“Laura Smiles” is an alarmingly effective portrait of a woman’s mental breakdown. We are introduced to “Laura” at her happiest time, in a warm, loving relationship with her fiancé (a very appealing Kip Pardue) in the city, literally the love of her life. In flashbacks, we then see the sweet development of this relationship out of order as these moments become brightly lit and colored memories that desperately intrude on her later in life, as she becomes consumed with guilt and remorse over his fate. These feelings start to overwhelm her current life as a wife and mother. As something inconsequential in what she calls her “suburban drudgery” triggers the past — in the supermarket, cooking, cleaning, at a school play– she acts out increasingly aberrantly to counteract the feelings they generate, especially when she can no longer distinguish past from present from dreams, recalling Blanche Du Bois.
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Peter is a medical student about to graduate and begin his residency. When his professor fails him, he winds up in bed with an actress and singer named Bogart rolling through Los Angeles. He accompanies her to the redwoods of northern California, where he encounters her eccentric family of pot farmers. But when Bogart runs away without a word, Peter is thrust into the picturesque and bizarre world.
Bill Pope is a CIA agent on a mission in London tracking down a shadowy hacker nicknamed “The Dutchman.” When he gets mysteriously ambushed and killed, an experimental procedure is used to transfer his memories into dangerous ex-convict Jericho Stewart. When he wakes up with the CIA agent’s memories, his mission is to find The Dutchman and eliminate him before the hacker launches ICBM’s and starts World War III. But complications soon arise and the mission turns personal.
Phillip is a wealthy quadriplegic who needs a caretaker to help him with his day-to-day routine in his New York penthouse. He decides to hire Dell, a struggling parolee who’s trying to reconnect with his ex and his young son. Despite coming from two different worlds, an unlikely friendship starts to blossom.
Werner Ernst is a young hospital resident who becomes embroiled in a legal battle between two half-sisters who are fighting over the care of their comatose father. But are they really fighting over their father’s care, or over his $10 million estate? Meanwhile, Werner must contend with his nutty supervisor, who insists that he only care for patients with full insurance. Can Werner sidestep the hospital’s legal team and do what’s best for the patient?
This early short from director Jane Campion concerns a group of teenage girls in the 1960s.
Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. The film begins with a montage of newspaper headlines describing steadily-rising unemployment figures. This is followed by scenes of a young man looking for work in the city and the family discussing the unpaid back rent. The young man, brother of the protagonist Anni, removes his wristwatch and throws himself from a window out of despair. Shortly thereafter his family is evicted from their apartment. Now homeless, the family moves into a garden colony of sorts with the name “Kuhle Wampe.”
In this Janette Oke sequel to “Love Comes Softly,” the eldest child in an 1800s frontier family, Missie Davis is a bright and beautiful elementary schoolteacher whose love for the prairie is matched only by her passion for books. When Missie encounters Grant, a handsome New England railroad executive, she feels as though shes met a hero from one of her novels.
The story of a young woman named Jane 57821, who is living in a totalitarian near-future society where citizens are referred to as ‘computers.’ ‘Dirty Computer’ explores humanity and what truly happens to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness when mind and machines merge, and when the government chooses fear over freedom.
An idealist district governor, Selahattin Bey, adopts Yusuf, orphaned after his family was killed by thugs. Yusuf falls in love with Muazzez, the daughter of Selahattin. But when Hilmi Bey’s son Şakir also wants to marry Muazzez, a conflict escalates.
Maine Congressman Charlie Winship has had a bad day. After being caught on video failing to stand and recite the pledge of allegiance, he knocks out another House member, confronts his angry ex-wife, and faces denunciation by the media for attacking one of the most cherished patriotic symbols in America. As his life spirals out of control, Charlie embarks on a journey to a remote island in the Atlantic whose eccentric inhabitants are in the middle of a shooting war over their fishing grounds. Treat Williams stars as The Congressman in this humorous and moving film that raises the important question of what it means to be an American.
