the Bruhl home, kill him, and market the sure-fire script as Sidney’s own. But shortly after Clifford arrives, it’s clear that things are not what they seem. Even Helga Ten Dorp, a nosey psychic from next door, and Porter Milgram, Sidney’s observant attorney, can only speculate where the line between truth and deception lies.

Red is an aging scam-artist who’s just been released from prison together with Ronnie, a young and not-so-bright hoodlum who is easily manipulated. Their new business is to organize fake-money sales and then kill the buyer to take his money; but when Ronnie kills an undercover secret service agent, his partner Jimmy Mercer vows revenge and is given one week to catch the killers before being transferred.

A team consisting of a physicist, his wife, a young female psychic and the only survivor of the previous visit are sent to the notorious Hell House to prove/disprove survival after death. Previous visitors have either been killed or gone mad, and it is up to the team to survive a full week in isolation, and solve the mystery of the Hell House.

Alfred Blalock (1899-1964), a cardiologist (therefore, self-confident to the point of arrogance), leaves Vanderbilt for Johns Hopkins taking with him his lab technician, Vivien Thomas (1910-1985). Thomas, an African-American without a college degree, is a gifted mechanic and tool-maker with hands splendidly adept at surgery. In 1941, Blalock and Thomas take on the challenge of blue babies and invent bypass surgery. After trials on dogs, their first patient is baby Eileen, sure to die without the surgery. In defiance of custom and Jim Crow, Blalock brings Thomas into the surgery to advise him, but when Life Magazine and kudos come, Thomas is excluded. Will he receive his due?

The year is 1845, the earliest days of the Oregon Trail, and a wagon team of three families has hired the mountain man Stephen Meek to guide them over the Cascade Mountains. Claiming to know a short cut, Meek leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert, only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. Over the coming days, the emigrants must face the scourges of hunger, thirst and their own lack of faith in each other’s instincts for survival. When a Native American wanderer crosses their path, the emigrants are torn between their trust in a guide who has proven himself unreliable and a man who has always been seen as the natural enemy.

The main character is a nameless boy (Juan Jose Ballesta) who was taught to steal wallets by his absent mother. He is able to do the trick effortlessly, using his “earnings” to survive while he looks for his mom. As he runs into an antique store owner, he might have found a trace that will lead to her. First, however, he will have to pull off a few “jobs” for the store owner, and he can’t do it alone: enter a nameless girl (Maria Valverde) who gets to learn all the secret techniques the young boy has been using all his life.

A movie is being made of a story, set in nineteenth century England, about Charles, a biologist who’s engaged to be married, but who falls in love with outcast Sarah, whose melancholy makes her leave him after a short, but passionate affair. Anna (Meryl Streep) and Mike (Jeremy Irons), who play the characters of Sarah and Charles, go, during the shooting of the movie, through a relationship that runs parallel to that of their characters.

A man-hungry suburban woman feels frustrated since she lives in the home of her prudish aunt and cousin, who interrupt and criticise her amorous liaisons. A co-worker brings her to a tarot-card reader, who introduces her to a club of women who meet occasionally to share an intoxicating brew, tease each other erotically with long-stemmed roses and honour the heathen god Pan. The occultist manages to corrupt the aunt and cousin, and lure the woman into full-fledged membership so she might participate in its climactic ritual.

An in-depth look into the life and work of musician Frank Zappa.

While on a South Seas trip, a professor falls in love and marries an exotic native woman. What he doesn’t know is that she was raised by superstitious natives who believe her to be some kind of supernatural being.