Production
A Hollywood studio executive is being sent death threats by a writer whose script he rejected - but which one?
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.
Will Graham is a former London crime boss who has left his former life to live as a recluse in the forest. Haunted by the blood of those he has murdered, Will wishes never to return. But when his brother commits suicide following a sexual assault at the hands of a volatile car dealer, Will returns to London to discover the cause of his brother's death and administer justice to those responsible.
Several lost-soul night-owls, including a nightclub owner, a talk radio relationship counselor, and an itinerant stranger have encounters that expose their contradictions and anxieties about love and acceptance.
Buffalo Bill plans to put on his own Wild West sideshow, and Chief Sitting Bull has agreed to appear in it. However, Sitting Bull has his own hidden agenda, involving the President and General Custer.
Two aged sisters reflect on life and the past during a late summer day in Maine.
Viviane, a French Consul's wife, is in New Guinea to find exotic feathers for export to Paris. She encounters four European travelers who are en route to "La Vallée": The Valley, high in the Guinean mountains, is shown on maps as 'obscured by clouds' and is beyond their previous experiences. Viviane joins their trek to find rare feathers and soon becomes entwined in their journey. Their extended stay with the Mapuga tribe brings a denouement between western and indigenous values before their final quest toward the 'Valley of the Gods'.
The lives of a group of Hollywood neurotics intersect over the Christmas holidays. Foremost among them, a songwriter visits Los Angeles to work on a singer's album. The gig, unbeknownst to him, is being bankrolled by his estranged father, a dairy magnate, who hopes to reunite with his son. When the songwriter meets an eccentric housewife who fancies herself a modern-day Garbo, his world of illusions comes crashing down.
A documentary insight behind the scenes of Roberts Altman's Short Cuts.
After a difficult break-up, Hockney is left unable to paint, much to the concern of his friends.
This is a film of a one-man-show in which Malcolm McDowell talks about Lindsey Anderson.
