Kent State


            "Make love when you can...when you're dead, you're dead". the morals of the story and the philosophies of Howard Campbell Jr. Howard is writing his story from an Israeli prison.
Howard is an American by birth who moves to Germany as a child with his diplomat father and mother. As Hitler takes power, Howard, now an adult, remains in Germany and becomes a well known playwright. Married to the German Helga, Howard has no real political leaning. However, as WWII breaks out and Germany declares war on the United States, howard is recruited to become a spy for his native land. He reluctantly agrees and plies his trade through propaganda radio broadcasts for the Nazis, becoming accepted by Goebbels, the director of propaganda for the Third Reich.
His broadcasts become so convincing that he is branded a Nazi war criminal and captured by American Soldiers.
Howard's OSS contact arranges for his escape from custody and moves him into a dreary flat in New York City.
Thinking that his beloved wife has been killed, Howard leads a drab existence and makes only one friend...a friend who later betrays him to Israeli war criminal hunters.
Before the betrayal, Helga appears at his door and he begins to live again, only to find that it is not Helga but her younger sister Resi. After his hopes are dashed, he resigns himself to capture and ultimately to go to his punishment.
    

Mother Night


            
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A Midnight Clear


            Sensual images of a couple, a man and a woman, making love in the shower. He (Robbie L. McDermott) suddenly attacks her.Cut to a couple making love in bed. It looks like she was the woman who was remembering the shower scene. When he finishes, she doesn't seem to be much satisfied. The radio is on.The woman is named Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson). She tells off her son Peter "Pete" Miller (Keith Gordon) because he doesn't want to go to the museum with her: he prefers to stay home working on an improved computer which can count binary numbers up to 20 digits. It looks like Kate's partner, Mike (Fred Weber) is not Pete's father.Kate leaves home to see her psychiatrist, Doctor Robert Elliott (Michael Caine), who has to perform the duties of receptionist as Mary is on a holiday. Kate complains about the "surprise" visit of her mother from Florida due to her approaching birthday. She also complains about Mike's "specialties". She is fed up with her husband and mother, but she doesn't say anything to the right person. Elliott tells her not to get angry with him but with Mike and tell him that he's bad in bed. She questions Elliott whether he finds her attractive or not. He admits that he finds her attractive but he also says that he's married and doesn't want to put his marriage in danger. Kate says she isn't sure whether putting his own marriage with Mike at risk would be worthwhile.Later, Kate is at the museum. A man sits next to her. She leaves a glove for him. They follow each other around the museum. She loses his sight, so she has an expression which says "obviously, he wasn't serious about me", but when he turns around he's there, staring at him. She seems to panick for a second and then is happy that he's not there. But he appears again, on her back, touching her with her own glove. When she realises she's lost it, she tries to find it, and then she realises he's got it. Music in innuendo while she tries to find him. When she leaves the museum, she sees his hand showing the glove from a yellow cab. She smiles and tells him politely "thank you for retrieving my missing glove", but he pulls her inside. They make love while the taxi driver (Sean O'Rinn) looks at them through the inside mirror. She has a noisy orgasm.They arrive to his destination, his apartment. She stays with him through the afternoon. When she is about to leave, she finds papers stating that he's suffering from a sexually-transmitted disease, and that she will have probably caught it. She leaves. When she is in the lift, she is so nervous that she caresses her hands one against the other. Then, she realises that she's forgotten her wedding ring in the apartment of the man. She has to go to the flat again, but when she gets to the right floor, another blond woman - probably using a wig - with dark sunglasses stabs her with a straight razor. Kate is left for dead, all bloodied. Another couple of people has called the lift: they are discussing the convenience of buying the shares of a particular company. He runs away, but Elizabeth "Liz" Blake (Nancy Allen) stares at him. When she looks inside the lift, Kate is still alive. They try to reach out for each other's hand, while the doors of the lift are slowly closing down. In the last second, Liz stares up and in the reflection of the mirror she sees the blonde-wigged woman who is about to cut her hand as well. She backs up. A cleaning lady (Amalie Collier) appears, and she shouts when she looks at Liz with the razor menacingly held by her hand.Elliott finds an answering machine left for a man (William Finlay) saying that there is a woman trying to het out of his body. He's worried, because the man has also admitted to stealing a straight razor from the cabinet of his office.Detective Marino (Dennis Franz) questions Elliott, who gets very defensive but doesn't mention the answering machine message. Meanwhile, Liz is waiting to be questioned as well and Pete is listening to the whole conversation. Marino mentions that the man, Warren Lockman (Ken Baker) was recognised by the taxi driver. Mike picks Pete up.Marino questions Liz about what she was doing in the building. She says she was with a married man. She is a prostitute. Marino suspects of her: nobody saw the blonde woman and her fingerprints are on the weapon. The man, Ted (Norman Evans), is from out of the city, and Marino tells Liz that she is the only interested person in finding Ted.When Liz leaves, Pete is also stuck with a man he doesn't love at all - his true father died during the 'Nam war. He tries to investigate the case as well. In his blue moped, he follows Liz all over the city. He arranges a camera to be hidden inside the box at the back of the bike. While he watches Liz, the mysterious man has phoned Elliott again, threatening her. Liz tries to stay home, but she needs the money to invest in the company which Ted had recommended, so she asks for 500 dollars to meet a client, Cleveland Sam (Brandon Maggart), in the room 331. She leaves a bit distraught. She jumps onto a taxi but realises that somebody is following her. She asks the young taxi driver (Bill Randolph) to lose the follower. The taxi driver wants to meet her for dinner. The taxi driver tries to help Liz: she opens the door of the taxi when the blonde lady is following Liz. Liz runs to the underground, but when she tries to leave another blonde transsexual or travesty scares her off. Liz approaches some black men (Robert Lee Rush, Anthony Boyd Scriven, Robert McDuffie and Frederick Sanders) who are listening to the radio, but one of them, called Sonny, threatens her as the train arrives.Liz tells the police officer (Samm-Art Williams), who ends up thinking she is making it all up, because he can't see any gang threatening to "cut her up", and Liz's claims that a blonde is following her leave the officer even more convinced that she's mad. In the next station, the police officer leaves. When the doors close, the gang appears again, just causing a nuisance to all passengers. Liz runs from them and closes one door behind. At that moment, the blonde woman puts a hand on her mouth and wants to slash her with another straight razor. Fortunately, Pete saves Liz using an anti-rape spray of his invention. Liz invites him over. Pete sleeps at Liz's, and she promises that he won't tell anyone that he's not studying French with at his friend Paul's. Liz tells him that she knows that the blonde woman left the doctor's office, but she can't explain how she knows it. As Marino can't get a register order like that, he suggests her to enter Elliott's office and check the doctor's agenda.Dr. Levy (David Margulies) tells Elliott that one of her patients Bobby / Bobbi (William Finlay) has stopped seeing him because he didn't approve of his sex change. Elliott tells Levy that Bobbi must be the murderer of the lady in the lift, and they also comment on the missing razor. Later, Liz pretends to be a new patient of dr Elliott. She tells him about an erotic dream of her, but also admits that she's a prostitute, although she sometimes makes love to men for pleasure. She gets naked trying to seduce him. During all this time, Pete is watching with some lens. Liz checks the address book of dr Elliott and she thinks that the name she's looking for is Chris Clemens. Pete tries to to tell her that the blonde woman is inside the office - he's seen it - but a blonde woman has attacked him, so when he finally can cry out to Liz the blonde woman is already prepared to slash her with a Straight Razor.At that moment, the blonde woman who is holding Pete down shoots Bobbi.The wig falls off. The blonde woman is a wounded man. It's the doctor Robert Elliott.Some time later, Levy, Marino, Pete and Liz are sitting down. Levy explains that Elliott had a double personality: he was the masculine doctor but he was also a patient who wanted to have a sex change performed, and giving Bobbi as his name, he visited doctor Levy. Levy says that Elliott represent Bobbi, but that when Bobbi decided to go for the sex change surgery, that pushed him to act. Levy said that every time that doctor Elliott felt attracted by a woman her alter-ego killed that woman. The blonde woman who attacked Pete was police officer Betty Luke (Susanna Clemm), who was in charge of following Liz. Marino pushed her to enter dr Elliott's address book because he didn't have any proofs against him.Liz explains to Pete how a sex change operation takes place. He replies, sitting confortably at a restaurant with her, that he may change the subject of his investigation, and use himself as the subject of that sex change, instead of investigating about computers.Meanwhile, back at a madhouse, a nurse (Anneka di Lorenzo) walks in to give Dr Elliott the medicine he must take. He looks defenseless and sleepy, but he jumps and strangles her. All the loose madmen cheer. Pete invites her to sleep at his home, saying that his step-father won't mind.Naked in the shower, Liz feels some danger. Somebody dressed as a nurse approaches, and she knows it. She doesn't have anything to defend herself in the bathroom, except for something in the medicine cabinet. However, suddenly, the razor is at Liz's neck. The same blonde woman cuts Liz's neck.Terrified, Liz wakes up in a bedroom at Pete's. He tries to calm her down.FADE TO BLACK
    

Dressed to Kill


            It's 1958 in Detroit. We are inside a car factory where numerous Plymouth Fury's are being assembled. Among the rather plain-colored vehicles, one of them stands out: a bright-red one. During the process, this particular red car is being fussed about by one factory worker who has his hand injured when the vehicle's hood comes down on it. Another factory worker takes a seat inside the vehicle; he will be found dead afterwords.Present day, September 16, 1978 in Northern California. Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) is a meek teenager who spends his weekends playing Scrabble with his parents (Christine Belford and Richard Darnell), who still treat him as a child. Arnie and his best friend Dennis Guilder (John Stockwell) are going to their school, as usual. Arnie is clumsy, and his black-rimmed glasses characterize him as being nerdy. Dennis is a football player, who still befriends Arnie and tries to stand up for him.During shop class, Arnie is bullied by several students led by Buddy Repperton (William Ostrander). Dennis tries to stop the bullies, but he can't be all the time checking on weak Arnie. Today, Buddy stamps on Arnie's sack-lunch and also breaks his glasses. When both Arnie and Dennis tell the shop teacher that Buddy had a switchblade in his possession when he teased Arnie, it looks that the only consequence will be bad for Arnie, as Boddy announces he will take his own back pretty soon.Arnie and Dennis start their way back to their homes. Arnie notices a used Plymouth Fury with a placard announcing "SOLD". Supposedly, this is the same vehicle that we saw on the Detroit assembly line... only now it's dirty, gritty, broken, with pieces peeling off or falling apart. In spite of everything, Arnie falls in love with this car. He immediately wants to buy it. The owner, George LeBay, tells the story of the car: he inherited it from his dead brother, Roland. The current owner also tells Arnie that the car has a name: Christine.Arnie drives Dennis home in his new car. Once at home, Arnie's overprotective parents angrily start pestering him for having spent his money on a car without consulting them, and especially one in Christine's wrecked condition. Arnie angrily shouts back that throughout his life, they haven't allowed him to have something he truly wants, and that he is dead-set on keeping Christine. However, his parents refuse to have it parked in their driveway. Arnie decides to take it to a local junkyard garage run by an irritable middle-aged man named Will Darnell (Robert Prosky) for storage.Over the next several weeks, Arnie begins working on Christine whenever he has a bit of free time after school. He also starts to help Mr. Darnell around his garage. This was the first time when Arnie stood up to his parents. However, it's not only about being against parental control. Dennis also notices a subtle change in Arnie, as he seems to be more assertive. Weirdly enough, Arnie has stopped using his eye glasses.During a football game, Dennis is shocked to see Arnie arrive in Christine, now fully-restored into a shining beautiful red car, but also along for the ride is the new student, Leigh Cabot (Alexandra Paul). The sight of the two of them together causes Dennis to make a mistake on the field as he's tackled hard. This puts an end to Dennis' football career - and to his ambitions for the future-, so he ends up recuperating in hospital, surrounded by medical paraphernalia.Meanwhile, Arnie continues to date Leigh. One night, he takes her to see a film at the drive-in; and there, Leigh confesses to Arnie that she thinks he's moving too fast in their relationship. She also claims she feels unsettled when she is around Christine. During the movie, one of Christine's windshield wipers becomes stuck, and Arnie gets out to fix it. As he does so, Leigh chokes on a hamburger and immediately, the door latches lock themselves! Arnie tries to get back into the car unsuccessfully. Basically, Leigh has to save herself when she manages to unlock the passenger door, and a nearby viewer who saw her struggling performs the Heimlich maneuver on her.Arnie then drives Leigh home. At her doorstep, she tells him that she won't go anywhere in Christine again. There are weird things about the car, she says, like when only old songs can be reached through the radio aerial, but none of the local radio stations can be heard. Arnie then returns Christine to Darnell's garage.After Arnie's departure, Buddy Repperton and his thugs arrive, and they proceed to systematically destroy the car. Arnie sees the wreck done to Christine the following day and is shocked that all the work he had put into restoring the car has evaporated.Arnie suspects that Leigh was somehow responsible for the wreck. He is getting into trouble as home as well, as his temper is radically changed. His parents notice the acute change in him and they comment that they want the old Arnie to come back. The long Scrabble nights are over, and Arnie has one big row with his father. But more and more, Arnie can only think of one matter: he wants to restore Christine to its full beauty again.Next day, first thing he does is going to the salvage garage to re-start work on Christine. Determined, he looks for his tools. Turning his back on Christine, he hears the crinkling of metal behind him. Arnie looks at Christine startled, and he realizes that, part of her engine is now repaired as if by magic. Arnie doesn't look startled anymore, and he encourages Christine to restore herself in front of him. The car flicks her headlights on, and obediently, there is suddenly mayhem: pieces are moving to their original position, the hood dusts itself off, the aerial strengthens up, buttons and seats start mending themselves and end up being shiny as brand new. The living malevolent car has the power to regenerate.A more-determined Arnie goes back to high school life. Nobody dares to touch him now. At night, Christine comes to life by herself and she seeks out and gruesomely kills each gang member who took part in destroying her. He runs after them. Eventually, Christine arrives at a gas station, spilling gasoline, setting it on fire so that the building becomes debris and ashes. Christine catches fire herself, but that doesn't stop her, as she still goes after Buddy. He tries to run away the scene, terrified because he has seen an unexplainable thing happened. The following morning, Chrisitne becomes the quiet, shiny, brand-new red car of the cover painting.Christine also kills grumply Will Darnell, by the slow method of crushing him in the front seat against the steering wheel. Christine has to deform herself in order to do this, but the following morning, she is in perfect condition.Some weeks later in December, Dennis catches Leigh in high school between classes and he talks to her about Arnie and his car. Dennis and Arnie are not best pals anymore, and Leigh had realised that, in spite of not having broken up verbally with Arnie, there is no place in his life for her. Holidays approach, and New Year's Eve is close. Dennis and Leigh talk about the supernatural element in Christine, knowing that they can only talk to each other about that, as nobody else would believe them. They know they will have to kill Christine.Dennis decides to call on his old buddy at his home, but Leigh advises him to take caution. After she leaves, it's Arnie who calls on Dennis instead. Arnie arrives in Christine and invites Dennis over. Arnie drives Dennis to the former's. Dennis realises about Arnie's dazzled eyes, even before Arnie starts doing things he would have never done before, during his nerd phase: he drinks beer in Homer Simpson-quantities, he terrorizes other drivers and even copies the "without-hands" motorbike stunt. Dennis watches how Christine's mile counter moves backwards, having less miles instead of more. Arnie tires to explain to Dennis how wonderful, strong and fulfilled he feels when he is driving Christine; Arnie's words increasingly become those of a starry-eyed lover.When Dennis leaves Christine, he is more unsettled than ever. Dennis is determined that the nightmare has to stop. He thinks that killing Christine is the only way of returning Arnie to normal. Dennis and Leigh may be having a thing going on between them, but it also may be that each one is the only safe rock of the other. They are worried about Arnie, especially Dennis, who really misses his best friend. Next morning, Dennis goes to the school parking lot and scratches "Darnell's Tonight" into Christine's hood, and drives off with Leigh. They go to Darnell's scrapyard and they wait for Arnie and Christine inside a bulldozer. Night falls down, and Dennis devises a plan. He tells Leigh to wait in the office. The plan is that she will shut door on Christine after her arrival, trapping the vehicle inside the office.Leigh leaves to do so. While she is on her way there, the car's lights suddenly break the night: she was hiding under a pile of garbage. Christine drives towards Leigh trying to run over her, but crashes on to one of the office walls instead. Arnie gets ejected through Christine's windshield and is impaled on a shard of glass, fatally wounding him. Arnie is bloodied, but in his last breath, he just caresses Christine's front bumper for the last time. In his own way, he dies happy.Enraged, Christine attacks Leigh once again. Dennis drives the bulldozer and he fights Christine, who is playing  Pledging My Love  at top volume on her radio. Christine is still set on dealing with Leigh first, so she approaches her top speed to run over her. However, Dennis drives the bulldozer up on to the car's back, stopping her and crashing her. Leigh climbs in to the cab of the bulldozer and embraces Dennis. Meanwhile, Christine returns back to life and begins to heal herself over again. So, Dennis has to drive the bulldozer over Christine, crashing her onto a thin layer of metal and glass materials, until her headlights flicker and then go out for good. Dennis compacts the red car onto a cube.The ordeal is over.However, later on, within that scrape-yard cube, a metallic stick starts to slowly move and straighten up...
    

Christine


            At Trinity School, a Catholic boys' preparatory school, the shy, socially inept 15-year-old freshman Jerome E. "Jerry" Renault makes the football team, despite his small stature. He struggles on the field during practice, but cannot keep up with the other teammates, and is often berated by the strict coach.Meanwhile, Archie Costello, the charismatic head of "The Vigils" a gang and secret society, compiles a list of socially ostracized students with the aid of Obie, The Vigils' nerd-like treasurer. These outcasts will be assigned to perform prank assignments as part of their Vigils initiations. Jerry Renault is on Archie's list, as is Roland "The Goober" Goubert. The next prank is to be "The Chocolates," and is designed to disrupt the school's annual fund raising chocolate sale. When Archie learns that Jerry Renault's mother recently died from cancer, he declares the young football player requires "therapy," and enlists Jerry in "The Chocolates" prank.Meanwhile, taking advantage of the Trinity School headmaster's illness and convalescence, the corrupt Brother Leon hopes to take over the position by gaining attention with a formidable fund raising effort. He purchases outdated Mother's Day candy, and plans to repackage it for the Trinity fundraiser. He hopes to sell 20,000 boxes of candy at a significantly increased profit, and thereby be declared the school's new leader. Unaware of the Vigils' plot against the chocolate sale, Brother Leon enlists Archie's aid in rallying fellow students to sell candy.During a secret meeting with the Vigils, Archie inducts "Goober" Goubert into the Vigils by assigning him to loosen the furniture screws in Brother Eugene's classroom. However, in time-honored Vigils tradition headed by Bill Carter, the Vigil's president and Archie's superior, Archie must blindly take one marble from among six - five white and one black - in a box. Should he select the black marble, Goober will be freed from his task and Archie will have to perform it. Archie draws a white marble, and Goober is charged with loosening the screws. Archie then declares that the chocolate sale will give the Vigils an opportunity to defy school authority once and for all. That afternoon, Jerry discovers a note from the Vigils in his locker, and later learns that he must refuse to sell candy for the school. Meanwhile, Archie is blackmailing another student, a local punk named Emile Janza, into keeping Jerry in line by threatening to reveal photographs of Emile masturbating.Dismayed at the rebellion against selling candy, Brother Leon threatens student David Caroni with a failing grade if he does not reveal the plot. Caroni explains that The Vigils ordered Jerry to refuse to sell candy for ten days. At the end of the ten days, however, Jerry still refuses to sell the chocolate. As brother Leon beats Jerry in front of the class, the boy fantasizes about his mother's death and about having a love affair with a female recluse named Lisa.Following Jerry's lead, other Vigils members and most of the other students join the chocolate boycott. Since Brother Leon used his own money to buy the outdated chocolate, his personal finances are at stake. In an attempt to restore order, he threatens to close the school if the Vigils continue in their refusal to sell chocolates. Archie fears that he is losing control of The Vigils when Obie reports that other students have been made aware of the "ten day plot," and blame the club for the threatened school closure.In response, Archie takes charge and orders The Vigils to start selling chocolates, and bullies younger members to steal money from their parents to make up the deficit. Brother Leon celebrates when 15,000 boxes of candy have been sold, but reminds the students they still need to sell 5,000 more to meet their goal.Giving in to pressure from Archie's blackmail, Emile Janza threatens to expose Jerry Renault as a homosexual if he continues to refuse selling chocolates. When Emile suggests to other students that Jerry's mother died of shame over her son's deviant sexuality, Jerry is beaten by a gang of pre-teen kids hired by Emile and ostracized by his classmates and the entire school.Finally, 19,950 boxes of candy have been sold, and Brother Leon believes the fifty unsold boxes represent Jerry's sales quota. In fact, the fifty boxes have been set aside by Archie and Obie as part of a boxing rally they have planned to take place at the school football field the following night. The contest pits Jerry against Emile, and the $2 tickets permit students to dictate the sorts of brutality they would like to see during the bout, with the fifty boxes of chocolate offered as the prizes for a knockout. As before, since he has made the assignment, Archie draws a marble. To his relief, he draws a white marble, but Carter reminds him there are two assigned to the task-Emile and Jerry - and Archie is forced to draw another marble. This time, however, his luck runs out and he draws the black marble.Archie is thrown into the ring, as the students' fight tactics are called out. In a twist of fate, Jerry knocks Archie unconscious to the cheers of the crowd. However Jerry imagines his mother sitting in the crowd crying, and realizes he has become just like his tormentors. Later, Jerry tells Goober, his one remaining friend, that he should have sold chocolates after all.After his humiliation, Archie is demoted and Obie becomes the new head of The Vigils. As Archie sulks, Obie concocts new demeaning initiation assignments.
    

The Chocolate War


            Thorton Melon is a successful and wealthy businessman who owns a nationwide chain of clothing stores for overweight people. Melon himself came from humble beginnings where his father pushed him to succeed in school, however Melon himself, despite his sharp business skills, never attended college. At a meeting of his top staff, he accepts a few new investment ventures and suggests modifying a few more when his son, Jason, calls him. Jason is a student at a prestigious school, Grand Lakes University. His father asks him how he's doing with his studies, if he's enjoying being in a fraternity and if he's doing well as part of the diving team. Jason tells him all is fine but is actually lying to his father; he isn't in a frat and he's only the towel boy for the diving team.Melon's snooty, mean and spendthrift 2nd wife, Vanessa, holds a dinner party for her rich friends at their luxurious house. Thorton mentions that nearly all the people who attend are only there for free food and drink and want to schmooze her for donations. While he raids the fridge for a beer, he catches Vanessa in a tryst with another man, Giorgio. Thorton has known about the affair for some time and when Vanessa demands a divorce, he presents her with papers and shows her several Polaroids of her having sex with Giorgio.After the party, while he practices diving in his pool, Thorton talks to his personal aide and bodyguard, Lou, about how he's let Vanessa weaken his relationship with Jason. He decides he's going to make a surprise visit to Grand Lakes to see his son. When they arrive, Thorton goes to the wrong Greek house - it's a sorority house - and finds out that Jason isn't in a frat or on the diving team. Jason tells him that he's unhappy at the university because he hasn't made very many friends and the frats & diving team don't want him as a member. Thorton tells him that he needs to stay in college so he can be successful in life. He also tells Jason that he'll join him for a semester at the university, enrolling as a freshman.Thorton has no record of his academic achievement to qualify as a student so he persuades the school's academic dean, Dean Martin, by donating money to construct a new building that will house the Thorton Melon School of Business. The school's dean of the business department, Philip Barbay, is appalled that Thorton is able to bribe his way into Grand Lakes. Thorton counters by saying that he has real world business experience that trumps Barbay's academic credentials.Thorton and Jason register for classes and both take Barbay's business course. In the first class, Thorton counters nearly every point Barbay makes about his lesson plan for the semester where they will learn about theory by building a fictional company that will make and sell a product. Later, Thorton and Jason attend a literature class taught by Diane Turner whom Thorton embarrassingly falls for immediately. Though she's seeing Barbay, she seems to enjoy Thorton's freewheeling personality and dates him as well. When Thorton forgets that he's supposed to meet Jason for a study session, Jason instead meets with a young woman who he's smitten with, Valerie, and they bond, despite Valerie's attachment to a snobby student, Chas. Meanwhile, Thorton, while partying at a local bar, comes to the aid of Jason's roommate, Derek, a politically radical troublemaker who'd earlier disrupted a pep rally for the football team. The team's captain threatens to beat Derek when Thorton has Lou intervene, prompting a huge brawl. Thorton later comments that the football team isn't nearly as tough as his high school team was.Thorton also connects with the school's diving coach; the man knew Thorton when he was an entertainment diver on a pier in Atlantic City. The coach tells him that Jason tried out for the team but didn't do well. Thorton has Jason execute a difficult dive for the coach on the spot.
Thorton soon finds that he likes the fun aspects of college; hanging out in bars, throwing parties, schmoozing with female coeds, but he doesn't like the academic work involved. He brings in his senior staff and hires people from scientific corporations to do his classwork for him. Jason is angered when his father presents him with an astronomy paper that Jason wants to do himself. Jason becomes further disillusioned with his father when, after he makes the diving team, that his father might have persuaded the coach to let him join.One night during a wild party thrown by Thorton in the dorm room he had luxuriously renovated, Thorton is caught in the hot tub by Diane with several young women. His relationship with her is further hurt when she reads the paper he'd turned in on Kurt Vonnegut, saying that he couldn't possibly have written it himself and that the person who wrote it for him didn't know anything about Vonnegut. (Thorton had called in Vonnegut himself (who appears in a cameo) for assistance.)Barbay soon goes to Dean Martin with charges leveled against Thorton of academic fraud. Thorton lies and insists the work he did was his own but Barbay trumps his claim by suggesting that Thorton's final exams be given to him in oral format so he can't cheat. Thorton begins to pack, wanting to leave. Jason convinces him to stay and that he and his roommate, Derek, and Lou will all help him cram for his finals.When Thorton's big day arrives, he's exhausted. Barbay starts the proceedings, giving Thorton a grueling single question composed of 27 sections. Thorton persists and answers all the parts correctly. When he wants to give up, Diane asks him to recite Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night". Thorton gets a boost and finishes his exams.The Grand Lakes diving team has a match the same day. Jason does very well, earning high points while Thorton watches and waits for his exam results. When the team begins to fall behind their rivals, the diving coach calls Thorton poolside to execute his famous Triple Lindy dive from his Atlantic City days. Thorton is reluctant but Lou talks him into it. Thorton executes the dive, involving bouncing on several diving boards on 3 different levels of the platform and the team wins the match. Diane finds him after, telling him he earned all D's in his classes and one A from her.Thorton is allowed to give a humorous address to the graduating class. He tells them to stay in college and become successful, drawing laughter from the crowd.
    

Back to School

The Legend of Billie Jean


            The first scene of the movie introduces Fielding Pierce (Billy Crudup) as he is watching news footage showing that Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly) has been killed in a suspected car bombing. The reporter indicates that Sarah was an activist from Chicago involved in helping refugees from the Chilean government and that her death may cast new light on the movement. Fielding is completely distraught over hearing this news and the movie begins.The first 3/4 of the movie unfolds on parallel timelines in the 70s and early 80s: the progression of Fielding & Sarah's complicated, volatile relationship and Fielding's ascension into power as an upcoming politician dealing with the recent loss (and haunting memories) of Sarah.Fielding meets Sarah as he is returning, in uniform, from duty in the Coast Guard and meeting up with his brother, who is a editor. The brother, Fielding and Sarah all go to lunch where Fielding is very ouspoken in his political ideals about current events. Sarah and Fielding are both immediately intrigued by each other, Fielding's attraction being more sexual and blatant and Sarah's attraction more of curiousity and intrigue. A few dates quickly lead to a sexual relationship despite an obvious difference in political thinking between the two. Sarah asks why Fielding wants to be a senator and his very serious reply is that he doesn't- he wants to be president. Sarah is later quoted as saying "Ambition is the ice in the lake of emotion." And when Fielding tries to comfort Sarah's fear of his Coast Guard duty leading to a Vietnam tour, she replies "but if you go over there, you'll be shooting at the guys that I want to win." Their intense love outweighs their differences, though, and their relationship quickly becomes serious.Meanwhile Fielding is a young politician being groomed to be congressman by the current govenor because of a scandal involving Jerry Carmichael 's (Ed Harris in a cameo role) resignation due to his homosexuality. Fielding seems ambivalent about the offer to be put on the ticket, perhaps because of the nature of the resignation- as he indicates- or pehaps because of the impact of Sarah's influence on his current ambitions. Either way, the governor and his top advisor Isaac (Hal Holbrook) are not comfortable with this lack of enthusiasm and do not offer much hand holding. This confrontation sets the tone for the later timeline in Fielding's life as his insecurities and haunting memories of Sarah eventually lead to hallucinations and his emotional breakdown. Fielding is now dating Isaac's daughter, but their relationship is clearly not as intense as his past relationship with Sarah. Conversations with his sister Caroline (Janet McTeer) and visits with his dad quickly lead to discussions about Sarah and how is haunting memories are leading to him seeing Sarah again. His family is supportive without offering any helpful advice other than to focus more on the political path ahead of him.Sarah and Fielding's relationship takes them to Chicago where they share an apartment as he continues law school and she begins missionary work for a local church led by Father Steven (John Carrol Lynch). Fielding's involvement with Isaac soon begins, and Sarah's aversion to the whole political process becomes more threatening. After a uncomfortable encounter with Sarah at one of Fielding's political events, where her disdain for the situation leads to a verbal attack on one of the attendees, they attempt to reconcile on the subway afterwards. They cannot reach an agreement and she proclaims "It is so infuriating loving you!" Fielding chuckes and says that the feeling is mutual. Sarah's long hours away from home, spent working at the church, lead Fielding to foolishly suspect Sarah is having an affair with Father Steven. Their intense bond holds them together through their disagreements and insecurities.Fielding starts the campaign trail even as his memories of Sarah convince him that she may still be alive and is watching him. He even chases someone he believes to be her through town and eventually ending at a church. But his search is fruitless and only further shows his descent into emotional breakdown. His relationship with Molly becomes troubled as he emotionally withdraws from her also. When she tries to reach to him, he does not offer any recognition of her or his feelings.Sarah's missionary work leads to activist work in Chile where her and Father Steven bring back political refugees of the government. At one uncomfortable dinner at the church with Fielding. The refugees are appalled to hear that Fielding is hoping to enter politics, an american institution they feel is overrun with corruption. Fielding tries to convince them he is not entering politics to become corrupt but to affect change. They are not conducive to this idea. He chastises their hypocrisy by observing that as awful as they try to hint his government is, he can't help but to notice when they needed help they ran to this country for freedom. When he turns to Sarah for help, she offers "You are alone in this conversation." Fielding then replies he is alone in this whole room and he is "choking on the collective sense of superiority." Fielding and Sarah's political difference and growing distance is shown at its worst, as no make up scene follows. Soon after Sarah leaves for her fatal trip in Milwauke.
    

Keith Gordon

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