Writing
A Hollywood studio executive is being sent death threats by a writer whose script he rejected - but which one?
In 1988, renegade filmmaker Robert Altman and Pulitzer Prize–winning Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau created a presidential candidate, ran him alongside the other hopefuls during the primary season, and presented their media campaign as a cross between a soap opera and TV news. The result was the groundbreaking Tanner ’88, a piercing satire of media-age American politics.
Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.
During a future ice age, dying humanity occupies its remaining time by playing a board game called Quintet. For one small group, this obsession is not enough. They play the game with living pieces, and only the winner survives.
A pair of kidnappings expose the complex power dynamics within the corrupt and unpredictable workings of 1930s Kansas City.
At a luxury Florida resort, health food lobbyists choose their new president at their annual convention. As the conference progresses, underhanded tricks, backroom corruption and bizarre personal behavior threaten to undermine the entire affair.
