——UPGRADED——
Harassed by the day, a man runs away in the evening from people and town. He crawls into his little room to sleep. The dream is bringing him the limitless and quiet spaces of solitude. At last, he is alone and free. But the solitude engenders the fear.
After his mother and stepfather have been killed in a barge accident, John Breen is rescued from some East Side toughs by the Lipvitches. He remains in the city, determined to find his real father, who rejected his mother; and after some success as a prizefighter, he is virtually adopted by Van Horn, a millionaire who actually is his father.
This satirical fantasy is based upon an Elmer Rice play from 1923. A hard-working office employee is rewarded for his years of slavish devotion to the company by getting fired just prior to retirement and being replaced with an adding machine. Now, with only his nagging wife waiting at home to add more misery to his dreary life, the man has nothing left and goes over the edge.
Vincent’s life is on hold until he finds his wife’s killer. Alice, his neighbor, is convinced she can make him happy. She decides to invent a culprit, so that Vincent can find revenge and leave the past behind. But there is no ideal culprit and no perfect crime…
American screenwriter Michael Moore arrives in Paris to work as a script doctor for a struggling film production. At the airport, he is met by Jean-Paul, a charming chauffeur who once served time for manslaughter. Despite this, Michael and Jean-Paul quickly forge a friendship. The American’s pleasant stay in Paris becomes complicated when he meets an attractive, wealthy woman at his hotel — the complication being the fact that he is married.
Nina, a gorgeous blonde communist, attracts the attention of two wealthy bon vivants. Prince Solomon and Jack attempt to impress the young woman and win out over their rival, surrounded by the stunning scenery of Greece.
Once a year, an aristocratic Austrian family holds a traditional feast at which masters and servants trade places. A troupe of actors (including cult cabaret artist Ingrid Caven) are hired to entertain the guests, performing fragments from the “cultural scrap heap”: GONE WITH THE WIND, Madame Bovary, Tennessee Williams, Swan Lake. The decadent proceedings take on a dangerous edge when the actors incite the servants to revolt against their masters-but is the Revolution also part of the act?
A young poet gets the brilliant idea to live in a department store, hiding by day, and courting his muse by night where it’s quiet, and he can have all his needs met. But, to his surprise, he learns his brilliant idea’s not exactly original; there are other residents who dodge the night watchmen, and who keep their existence secret at all costs. One of them is a young woman who wants to leave, but is too frightened to go. And Charles finds that he wants to show her the larger world outside.
