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Screenplays
The Ghost of Sherlock Holmes When an overwhelmed young detective begins to hear voices in her head, she turns to the ghost of Sherlock Holmes to find a sniper, a killer, and a cybercriminal before someone else is killed. See The Ghost of Sherlock Holmes synopsis.
Crypto Heist When two families of cryptocurrency owners meet for a wedding at a snowy ranch and the bride is kidnapped for ransom, a deputy sheriff must solve the case before robbers get away with the biggest “take” in U.S. history. See Crypto Heist synopsis.
The Devil's Gavel When the Devil storms into a public high school planning meeting, he finds believing right-leaning administrators and non-believing left-leaning students all need a rude awakening before all Hell breaks loose, townsfolk die, and the school is destroyed. See The Devil's Gavel synopsis.
The Holiday Lodge Mystery When the new owners and international guests at a mountain lodge converge for a Christmas weekend, the previous owner returns with a knife in his back, leaving a vision-impaired constable and the group to solve a murder mystery where everyone is a suspect. See The Holiday Lodge Mystery synopsis.
Rhône River Cowpokes When a naïve couple from a Colorado ranch wins a deluxe river cruise in France, the resourceful wife must overcome temptations of infidelity, uncover blackmailing schemes, and solve a murder to save their marriage. See Rhône River Cowpokes synopsis.
Murders With Natural Causes When a billionaire’s son is suspected of his father's murder, a Paiute tribal officer must take the lead in the joint FBI-Paiute investigation to apprehend a serial killer using deceptive natural substances and a surprisingly humanitarian motive. See Murders With Natural Causes synopsis.
Almost Sherlock When performing arts school graduates reunite at a seaside mansion and one drowns, their valedictorian helps her Sherlock Holmes-obsessed friend solve the case before a detective arrests them all for murder. See Almost Sherlock synopsis.
The Super-Smartphone Mystery When a young woman leading an ice-climbing trip with a new boyfriend and three strangers receives a futuristic Super-Smartphone from her older self, she’s compelled to solve three robberies, lead a daring escape, and stop a raging killer. See The Super-Smartphone Mystery synopsis.
Who is Betty Andrews? When 12-year-old Betty peacefully protests her older brother joining the military, a social media “influencer” makes matters worse with her family, friends, school, and church until Betty is forced to become her own advocate and influencer. See Who is Betty Andrews? synopsis.
Christmas for Rent When a widow invites her busy grown children and their mates to a remote cabin without phone and Wi-Fi service, they must connect with each other and strange landlords to salvage Christmas. See Christmas for Rent synopsis.
Deepfake Revengers When three women seek revenge on university classmates who victimized them with a deepfake video, they become targets of a deepfake kingpin in Hollywood and his mobster boss in Russia. See Deepfake Revengers synopsis.
Wine and Die When the RV of the previous owner of a winery explodes in the driveway and a future co-owner is found dead on the patio, a fiery actress takes control of the case from a distracted deputy sheriff before anyone else dies at their Christmas gathering. See Wine and Die synopsis.
Do You Belize In Christmas? When a wickedly playful teen hijacks her family’s holiday plans from the snowy northeast to the beaches of Belize, she must gain the trust of her younger brother, a teen orphan, and an elderly naturalist to trap dangerous con men and rescue stolen Mayan treasures. See Do You Belize in Christmas? synopsis.
The Unfinished Mystery When the widow of a best-selling mystery writer inherits an unfinished novel, competing writers will kill to get their hands on the work potentially worth millions. See The Unfinished Mystery synopsis.
Wine and Die When the RV of the previous owner of a winery explodes in the driveway and a future co-owner is found dead on the patio, a fiery actress takes control of the case from a distracted deputy sheriff before anyone else dies. See Wine and Die synopsis.
Antiques Road Heist When con artists produce a reality TV show with an estate sale theme, three duped actors soon face charges of grand theft and murder, until the cons get stung at their own game. See Antiques Road Heist synopsis.
A Most Unusual Christmas When a kindly American male and an ambitious female Secret Service Agent assist a pregnant illegal immigrant at Christmastime, they all become targets of a wronged and vengeful cartel kingpin. See A Most Unusual Christmas synopsis.
The Million Heirs When a strict tour guide and her friend sign on to protect and entertain five wealthy teenagers over spring break in Belize, they learn that "it takes a village" to outwit three devious young pirates. See The Million Heirs synopsis.
Of Gold and Murder When a history professor needs one great field study to be promoted, she attempts to solve a 90-year-old murder mystery and beat deranged killers to a treasure of buried gold coins. See Of Gold and Murder synopsis.
Conspiracy to Omit Murder After a philandering RV park owner is found seriously injured, his conniving wife must fend off a relentless Deputy, her ruthless extended family of bird enthusiasts, and a cadre of potential murderers.See Conspiracy to Omit Murder synopsis.
Last Call at Shorty's Speakeasy After a philandering RV park owner is found seriously injured, his conniving wife must fend off a relentless Deputy, her ruthless extended family of bird enthusiasts, and a cadre of potential murderers.
See Last Call at Shorty's Speakeasy synopsis.
Vanishing Witnesses When the daughter of a long-hidden couple in the Witness Protection Program vanishes, a young U.S. Marshal must find and protect the girl’s parents before the recently released criminal they testified against kills them.
See Vanishing Witnesses synopsis.
Holiday for Spies The owner's daughter at a Bed and Breakfast tries to solve the non-lethal assaults on her guests over Christmas using her Criminology education before the attacker improves and kills one of them.
See See Holiday for Spies synopsis.
Changing Arts and Minds TV Series When a brilliant but homeless female veteran snags a temporary job as a gymnasio art teacher, she must overcome her personal shortcomings to inspire six wildly indifferent students.
See See Changing Arts and Mind TV synopsis.
Corn Maze 2030 Three teens enter and must navigate a high-tech Corn Maze on Halloween with deceptive Virtual Reality “Spirit Guides” linked to a demonic Artificial Intelligence computer with the power to scare them to death.
See Corn Maze 2030 synopsis.
There's Trouble in the Valleystone HOA A wealthy rancher’s younger brother is sent to develop management skills for five years by running a homeowners association and living among the diverse inhabitants of an upscale suburban neighborhood. If he succeeds, he’ll be given half of the family’s enormous ranch. See See There's Trouble in the Valleystone HOA synopsis.
A Motive To Die For When an American detective on holiday in Samothrace, Greece, meets an unorthodox archaeologist excavating an ancient double-murder scene, she must help him solve the case before they both fall prey to a mysterious cult.
See A Motive To Die For synopsis.
The Three Wise Kids When three 16-year-old troublemakers are assigned work-study assignments over Christmas Break, they unknowingly moonlight for an elusive porch pirate who could ruin the holidays for an entire ski town.
See The Three Wise Kids synopsis.
Crypto Club TV Series When four members of a high school computer club create an online pay-to-play contest paid with cryptocurrency, they get rich quick but become targets of law enforcement agencies, shysters, hackers, thugs, and murderers.
See Crypto Club synopsis.
The Christmas Twain Childhood friends, a waitress/writer in a historic hotel, and a bookworm history professor can’t reconnect over the Christmas holidays without a little help from Mark Twain’s ghost in Virginia City, Nevada.
See The Christmas Twain synopsis.
Murder at St. Dominic's When a competent transgender detective returns to her struggling religious college, she must battle painful memories, her old hardline Reverend, and the secrets and lies of six devilish suspects to solve the murder of the prominent basketball coach.
See Murder at St. Dominic's synopsis.
I Refuse To Kill By Francesco DaVinci & Tom Stohlgren When a young man applies as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam war, he must battle the country he loves; bear scorn from his family, friends, and fiancée; and face a five-year prison term.
See I Refuse To Kill synopsis.
F.B. Eyeglasses When two FBI agent trainees are fitted with cochlear implants linked via high-tech eyeglasses to supercomputers, they become super-skilled operatives, but they also become targets of two foreign terrorists they are sent to eliminate in a mountain town.
See F.B. Eyeglasses synopsis.
Spinoza's Revenge When a simple but loveable young priest’s vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are threatened by a dangerous inheritance from a 17th-century philosopher and three strong-minded women, bodies start piling up on the church steps.
Silverbeard When a modern-day pirate history tour guide’s catamaran collides into Blackbeard’s ghost ship, he must defeat his nemesis Calico Jack, and find true love and a treasure as a pirate in 1717, or he can never return to the present.
See Silverbeard synopsis.
S.T.E.M. Cell When a 12-year-old trust fund child learns of her surgically enhanced intelligence, she must punish those who exploited her before her IQ returns to normal and her first love seizes her trust fund.
See S.T.E.M. Cell synopsis.
COMEDY NIGHT AT THE CRYPY When an out-of-work comedian lands a job at a struggling funeral parlor, her lively practices make fast money, but could forever change the way our society deals with death.
See COMEDY NIGHT AT THE CRYPT synopsis.
SIMPLE LUNACY When three of five personal assistants for billionaires are found dead under suspicious circumstances at a Yucatan island resort, the smartest remaining suspect must rely on her incredible resourcefulness to survive the full moon.
See SIMPLE LUNACY synopsis.
TREATY TV Series Shy professor and beautiful Native American activist face deadly opposition to reclaim a third of Colorado and the Black Hills of South Dakota for Native Americans.
See TREATY TV Series synopsis.
St. Peter's Day Off When St. Peter takes a day off at the Gates of Heaven, a pair of thirty-year-old “Almost-Deads” must do a great job filling in or face an eternity in Hell.
See St. Peter's Day Off synopsis.
Bravo When a novice musher enters the Iditarod, she must rely on her easily distracted but highly enthusiastic rescue puppy, Bravo, to battle the elements in the most treacherous sled-dog race in Alaska for the greatest reward in the world: friendship.
See Bravo synopsis.
Iced A diamond courier’s heist goes awry when her jet carrying six vacationing singles to the Caymans get quarantined in a remote house in Canada, leaving the passengers to battle thieves, murderers, and the virus before escaping. See Iced synopsis.
Red Flag When a mountain town experiences a vicious murder, a likeable Sheriff must rely on a smart Trainee and her anti-gun stance to catch a killer and prevent a mass shooting.
See Red Flag synopsis.
Changing Arts and Minds When a homeless female veteran finally snags a temporary job as a middle school art teacher, she must overcome many obstacles to inspire six wildly indifferent students.
See Changing Arts and Minds synopsis.
[ SOLD ] Taser Ranch When neighbors descend like vultures after a rancher is found dead, his immigrant wife proves that a woman alone isn’t a target; she’s a threat!
See Taser Ranch synopsis.
Everyone Hops A Train After nearly 50 years, a man recounts an impulsive decision to hop a freight train with three friends in their late teens going nowhere. What would you tell your younger self? See Everyone Hops A Train synopsis.
Short Order Buzz Kill When a crazed waitress seeks revenge on Stoners who failed to tip adequately for many years, an inexperienced Police Officer must step up his detective skills before more innocent citizens fall prey to the Slash and Burn Serial Killer. [In partnership with Emerald Pyramid Pictures; Matt Sly and Warren L. Madden] See Short Order Buzz Kill synopsis.
Becoming We When a Texas-trained Chinese doctor gets cold feet about her upcoming marriage in China and escapes to a Colorado ski town over Christmas break, she must weigh the disapproval of her parents against a new nonconformist love and the acceptance she gains from an irreverent group of snowboarders and townsfolk. See Becoming We synopsis.
Holly's Woods When a successful patent attorney and her daughter escape the city for a country Christmas, they find that, as John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” [MOW-formatted Christmas Rom-Com] See Holly's Woods synopsis.
Worship Inspired by a true story: When two con-artists ask a prostitute to impersonate a goddess to help scam an entire Mexican village, they find more evil incarnate, torture, and human sacrifices than they, or the villagers, ever bargained for. See Worship synopsis.
The Last Witch Trial When a genius 15-year-old girl near Salem, Massachusetts, is recruited by a manipulative female scientist from a genetics laboratory, claims of witchcraft lead to the last witch trial in America where only one of them will survive. See The Last Witch Trial synopsis.
Pattern of Evil When a brilliant professor of statistics successfully predicts a bank robbery, she attracts the unwanted attention of a serial bomber, who has her abducted to plan perfectly random bombings to avoid capture, unless she devises an improbable solution to stop him. See Pattern of Evil synopsis.
Tubers When a stay-at-home 23-year-old is conned into tracing her family’s ancestral roots (tubers) in Ireland, she must overcome her father’s horrible travel tips and survive a sarcastic, unemployed Irishman to find true love and her grandpa’s buried treasure.
See Tubers synopsis.
The Last Nighttime Story When a bickering Chinese boy and his sister discover bedtime storybooks in their home are disappearing, they're forced to confront a mean, old junkyard owner, or no one in their school will hear a bedtime story ever again.
See The Last Nighttime Story synopsis.
Tony's Smokehouse Crematorium When four college students open a discount drive-thru crematorium, they make fast friends with a hitman, but overnight enemies of the angry newly cremated.
See Tony's Smokehouse Crematorium synopsis.
My Liberty When thoughts and prayers aren't enough, a Joan of Arc-type school mass-shooting survivor and her friends take matters into their own hands to prevent the next one.
See My Liberty synopsis.
[ SOLD ] Tiny House, Big Christmas It’s Christmas Break, but when a judge orders a bickering couple to three-weeks of lockdown in a two-hundred-square-foot “tiny house” in a remote forest, they might kill each other, if a serial arsonist doesn’t kill them first. What could be worse? Their ill-behaved 13-year old daughter and 9-year-old son are forced to join them for the final two weeks of the sentence. See Tiny House, Big Christmas synopsis.
Stray Bullet When a stray bullet from senseless gun violence claims the life of a ten-year-old storyteller, the Irish-American mom must fulfill her daughter’s dying wish to have her ashes spread on a ‘fairy tree’ in Ireland, or the mom will never find closure, and the daughter’s stories will be forgotten forever. See Stray Bullet synopsis.
[ SOLD ] Murders Don't Have To Be Perfect When a bride is poisoned on her wedding night at her parents’ exclusive winery, a beautiful sommelier-in-training sniffs out the killer before the sheriff arrests the innocent groom.
See Murders Don't Have To Be Perfect synopsis.
[ SOLD ] Santa's Chairs A troubled, colorblind little girl makes a Santa Chair that grants wishes for others to save her mom’s tiny mountain town café from closing before Christmas.
See Santa's Chairs synopsis.
Inhuman Faces When a Hollywood dermatologist down on her luck is left to help inhuman clones battle facial rashes, she must choose between the Hippocratic Oath to save lives, or to save the world.
See Inhuman Faces synopsis.
Innerstate 70 If the high school graduates voted “Least Popular Girl” and “Least Likely to Succeed Boy” don’t complete an ill-fated, less-than-epic road trip across Colorado, they may be defined forever by what others think of them. See Innerstate 70 synopsis.
Love Terrors: The Potter's Field Six When six wildly different fourteen-year olds are the only ones in their class brave enough to camp-out on Halloween night in a cemetery, the spirits from the Potter’s Field, and murderous thugs change their lives forever.
See Love Terrors: The Potter's Field Six synopsis.
Drone On Trial When a beautiful Syrian widow brings charges of murder against a defense contractor’s Drone operator and software engineer, the armed, monster-like Drone begins to take matters into his own artificial-intelligence controls.
See Drone On Trial synopsis.
Mountain Mysteries: The Case of the Gold Cat When the town historian is shot, and a priceless gold nugget is reported missing after 130 years, a young, unconventional county sheriff must survive a hornet’s nest of liars, thieves, and murderers to solve the crimes. [Written in Feature-length (or MOW), and one-hour TV Pilot formats] See Mountain Mysteries synopsis.
Terminally Séanced When the young widow of an old billionaire holds a séance for those named in the will, the inheritors are literally scared to death one at a time based on their gullibility, until a skeptical country sheriff sees through the four attempted murders. See Terminally Séanced synopsis.
Milkmen? When a no-nonsense Latina immigrant is hired by three unmarried milkmen in Tahoe City, California, she must turn around a dysfunctional business, before her immature love interest grows up and commits to marriage. See Milkmen? synopsis.
Unacceptable Cargo. When a young Nigerian woman gets a temporary work visa in the U.S. for a better life, she finds slave-like labor conditions and a ring of human-traffickers, leading her to escape home to exact revenge. [In partnership with Arthur O. Thomas, Main Man Films, LLC.] See Unacceptable Cargo synopsis.
Death Coach. When a history major takes her boyfriend to Ireland on spring break to trace her genetic roots, she thinks the Cóiste Bodhar (Death Coach) may be coming for her. This is a low-budget thriller-horror script based on the Fairy and Folklore of Ireland (Yates), and from the dark side of an old "Mothers and Baby" home in Ireland. It involves only six actors (and two extras), at one location (an old Irish cottage with a barn and a dirt road), over two nights. No EFX. [In partnership with Arthur O. Thomas, Main Man Films, LLC.] See Death Coach synopsis.
Black Widow Journalist. When a young conniving journalist trespasses to interview a multi-millionaire recluse at his Lake Tahoe fortress, she is shot, imprisoned, and unwaveringly determined to get her story, before one of them dies. This is a fictional “exit interview” with a real-life Lake Tahoe multi-millionaire George Whittell Jr., 86 years old in 1968. See Black Widow Journalist synopsis.
Rope Burn. Written by: Arthur O. Thomas, Herman Malone, and Tom Stohlgren. In a true story, when an African-American business man is faced with corporate discrimination, he loses his wife, family, and fortune to battle social injustice with the unlikely help of a crusty newspaper reporter. [In partnership with Arthur O. Thomas, Main Man Films, LLC.] See Rope Burn synopsis.
Rock Springs. This is a feature-length action-adventure script to be filmed in China and America, with Asian actors in lead roles. It’s by Tom Stohlgren and Arthur O. Thomas (100 pages, © Nov. 2016) Logline: When a beautiful Chinese factory worker retraces her great-grandmother’s footsteps in America, she risks her job and her life to recover her family’s treasure, and bring a century-old massacre of 28 Chinese laborers into a modern perspective. [In partnership with Arthur O. Thomas, Main Man Films, LLC.] See Rock Springs synopsis.
Belize Heat. A TV Pilot script with Producer Art Thomas. Belize Heat is a multi-cultural one-hour drama pilot script and season outline. Aug. 20, 2016. Pilot Episode: “The Award” [A seven-episode Season One is planned]. Logline: A wounded Detroit detective hides out in Belize to retire and recuperate, but paradise has another idea. Sept. 2016. [In partnership with Arthur O. Thomas, Main Man Films, LLC.] See Belize Heat synopsis.
Becoming We. A feature-length drama-romance with a small cast. Logline: When a young Muslim doctor reneges on her arranged marriage in New Orleans, and escapes to a Colorado ski town over Christmas break, she faces prejudice, the disapproval of her parents, and the uncertainty of a new love, all to promote tolerance in the world, two people at a time. [In partnership with Arthur O. Thomas, Main Man Films, LLC.] Sept. 2016. See Becoming We synopsis.
Luke Stone and the Secret of the Golden Buddha. [Screenplay by Tom Stohlgren; Story by Stanley N. Lozowski]. Logline: When Nazi and Japanese spies plan to dive on a shipwreck off Ocean City, New Jersey in 1941, history professor Luke Stone is saddled with a strong-willed female rookie agent to prevent stolen Chinese treasures from falling into the wrong hands, again! Aug. 10, 2016. See Luke Stone synopsis.
Rescue Me Twice. An Action-Adventure/Drama based on true cases of human-trafficking. Logline: When vile human-trafficking kingpins run amuck around the globe, an elite, but troubled, team of ex-military operatives must rescue the victims before it’s too late. The scripts was a quarter-finalist in the Stage 32 2nd Annual Feature Screenplay Contest. This is an important, urgent international story. March 18, 2016. See Rescue Me Twice synopsis.
The Trophy Hunters. The is a horror/thriller script with a Latina lead set on a small island in the Pacific Northwest. Logline: When crazed scientists test their imperfect invisibility cloaks out by killing civilians on a small island, a brilliant Latina paleontologist must find a way to stop them. June 25, 2016. This film is set on one island, with 10 actors and a dog, over three days. See The Trophy Hunters synopsis.
Resorting to Love and Violence. This is script for theatrical release -- A thriller/mystery with a Latina lead set in Cabo San Lucas. Logline: When B-list movie actress, Dani Diego, witnesses a suicide in Cabo San Lucas, she attracts the attention of two local detectives, a handsome investigative reporter, and a crime boss named Bone Crusher, all leading to huge rewards for Ms. Diego if she can survive one more night. June 24, 2016. See Resorting to Love and Violence synopsis.
The Last Nighttime Story. A Family film script. Logline: When bickering twins, Alec and Brenda, discover bedtime storybooks throughout their neighborhood are disappearing, they're forced to confront a mean, old junkyard owner, or no one in third grade will hear a bedtime story ever again. April. 2016. See The Last Nighttime Story synopsis.
The Hobbyist Detectives. Someone killed the Jessica Fletcher-like character off in the first scene of this comedy/mystery screenplay. With a black female lead, this is a spoof of TV murder mysteries! Logline: When a world-famous mystery novelist is found dead in the small coastal town of Crabby Cove, an inner-city detective must deal with seven meddlesome hobbyist detectives to solve the case and prevent a repeat murderer from going free. It’s a fun-filled spoof of TV murder mysteries. May 15, 2016. See The Hobbyist Detectives synopsis.
Mountain Matchmaker. A romantic comedy lampooning online dating matches with a black, male lead. Art Thomas is the Producer on this one. Logline: When a new online matchmaking site linked to a mountain campground looks like a scam, an inner-city public defender in a pre-mid-life crisis must learn to camp and expose the truth, or live a life without love. [In partnership with Arthur O. Thomas, Main Man Films, LLC.] See Mountain Matchmaker synopsis.
Haven Gotta Clue. This is murder mystery and dark comedy with a female lead set in a mountain saloon in Colorado with only six actors. Logline: When unscrupulous crime scene investigators from around the country convene in a casino in Colorado, it’s up to small-town Sheriff Ellie May Lyons to solve a mysterious murder. Very fun to write! Feb. 20, 2016. [In partnership with Arthur O. Thomas, Main Man Films, LLC.] See Haven Gotta Clue synopsis.
Twelve - My Age of Reason. A comedy based on Tom’s novel of the same title: In the span of eight hilarious days in 1964, a young Catholic schoolboy rebels against authority, challenges his religion, and comes of age, thanks to his four, wildly ill-behaved brothers. See Twelve synopsis.
Rainmaker. One-hour TV Drama Series. The pilot script, “Seeds in the Clouds,” was co-authored with Jon Bulette, and edited by Producer, Lee Levinson (Lee Levinson Productions, NY). Thirteen full episodes have been drafted, all with a Latina lead. Logline: A young Latina professor on the run seeks to loosen the fatal stranglehold the mega-drought has inflicted on the desperate inhabitants of California. See Rainmaker synopsis.
Texting Santa. A comedy, for the theatrical release and MOW versions, edited by producer Lee Levinson. Set in Los Angeles, this is a heartwarming story of an extremely withdrawn nine-year-old girl coming out of her shell over one-night at Christmastime. Logline: Long after her mother is killed in a car accident, and extremely withdrawn third-grader must come out of her shell before her school Christmas break or her father may never find love again. See Texting Santa synopsis.
An Eye for the Game. Action-Adventure for the theatrical release, edited by Lee Levinson, and containing a Latina lead. Logline: When famous sports heroes around the world die prematurely, it's up to a feisty Latina sports reporter to expose the unscrupulous doctors and a wealthy sports agent who are determined to stop her. See An Eye for the Game synopsis.
Off Switch. A drama, for the theatrical release, based on one man’s recovery from binge-drinking in an oppressive Catholic rehab center. Logline: When a likable binge-drinking high school science teacher is sentenced by his wife to a strict Catholic rehab center, he must rebel against authority and religion to find his "off switch” and return to his family. See Off Switch synopsis.
Half-A-Love at First Sight. Romantic comedy, for the theatrical release. Designed for 12 actors in one rural house over one night, and based on a long-married couple’s hilarious dispute about moving to a retirement community. Logline: A long-married woman finally falls in love with her husband on one hilarious night, with the help of uninvited guests, imaginary friends, a memory drug, drama therapy, a jewel thief, and indigestion. See Half synopsis.
Severed Treaty. This is an Action-Adventure for the theatrical release, edited by Lee Levinson (based on my novel of the same title; first in a trilogy). [Female Native American co-lead] Logline: Shy professor and beautiful Native American activist race a deadly corporation to find an old Indian treaty that may give a third of Colorado back to Native Americans. [Part 1 of a film trilogy or TV mini-series] See Severed Treaty synopsis.
The New Sons of Liberty. Action-Adventure for the theatrical release, edited by Lee Levinson. (based on my novel of the same title; second in the trilogy). Native American co-lead] When heavily armed, ultra-patriotic Americans try to take back a new Indian Reservation, it's up to a gritty Cheyenne chief and her resourceful professor husband to defeat them. [Part 2 of a film trilogy or TV mini-series]. See The New Sons of Liberty synopsis.
The Battle of the Black Hills. Action-Adventure for the theatrical release, edited by Lee Levinson. (Based on my novel of the same title; third in the trilogy). [Female Native American co-lead] Beautiful Cheyenne chief and shy professor husband are besieged by angry Tea-Party-like militias fueled by anti-Indian sentiments, culminating in a modern cowboys versus Indians battle for the sacred land. [Part 3 of a film trilogy or TV mini-series]. See Battle of the Black Hills synopsis.
The Ghost of Sherlock Holmes SYNOPSIS: First-year Detective Constable MARIA MARTIN (25) works in a quaint European town with a café, pub, bank, and police station. She is overwhelmed by her first murder case after her supervisor and mentor, Chief of Police CHARLES WINDSOR (65), is found dead at his country home. Luckily, Maria frequently hears voices in her head to help her, with the latest being the Ghost of SHERLOCK HOLMES (60), who died in 1913. Interpol sends Special Agent ART SIMMONS (30) to commandeer the case, which may relate to cybersecurity threats in the region. Maria and her loyal and comical sidekick, Police Constable HENRY GRUBER (23), are forced to stand down.
The primary suspect is seductive FRANCESCA DUBOIS-WINDSOR (30s), the Chief’s attractive and estranged French wife, who everyone sees as a gold-digger who screams whenever she’s touched. The town is filled with oddball characters. The autopsy by the town’s only doctor, DOC (45), finds what Maria and Sherlock’s voice keeps telling her: the Chief had a sniper’s bullet in the head, but he had died five weeks earlier.
Sherlock’s voice becomes a distraction as he is compelled to describe modern conveniences with which he is totally unfamiliar: smartphones, computers, sportscars, and e-scooters. Still, his detective skills are important in Maria’s secretive investigation. The town’s kindly, black British bartender/lawyer, TED (60s); the Indian Bank Manager, MS. GUPTA (40); and forgetful café owner, ROSIE (35), are constant distractions to Maria, Henry, and Art.
The list of suspects grows when the Chief’s house is ransacked, and a sniper’s bullet scrapes Maria’s helmet while riding her e-scooter and listening to Sherlock’s voice in her head. The theft of a black lace bra and the Chief’s diary offer clues to Maria, while deepfake videos of townspeople lead more Interpol Agents to town to solve cryptocurrency and payroll thefts from the poor. Doc’s son, LES (15), a computer geek becomes a person of interest.
The public reading of the Chief’s will at Rosie’s Café, surprises everyone. Maria is the major inheritor until Francesca unveils a video of Maria threatening the Chief the night he died. Art hauls Maria in for questioning and she unravels until she casts the voices out of her head. She is abandoned by Sherlock.
When Henry helps her escape in the morning, Maria is determined to solve the case. Henry, Art, and Sherlock indirectly assist, but she gets the town together at Rosie’s Café to solve all the cases. She demonstrates the videos are deepfakes and how Francesca, Rosie, and Les conspired to pin the crimes on Maria. Sherlock returns in the minds of Maria and Henry to applaud Maria’s spectacular detective skills in the new age. The case might have been solved without the ghost of Sherlock Holmes, but it wouldn’t have been as fun.
The Ghost of Sherlock Holmes Logline
Crypto Heist SYNOPSIS: Every cryptocurrency owner becomes a bank that could be robbed. ADDISON WEST (28) is the CEO of a cryptocurrency shell company operating from wherever she is at the time. She is about to merge with JAWAN WHITE (30), the charismatic CEO of an investment banking firm. Their wedding was arranged by CHRYSTAL WEST (32), Addison’s less-successful sister, at her remote, snowy ranch in a plush barn decorated for Christmas. The couple’s wealthy but dysfunctional parents, TATUM (60) and DAKOTA WEST (35), and BERTRAND (55) and GILLIAM WHITE (40), had to be bribed to attend the wedding. Deputy Sheriff LUPE MARTINEZ (30), also a Justice of the Peace on weekends, is paid to perform and videotape the wedding on her body cam. WEI LI (35), Jawan’s CFO, is the best man. SANJAY DANI (25), an unregistered immigrant with a master’s degree in philosophy, is the stand-in caterer. Only one person realizes that the concentration of cryptocurrency at the wedding could make it the biggest heist in U.S. history.
After what Lupe describes as a “frighteningly weird” wedding ceremony, Jawan falls ill and vomits his guts out. Lupe calls for an ambulance. Jawan recovers before it arrives, but Addison suffers a prolonged asthma attack, causing Lupe to think the bride and groom might have been poisoned. Two EMTs haul Addison away, and Lupe demands Jawan remain behind as a person of interest. Interviewing the wedding guests reveals troubling secrets of the lives of people in the “top 1%” of earners. Everyone is richer and more disturbed than they appear, making a crypto heist more likely. After the EMTs send a poor-quality photo of a severed toe and a separate video of Addison screaming, they demand the cryptocurrency passcodes from Jawan, and later from everyone at the wedding. Lupe calls the FBI, who assigns the case to AGENT DESHAUN COLLINS (40s). Meanwhile, explosive devices placed around the barn prevent the wedding guests from leaving the barn. Everyone is trapped.
Lupe unravels the case as Agent Collins and her team defuse two weak bombs. This is a classic “whodunit” with a bevy of suspects with complex motives. However, Lupe, using Sherlock Holmes’ skills in deduction, narrows the suspects down to Chrystal, who has a burner phone containing the kidnapper’s number. Addison is robbed of more than $300 million of cryptocurrency by the EMTs, but Addison and Jawan refuse to press charges on Chrystal or the kidnappers. The family agrees to bury the story of the heist to prevent future robbery attempts and a decline in their fortunes. In a twist at the end, Lupe gets even with the rich snobs and leaks the story and videos on social media around the globe.
The Million Heirs SYNOPSIS: A strict catamaran owner, the CAPTAIN (35; female), and tour guide, NIGEL (32), are challenged to protect and entertain the rambunctious teenage children of American millionaires in the paradise of Belize over spring break. DION (17) is the tall, African American son of an NBA star. SHARIE (17) is a spoiled daughter of a movie producer. PAULO (17) is a Cuban ladies' man who is afraid of heights. HUI (15) is a cute Asian comedian. MARINA (16) is a sweet Latina bookworm who can't swim.
Even before boarding the catamaran, the teens are spotted as targets by three local thieves: "the Pirates," JUANITA (18), a Creole clone of Wednesday Addams; IKAL (17), a male Mayan farmer; and ZEE (20), an ex-pat English thug. Keeping the rich teens safe will not be easy. After snorkeling all day, the teens aren't too tired to escape Nigel's B&B to a nearby nightclub, where Sharie is abducted by Zee and Ikal while Paulo and the others are distracted by Juanita's seductive dancing. When the Million Heirs return without Sharie, the Captain goes into rescue mode.
Sharie is found safe, but coming-of-age relationships between Zee and Sharie, Paulo and Juanita, and Hui and Marina complicate group dynamics the next day as Nigel guides a tour of the Mayan ruins at Altun Ha. The Million Heirs share secrets with the Pirates and keep secrets from the Captain and Nigel. Zee is stalking Sharie as Juanita connives a credit card from Paulo. Sharing travel plans with the Pirates sets up a major theft of credit cards, passports, and smartphones the next day at a waterfall on the jungle tour. The Million Heirs lose everything, including their dignity.
The Captain, Nigel, and the Million Heirs request the help of a Garifuna village, descendants of ship-wrecked slaves who are renowned as the friendliest people on Earth. MAMA ELOISE (60) proclaims a "spiritual day," closing the town for music and dancing to prevent the Pirates from escaping. The Captain, Nigel, and the MillionHeirs capture the Pirates and reclaim their booty. The Pirates are released after touching confessions and everyone celebrates. The Million Heirs learn so much more from the generous and kind Garifuna people. The African proverb is profound: "It takes a village to raise a child."
In a surprise phone call aboard the catamaran, the Million Heirs are told by their parents that they conspired with the Captain to hire the Pirates to teach the teens to become more responsible. The teens are jilted, especially about the friendships they formed. Then, everyone is kidnapped by a real Crime Boss, and everyone's life is in danger. The Captain and teens rise to the occasion and the Million Heirs escape for another adventure.
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The Devil's Gavel SYNOPSIS: IZZIE SANCHEZ (17), a feisty Latina and former Catholic, AARON COHEN (17), a well-dressed former Jew, and LAILA GUPTA (17), an Indian student who is a former everything, are in for the fight of their lives. They are attending the high school planning meeting to protest the display of the Ten Commandments outside the library, the banning of books, and the potential firing of the science and biology teacher, MR. CHANG (40) for refusing to teach Creationism along with Evolution. The righteous Chairwoman, MARCIA BINGHAM (30s), conservative PRINCIPAL JACKIE EVANS (40), and blowhard counselor, DR. GUNTIER (60) are the Planning Board’s steamrollers. Two submissive members of the Planning Board include MRS. CHANG (40), the librarian, and Laila’s father, MR. GUPTA (40). Four parents also attend.
Izzie is brandishing a pistol and unloading her complaints to the Planning Board, the DEVIL (4000+) sneaks into the room with his deep Satanic voice, terrifying everyone. One parent tries to escape but a bolt of electricity from the Devil kills him. Panic ensues, but there’s no escape. The Devil inactivates smartphones and alarms and commands Izzie to continue her tirade on book bans. The Planning Board wants the book bans, while the students demand the separation of Church and State. Another parent tries to phone 9-1-1, and a bolt of fire kills her. The Devil belittles and frightens everyone as the meeting continues. Mr. Chang’s job as a science and biology teacher is in jeopardy. The invisible Devil temporarily leaves, or does he?
The students and Planning Board, trapped inside, ram a table into the door. The escape fails and another parent is electrocuted. Marcie and the Principal see the Christian Devil with horns, hooves, and a tail. Dr. Guntier sees him as a modern Zoroastrian Devil (an attorney). The non-believers don’t see him, but when Mrs. Chang sees a faint outline of the Christian Devil and Aaron sees a faint outline of an ancient Hebrew Devil (a dragon with three heads), their confidence is shaken. Everyone is repeatedly shocked by the angry Devil because fewer members of the public believe in him. He needs more exposure to regain popularity. He uses a Red Robe from the Spanish Inquisition and has red lights as eyes to be visible to all. He holds court for everyone and dispenses uneven justice. When the non-believers never give in to him, he goes ballistic and shoots bolts of electricity everywhere. He sends his biggest bolt to Mr. Chang and sends him flying to the door, busting it open. The cold breeze from outside tells everyone it’s over. The Devil is gone. The police and fire department arrive to comfort the injured and recover three bodies which they attribute to lightning strikes. But we know differently.
The Holiday Lodge Mystery SYNOPSIS: WILLIAM MARTIN (30) and ELLA GARCIA (30) invest their life savings in a Swedish mountain lodge and take ownership from LARS SVENSONSON (90), three days before Christmas. Local CONSTABLE MAGGIE ANDERSSON (40s) warns the couple of an escaped prisoner, JIMMY REGAN (22), but her description is hampered by poor eyesight. The couple finds Jimmy, a comical Irish kleptomaniac and gypsy-like traveler,” hiding in a guestroom, but Jimmy convinces them to hire him as a butler named “Alfred” who looks professional in Lars’s black suit.
Alfred greets the arriving international guests including UTA SCHULZ (24), a cute German biathlete; TITO MARTINEZ (26), a debonaire gentleman from Chile; LILLY CHOU (23), a Chinese American and aspiring film director from Los Angeles; and AYUSH BRAHMIN (28), a promising detective and member of the Indian Army Military Police. FATHER O’MALLEY (40), a charismatic Catholic priest, brings Irish whiskey to see Lars, unaware he sold the place, and the storm prevents everyone from leaving. They must all survive on a partial food delivery of pancake mix, potatoes, wine, and eggnog, while the priest makes do on the Irish Whiskey.
Suddenly, Lars bursts through the door and lands face-first in the lobby with a knife in his back. William calls the Constable, who barely makes it to the lodge, and soon everyone is a suspect. Secrets and motives are plentiful during the Constable’s comically frustrating interviews, and she asks for Ayush’s help. Tito was a prospective buyer of the lodge and met Uta there six months prior. Lilly frequently corresponded with Lars and sounded like a gold-digger. William and Ella learned that Lars owed significant back taxes and inflated the lodge’s occupancy rates. They all had motives to kill Lars.
The cozy Swedish lodge inspires love. Tito reunites with Uta to propose on Christmas. Lilly, a gypsy herself, is smitten with Jimmy. Ella learns that love and laughter are more important than money. And Father O’Malley and the Constable reignite their childhood friendship. Meanwhile, the Constable and Ayush find boxes of letters under Lars’s bed that provide clues to Lars’s demise. He was dying of cancer and getting his affairs in order before he could have a Viking funeral and enter Valhalla (Heaven). Ayush takes over the investigation after befriending the owners and guests. He finds evidence that Lars carefully planned his demise like a brave warrior, backing into the knife lodged between crates in his toolshed. Jimmy finds Lars’s last will leaving his worldly possessions to those who need them. Father O’Malley holds the largest Christmas Sunday Mass in the parish’s history thanks to his new friends. And, our story ends with the mystery solved and a feel-good Viking funeral for Lars before Christmas dinner.
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Rhône River Cowpokes SYNOPSIS: High school sweethearts, KATE and COLT CARLSON (now 28), who have never left their small ranching town in Colorado win a 7-day river cruise in France. Traveling overseas is comically challenging. The first stop is Paris where Colt sneaks out to buy Kate a wedding ring after 10 years, but he loses the ring while boarding the river cruise in Lyon. Colt is infatuated with the gorgeous French Cruise Director, SIMONE DUBOIS (25), but he is determined to nab the ring thief. Kate and Colt’s new friends also include four diverse poker players who call themselves the Bleue-Hair Bandits including an American, ETHYL (65); Spaniard, RUTHIE (70s); Indian, MADHU (70s); and German, WILMA (69). GRANVILLE PALMER (50s), a James Bond-type Englishman, and THERESA MAY (65), a recently widowed black woman, also help to look for the thief. To pigheaded Colt, everyone is a suspect.
The case broadens when the ship’s wine steward and lounge singer, LORENZO RICCI (25) tries to seduce Kate, and he winds up poisoned on the first night of the cruise. Colt, the jealous husband, is presumed guilty and confined to his cabin. Kate feels like her marriage is over, but she rather enjoys Lorenzo’s deluxe stateroom. Still, she feels obligated to assume the role of amateur detective to free her two-timing husband. The investigation leads her into a web of professional jealousy, blackmail, and murder. Luckily, Kate receives ample help from an inept young crew member, PIERRE (21), and the Bleue-Hair Bandits. Kate reciprocates by helping Pierre learn his new tasks as the ship’s new wine steward and lounge singer. What could go wrong?
Kate and Pierre break a few rules and laws in searching for evidence, while the CAPTAIN (55) and Simone take their approach to solving the murder. Simone tries to seduce Colt into confessing guilt, while Kate, Pierre, and the Bleue-Hairs collude to nail the murderer. However, after Wilma dies under suspicious circumstances and her stateroom safe is robbed, the Captain and Simone conduct a “murderer and thief reveal party” that falsely accuses Colt, Theresa, and Granville. Colt’s ring is recovered, finally leading to a romantic night for Kate and Colt. The next morning at the captain’s breakfast table, Kate solves all the crimes with a little help from their new friends, including Simone who becomes apologetic and helpful. Kate reveals that the Captain also was being blackmailed by Lorenzo, so the Captain hired two jewel thieves from London to kill Lorenzo. Kate saves her marriage to Colt, and the Bleue-Hair Bandits and others realize they made more friends in a few days aboard the cruise than they made in the past ten years at home.
The Battle of the Black Hills. Action-Adventure for the theatrical release, edited by Lee Levinson. (Based on my novel of the same title; third in the trilogy). [Female Native American co-lead] Beautiful Cheyenne chief and shy professor husband are besieged by angry Tea-Party-like militias fueled by anti-Indian sentiments, culminating in a modern cowboys versus Indians battle for the sacred land. [Part 3 of a film trilogy or TV mini-series]. See Battle of the Black Hills synopsis.
Murders With Natural Causes SYNOPSIS: A Billionaire, BRANDON CLAREMONT (80), is drugged, transported, and left to die at a specific location on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation. The body is spread-eagle and face-up with a “W” on his forehead. It’s already a complicated case for Tribal Officer SARAH THE YOUNGER (28) when an intimidating black FBI Agent MAVIS COLLIER (28), intervenes. The autopsy shows the victim overdosed on magic mushrooms and died hours later of a heart attack.
The FBI is obligated to partner with Officer Younger because the primary suspect is a Paiute drug addict named JAKE LONG BEAR (25), but they have difficulty finding Jake and connecting him to the case. Sarah suggests an environmental link to the killing since the billionaire developed the Tahoe Keys subdivision over a pristine wetland and his body was left precisely at the old lake level of Pyramid Lake before the white man began stealing their water. The FBI remains focused on the Paiute drug addict and the billionaire’s son, ADAM (55), an unstable real estate mogul.
When the billionaire’s munitions business partner and lover, ESTELLE GODFREY (60), is found tortured and killed in her new Sprinter van in a campground near the Tahoe Keys, Adam becomes the primary suspect. Estelle’s estranged husband, U.S. SENATOR GODFREY (70), insists on suspending autopsies and rushing to cremation. International munition sales are at stake! Meanwhile, the family’s attorney, GARRISON THOMAS (60), divulges more Claremont family’s secrets of dysfunction, mental instability, and suicide.
Sarah and Collier begin to work together to solve the crimes. They get help from the risk-taking coroners and Collier’s boss, SPECIAL AGENT KIARA GUPTA (40s), who runs interference from the powerful lawyers and politicians in the investigators’ way. Collier discovers Adam also had an affair with Estelle, and Sarah sees strange similarities in the murder cases that raise more concerns about Adam who may have killed his wife three years earlier and made it look like a suicide.
Sarah begins to suspect Adam’s estranged daughter, MELISSA (MEL) CLAREMONT (24), as the sinister mastermind behind a rampage of killings. Sarah leads the investigation into uncharted psychological territory and uncovers the details of each murder. She deduces Mel’s preference for poisons, powders, and solutions derived from local plant and mushroom species linked to issues of environmental degradation in the Lake Tahoe Basin. With a series of twists and turns at the end, Sarah determines that Mel is killing off her wicked family and herself, to end the cycle of human and environmental degradation that her family has caused, making the world a better place for future generations.
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Almost Sherlock SYNOPSIS: Friends from a renowned performing arts school in New York reunite at a seaside mansion three years after graduating. After a delightful cocktail party, the naked, dead body of BRET COOPER (24) lies face-down in the pool. Minutes later, TEMPLE JACKSON (24), a black actress and previous valedictorian, finds the body and screams. PRESTON HART (24), a German actor, and OSCAR GOOLAGONG (24), a native Australian, retrieve the body while GILLIAN LI (24) an Asian actress, REKHA MITTAL (24), an Indian actress, and MARLY MASON (24), the party’s sexy hostess add to the chaos. Luckily, ANDREW WILLIAMS (24), a handsome black actor and Sherlock Holmes wannabe is there to help. Two POLICE OFFICERS (male 40s, female 40s), and a fireman confirm the probable suicide. A Deputy Coroner removes the body before seasoned DETECTIVE SÉAMAS REGAN (60s) arrives to see the “shit show” of actors live-streaming the investigation.
The Detective holds initial interviews in the den, while the police officers search for the victim’s clothes, suicide note, and the person who shot and posted a video of Bret floating naked in the pool before Temple found the body. The self-absorbed actors each considered Bret their best friend but none of them remained in contact after graduation. Andrew, acting as SHERLOCK, gets on the Detective’s nerves at every step of the investigation. The Detective suspects evidence tampering by one or more of the actors, who are now suspects. The interviews reveal no motive for suicide, and background checks on the actors reveal complicated relationships and criminal records. The actors continually dramatize and livestream videos of the investigation.
When the Deputy Coroner reports back to the Detective that Bret had seawater in his lungs, and traces of a Russian poison in his system, it becomes a “murder investigation” and the actors are confined to the house. Sherlock inserts himself into the case until he is handcuffed and suffers a nervous breakdown. Temple secretly steps up to help Sherlock solve the case. When the Detective demands a reenactment of the suicide/murder, Sherlock steps up, guided by Temple feeding him lines via a small hearing device. They deduce the death was a simple suicide and the Detective exits frustrated and bitter.
In a twist at the end, Temple guides the actors through what really happened the night before. She shows how Bret orchestrated the party to deceive two Russian hitmen. She walks the actors through his plan to hide evidence and use the actors as the “misdirection” in the mystery. Temple shows how Bret faked his suicide, gave the Russians credit for his demise, and escaped to become a CIA spy like his parents. Temple is a masterful detective and with her new love interest, Sherlock, as her unwitting accomplice, they are positioned for many mysteries to come.
The Super-Smartphone Mystery SYNOPSIS: AUDREY CHRISTIE (21) is a charismatic and confident mountaineer but may be too stubborn to take advice from her future self. Leading an ice-climbing adventure with her new boyfriend, PAUL (23), and three strangers, she’s “visited” by a hologram of an ELDERLY WOMAN (70s) while alone on the trail. The hologram warns her about a diamond THEIF (23) who CHIEF PARK RANGER STEVENS (40s) is searching for. The Elderly Woman vanishes but leaves behind her “Super-Smartphone.” Audrey reluctantly turns it on with facial recognition, and two mysteries ensue: Who is the Elderly Woman and where is the Thief?
Paul gives nature hikes in the National Park in the summer but is a clumsy winter hiker and climber. The three strangers and cabin mates include two novice ice climbers, GUNTHER (24), a smartphone designer from Germany, and CHANG (24), a competing phone designer from China. SHARI (30s), in textbook sales, volunteered to be a “spotter” (for safety) for Gunther and Chang. An afternoon of ice climbing exposes everyone’s weaknesses and secrets. Gunther and Chang are cutthroat competitors, and Gunther may have sabotaged Chang’s climb. Shari sprains her ankle and is exposed as a journalist tracking technology espionage. Returning to the cabin, they find they were robbed, but everyone has their passports and phones safely with them.
However, the Thief returns to the cabin and robs them again at gunpoint with Shari’s pistol. Shari’s true identity as a CIA Agent is exposed. Before the Thief escapes, she warns the climbers that they’ll be shot if they follow her down to the trailhead. Shari goes after the female Thief. Gunther and Chang are driven to retrieve their prototype smartphones and soon everyone is scattered in the dark woods. They hear a gunshot and find Shari dead. Everyone’s only escape route requires a dangerous nighttime ice climb and treacherous hike over a mountain pass to the road east of the park. Audrey saves all their lives on the trek. Gunther and Chang become friends, and Audrey and Chang develop “a thing.” Audrey’s new phone comes in handy several times, especially when the Thief and Paul reunite on the east side.
Audrey records Paul’s robbery and assault on the Thief. Audrey confronts Paul and lays out his entire evil plot. Paul had used Audrey and the tech geeks to aid in his escape after missing his rendezvous with the Thief and rented snowmobile. Paul tries to kill Audrey, but she is prepared for him and has taped his full confession. Chief Park Ranger Stevens arrives to arrest Paul and the Thief. Chang and Gunther, indebted to Audrey for saving their lives, create the world’s first Super-Smartphone decades later. The Elderly Woman’s hologram returns to give her super-smartphone to Audrey to protect her on future adventures.
The Super-Smartphone Mystery Logline
Who is Betty Andrews? SYNOPSIS: TONY and LISA ANDREWS (40s) are called into the counselor’s office at their daughter’s school. BETTY (12) used an unapproved source for her recent book report: “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes, an ancient Greek comedy that contained references to male genitalia. Betty imagines her book report titled “Love thy Enemy” as a simple anti-war theme. Local FATHER O'BRIEN (60s) endorses the concept because Jesus invented it. However, we learn that Betty didn't read the book. She relied on a two-page summary from Google. But Betty’s biggest mistake is secretly recording the school counselor, and somehow her book report and the recording escape to the Internet. Betty goes on strike and refuses to do the dishes until her brother comes home from the Army, so Lisa and Tony refuse to cook for Betty until she ends her protest.
Saturday morning, social media Mega-Influencer, DIANA DIABLO (20s), visits the Andrews home and videotapes her protest in action. The tape goes viral on the Internet and the local TV news network, creating more difficulties for Betty at school and home. However, one of Betty's classmates, SAM (12), joins Betty's protest by holding up a “Love thy Enemy” sign at the local Army Recruiting Office. Dozens of people join Sam’s protest and Diana Diablo grabs video evidence once again. Lisa, a hospital nurse in uniform, is spotted on the video next to a woman protesting high drug costs, and Lisa is sent home on administrative leave. At the same time, Tony, a plumber, has difficulty finding jobs, and Betty is expelled. Betty visits the Public Library with her friend TINA (12) where she learns about another nonviolent protester, Mahatma Gandhi. While Betty’s resolve grows, she and Sam become closer friends. However, when Betty, Sam, and Tina tell Father O’Brien that the “Love thy Enemy” concept predates Jesus Christ, the priest pulls his support for Betty.
Sunday night, Betty decides to become her own advocate and influencer. She cuts off the phony attention-seeking Diana Diablo, reads the entire books from the library, and creates a new book report on Gandhi. Armed with newly gained critical thinking skills on Monday morning, Betty and her mom set out to make amends. Betty confirms facts with the librarian, apologizes to Sam's mother and the Army Sergeant, and returns to school for a lunchtime showdown with the principal and counselor. All the students at the school are waiting outside with signs that read “We support Betty” and “Love thy Enemy.” Tony, Lisa, and Betty are surprised that the librarian's mother, a respected attorney in town, joins them to support Betty. Betty is readmitted, her brother seeks a non-combatant role in the army as a medical assistant, and Lisa gets her job back at the hospital. In the end, Betty and Sam are in love, and their hope springs eternal to end all wars.
Christmas for Rent SYNOPSIS: Luna Sanchez-Danson (MOM; 55) rents a remote cabin in the woods for her family’s Christmas, but it’s very different from the classy-looking photos on the website. Her kids show up the first day to decorate, while their mates show up the next. Her oldest son, LAWRENCE (28), an attorney, fails to lodge a complaint due to a lack of phone and Internet service. SHARON (25), Mom’s daughter, laughs it off. The youngest son, BILLY (23), just wants to see that Mom has the best Christmas ever after Billy’s dad’s death less than a year ago. Tensions are raised by a shotgun-toting landlord, GRAMPS (75). He says he lives in the barn on the property and won’t let the family call out from his adjacent meadow with phone service.
Just before dinner, Gramps suddenly appears from the cabin’s bathroom with a towel around him. Luckily, his granddaughter, MAGGIE (23), arrives to take Gramps back to his retirement home in town. Mom, Lawrence, and Sharon are smitten with Maggie and invite the landlords to dinner. However, Gramps suffers a Transient Global Amnesia (TGA) episode and is forced to lie down in the one real bedroom, and Maggie must stay in the barn until Gramps can be transported in the morning. Maggie demonstrates her master’s thesis research on “spooning” with Lawrence as a therapeutic technique to calm people down, and Mom volunteers to spoon with Gramps.
Mom and her family are highly skeptical, but Mom has her best night’s sleep in months, and Gramps has his best sleep in years. Billy and his siblings are slowly convinced that neither Gramps nor Maggie is crazy. But the family’s dynamics become more chaotic and strained when Lawrence’s fiery Latina wife, NATALIA (28), and Sharon’s passionate Asian wife, DIANE WONG (25), arrive at the already crowded cabin. The family is comically lost without Wi-Fi and phone service. When Billy’s friend arrives in the form of Maggie’s Thesis Committee chair, PROFESSOR SHEILA JACKSON (40, black), Maggie and the others wrongly assume they are a couple. Any romance between Billy and Maggie looks impossible. Gramps becomes agitated into another TGA, compounding the dismal sleeping arrangements.
Everyone convinces Professor Jackson that spooning is an appropriate scientific avenue of study, and she departs. We learn that Gramps is faking the TGAs to keep from being taken back to his retirement home and to foster Maggie’s relationship with Billy. While the youngsters play a board game, Mom reveals she received a big payout from her late husband’s life insurance. She plans to rent the cabin forever and restore the lodge to its former glory. The couples all spoon themselves to sleep, including Maggie and Billy in the barn. Everyone’s Christmas dreams come true, proving that the greatest gifts in life come from actually being physically together without their electronics.
Deepfake Revengers SYNOPSIS: When LORI KUMAR (21) and her computer science class get interrupted by a poorly made deepfake video of her two best friends kissing, she knows who created it and vows revenge. TINA JACKSON (21) and CASSY NEWSOME (21) are barely recognizable in the grainy, pixelated video, and their left and right eyes reflect light differently – sure signs of a fake. The culprits across the classroom are STANLEY HOLCOMBE (21), MIGUEL LOPEZ (21), and WEI CHIN (21), who failed to grasp the “intelligence” part of the AI software.
Lori and her friends plot their revenge with a deepfake video of their own. However, Lori is a superior coder and taps into the university’s computer grid to master the open-source deepfake software incredibly fast. Their AI deepfake shows the three young men apologizing for their actions and asking for contributions to charities supporting victims of deepfake technology. The boys, on the defensive, can’t deny the video because it goes viral. It then draws unwanted attention from law enforcement and a deepfake kingpin in Hollywood. JACK (50s), mass produces poorer quality deepfakes of movie-stars’ faces illegally superimposed on porn stars in action. He travels to Canada with two bodyguards, (IVAN (40) and HARRY (40)), to force the boys to retract their video. And Jack wants Lori’s superior code for making deepfakes. Lori’s mom, DETECTIVE KUMAR (40s), is oblivious to her daughter’s activities until their home suffers a well-orchestrated home invasion at the hands of Jack and his crew. The Detective is compelled to interrogate her daughter and her friends downtown.
As threats against them escalate, Lori and her friends explore the Dark Web to discover Jack works for a Russian mobster named ALEX (50s) who hacked a recording studio of thousands of demo tapes for illegal recording sales combined with deepfake videos. He commands Jack to blow up the studio to cover his tracks. The young women must work with the young men to get the photos necessary for a realistic deepfake video of Jack. In the video, Jack confesses all past legal indiscretions and turns the state’s evidence on Alex. The tape is so realistic that Jack is compelled to turn against Alex who has already put out a hit on him.
Working together brings the socially awkward young women and men together romantically. In an ending full of twists and turns, Lori and her friends help Detective Kumar capture Jack. Meanwhile, Lori makes Alex suffer for the illegal use of AI technology by infecting his computers with a deadly virus. All the while, Lori’s prowess in deepfake technology is being monitored by an Interpol Agent interested in hiring her team to identify and destroy deepfakes everywhere in the world. Their real troubles are just beginning.
Wine and Die SYNOPSIS: There’s an icy fall storm approaching for a Christmas gathering when a movie producer, BRANSON (60s), and his actress wife, SHERYL WRIGHT (50s), arrive to purchase the struggling winery from their son, EVAN (30s), and a previous co-owner, SUMMER YARBROUGH (40s). A rich and charming “power couple,” MARCEL (28) and AMELIA DUBOIS (28), arrives to co-sign for the prospective owners. Everyone is surprised when the other previous co-owner, JERRY YARBROUGH (50s), races up in an RV, blocks the driveway, and demands his private wine collection which is delaying the sale. Jerry has a bad temper, an ankle monitor, and a restraining order. Summer refuses Jerry’s demands and fires a shotgun at him. The RV explodes, presumably killing Jerry. Minutes later, charming Marcel is found dead from an apparent lightning strike on the back patio. The sommelier, TINA RYAN (30s), and CHARLIE TURNER (30s), a comically poor chef, are baffled. The inexperienced DEPUTY SHERIFF SETH WINDSOME (30s) is distracted by his girlfriend, Tina, the severe weather, and two victims.
The Sheriff suspects foul play and his interviews reveal few have alibies while motives are in great supply. Suspicion centers on Sheryl, who is suspected of poisoning four people two years earlier, including Jerry’s daughter (Evan’s wife) on their wedding night. However, Jerry, who has a history of domestic violence, may not be dead. The security cameras are disconnected and listening devices are discovered in the winery. Meanwhile, Marcel’s body shows only weak signs of electrocution, but has a contusion on his head, and stun gun scars on his arm. The Sheriff suspects Jerry in Marcel’s murder.
The search for Jerry unveils secrets about the others. A stun gun is found in Sheryl’s room, Branson has his bags packed for a quick getaway, and Amelia lusts for Evan. Tension escalates when four glasses of wine are found in the tasting room. Tina deduces that it’s the wine Jerry served on his wedding day to Summer from his private wine collection. The sale of the winery can now go forward once Marcel’s murder is solved. The Sheriff finally captures Jerry, but the murder remains unsolved with nagging loose ends.
The following morning, fiery Sheryl clears things up. She’s played detectives, lawyers, and cops in movies. How hard could it be to reveal the stories of betrayal, deceit, lust, and redemption? While the Sheriff is outside calling for backup, Sheryl holds court in the tasting room. The right to remain silent is completely ignored and Sheryl, Tina, and Evan form a crime-solving trio to identify Amelia and Branson as the real perpetrators. In the end, the perps go to jail, Sheryl and Summer get the winery, Tina and the Sheriff move to San Francisco, Evan goes off to law school, Charlie becomes a worse chef, and Jerry seems to disappear. It was a Christmas to remember.
Do You Belize in Christmas? SYNOPSIS: When school reconvenes after the Christmas Break, ANGELA SANCHEZ (13), a confident but routinely poor-prepared student, presents her oral book report on “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” to her uninterested classmates and strict teacher, MR. ROBINS (40s). Mr. Robins offers only half-credit for banned books, but Angela is not deterred and intertwines Mark Twain’s book with her family’s holiday adventures. She first cons her DAD (35), MOM (35), and brother, BUZZ (9), to vacation in Belize, convinced that a tourist map found in the library book is a treasure map. Dad and Mom reluctantly agree to the trip to teach their kids humility, given that Dad’s sister, MARIAM (40), runs an orphanage in San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. Buzz hates the outdoors and fears open water and wildlife, but secretly agrees to help Angela find the treasure. The airlines misplace the Sanchez’s luggage, and only a small room is available for them at the fancy resort, so the kids must stay with their aunt at the orphanage.
Angela is smitten with TANIGI (ta-nee-gee; 13), an ever-smiling self-reliant orphan who works in the kitchen for Mariam, and who reminds Angela of a cross between Huck Finn and Jim. When she discovers Tanigi has read the book, she exploits his knowledge for her book report. On an excursion to Secret Beach, Angela and Buzz meet MR. ZARGUS (75), a naturalist and adventurer. Mr. Zargus is hounded by two dangerous GOONS (40s) who are con men and antiquity thieves.
That night, while Angela and Buzz sleep at the orphanage, Tanigi is assaulted by the Goons while sleeping on the beach. Following snorkeling and Christmas Eve festivities in San Pedro, Angela, Tanigi, Buzz, and Tanigi’s friend, Naomi (12), see Mr. Zargus abducted by the Goons. The teens vow to help him. They “borrow” a golf cart and follow the Goons to Mr. Zargus’s cabin in the swamp. The Goons rough up Mr. Zargus and steal his notebooks divulging the location of an ancient Mayan trading post.
Mr. Zargus offers to show Tanigi and Naomi where he found them in the jungle as toddlers before taking them to the orphanage. Angela and Buzz ask to tag along. However, the real plan is to beat the Goons to the jungle location and catch them red-handed in antiquities theft. In an exciting conclusion, Tanigi and Naomi find their place of birth, and Mr. Zargus and the kids capture the Goons, which leads to the recovery of thousands of stolen Mayan artifacts. The kids are heroes and give their reward to the orphanage. Angela, who has perfectly intertwined the adventures of Huck Finn and her gang in Belize, finds love with Tanigi, and receives full credit, an A+, and a standing ovation for her oral book report.
Do You Belize in Christmas? Logline
The Unfinished Mystery SYNOPSIS: Synopsis: Famous mystery writer, M.T. WHITLOW (45), dies after a shorter-than-expected battle in hospice, leaving behind a fortune and an unfinished manuscript. She charges her Russian wife, MARGOT (32), and underachieving adopted son, FLYNN (17), with a single task to convene selected authors and vote for the most suitable writer to complete her novel and collect millions in royalties. The candidates are a mix of old and new friends. ROBERT KNOLLS (50), a charming and successful British mystery writer, and CARLOS DIEGO (45), a suave Columbian writer, are the favorites. Less competitive authors include DEDE FLETCHER (40), a carefree American writer, and an Indian college student, SAMIRA RAM (21). However, M.T. stipulated that her staunch Australian attorney, ARTEMIS TRENT (60), and Asian female butler, CEE-CEE (28) also have voting privileges along with Margo and Flynn, to ensure a single writer is selected.
Margot and Flynn orchestrate the meeting. Before voting, everyone must review M.T.’s nine rules for writing murder mysteries: (1) the most unlikable person is the first to die; (2) the butler didn’t do it; (3) women use poison, men use guns or knives; (4) never kill off the wildcard; (5) the motive is always lust, love, loathing, or loot; (6) the first person arrested didn’t do it; (7) it’s all about misdirection; (8) The best clues are what people don’t say; and (9) no one believes in the right to remain silent. M.T. also left clues about writing scattered in the mansion.
The meeting barely gets started when Robert, the most likable candidate, dies from poisoning. Chaos ensues before everyone has a chance to pitch their proposed ending to M.T.’s novel. Enter SERGEANT ELLIE CAIN, a confident detective, who is uncertain about the cause of Robert’s death and takes the body to autopsy. With the frontrunner dead, anybody could win, including Margot, Flynn, Cee-Cee and Artemis. However, a strict “morality clause” embedded in the Will prohibits anything immoral or illegal or they get disinherited. When Artemis is found stabbed to death in the den, Flynn is the primary suspect, and the Sergeant is called back to the mansion on a stormy night.
Relationships form between Dede and Carlos, and between Flynn and Samira, but a steamy connection between Margot and Cee-Cee remains a secret. Flynn observes it all and surprises everyone, especially the Sergeant, by sorting out the events of the evening one by one and solving not one, not two, but three murders, including the illegal euthanasia of his mother. Some of M.T.’s rules for murder mysteries were followed, but some were not. In the end, Flynn nails Carlos and Dede for Artemis’s murder, and Margo and Cee-Cee for Robert and M.T.’s murders. Due to the morality clause, Flynn inherits everything, including a twist at the end.
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Wine and Die SYNOPSIS: Synopsis: There’s an icy fall storm approaching when a movie producer, BRANSON (60s), and his actress wife, SHERYL WRIGHT (50s), arrive to purchase the struggling winery from their son, EVAN (30s), and a previous co-owner, SUMMER YARBROUGH (40s). A rich and charming “power couple,” MARCEL (28) and AMELIA DUBOIS (28), arrives to co-sign for the prospective owners. Everyone is surprised when the other previous co-owner, JERRY YARBROUGH (50s), races up in an RV, blocks the driveway, and demands his private wine collection which is delaying the sale. Jerry has a bad temper, an ankle monitor, and a restraining order. Summer refuses Jerry’s demands and fires a shotgun at him. The RV explodes, presumably killing Jerry. Minutes later, charming Marcel is found dead from an apparent lightning strike on the back patio. The sommelier, TINA RYAN (30s), and CHARLIE TURNER (30s), a comically poor chef, are baffled. The inexperienced DEPUTY SHERIFF SETH WINDSOME (30s) is distracted by his girlfriend, Tina, the severe weather, and two victims.
The Sheriff suspects foul play and his interviews reveal few have alibies while motives are in great supply. Suspicion centers on Sheryl, who is suspected of poisoning four people two years earlier, including Jerry’s daughter (Evan’s wife) on their wedding night. However, Jerry, who has a history of domestic violence, may not be dead. The security cameras are disconnected and listening devices are discovered in the winery. Meanwhile, Marcel’s body shows only weak signs of electrocution, but has a contusion on his head, and stun gun scars on his arm. The Sheriff suspects Jerry in Marcel’s murder.
The search for Jerry unveils secrets about the others. A stun gun is found in Sheryl’s room, Branson has his bags packed for a quick getaway, and Amelia lusts for Evan. Tension escalates when four glasses of wine are found in the tasting room. Tina deduces that it’s the wine Jerry served on his wedding day to Summer from his private wine collection. The sale of the winery can now go forward once Marcel’s murder is solved. The Sheriff finally captures Jerry, but the murder remains unsolved with nagging loose ends.
The following morning, fiery Sheryl clears things up. She’s played detectives, lawyers, and cops in movies. How hard could it be to reveal the stories of betrayal, deceit, lust, and redemption? While the Sheriff is outside calling for backup, Sheryl holds court in the tasting room. The right to remain silent is completely ignored and Sheryl, Tina, and Evan form a crime-solving trio to identify Amelia and Branson as the real perpetrators. In the end, the perps go to jail, Sheryl and Summer get the winery, Tina and the Sheriff move to San Francisco, Evan goes off to law school, Charlie becomes a worse chef, and Jerry seems to disappear.
Antiques Road Heist SYNOPSIS: Three out-of-work actors, NAN TUTTLE (24), LAURA SANCHEZ (26), and ADAM MITCHEL (28) innocently respond to a casting call for “Antiques Road House,” a reality TV show conducting estate sale appraisals. The Producer, CHARISE FONDRE (30), a French beauty, and Director, ABODI IKOYA (28) a formal Nigerian man, arrange to appraise the antiques and art recently inherited by TOMMY TAYLOR-HUGHES (24), a recluse millionaire disguised as John Lennon. The “set” is Tommy’s grandfather’s mansion guarded by SVEN GUNGERSON and a high-tech security system. The three actors roam the house armed with iPads and the latest AI-assisted antique appraisal software. Tommy becomes smitten with Nan. Several high-value items are crated and loaded into a van with GPS transmitters and drone support to be delivered to a high-end and secure auction house.
When the three actors are let out of the vehicle a mile from the mansion, they realize they were duped into a heist valued at $2 million. Nan is the only one to return to the mansion to confess to waiting police: DETECTIVE JIMMY LI (45) and SERGEANT ALI KUMAR (35). The heist masterminds thought of everything for a clean getaway. They transferred poor resolution photos of the items to Tommy along with a computer virus that wipes everything clean from the security camera. Sven suspects Tommy is involved.
Nan is released from police custody the next morning because Tommy didn’t press charges for the actors. In fact, Tommy is waiting outside the police station, this time disguised as a homeless bum where Nan promises to bring the thieves to justice. And because the thieves didn’t find the safe containing a priceless pink diamond necklace, Tommy and Nan return to the scene of the crime. They are surprised to find Sven’s dead body in the basement, and Sergeant Kumar waiting upstairs. This time, Tommy is taken to jail, and Nan must rely on her grandpa, GEORGIE TUTTLE (75) and the others at the Hollywood retirement village to solve the case.
Nan deduces that the thieves are after the pink diamond necklace and she and Laura return to the mansion at night to see flashlight beams on the top floor. Nan is captured by Charise, Abodi, and Adam, only to learn that Laura is in on the heist. Nan is tied up, but rescued by Tommy before the police arrive. In the showdown, Detective Li accuses Nan of being the ringleader, before Nan, in Agatha Christi fashion, proves Laura orchestrated the heist, but that Tommy murdered Sven and was the evil mastermind for insurance fraud and his grandpa’s notebook of secret bank accounts. Sergeant Kumar enters with the pink diamond necklace found on Tommy’s yacht, but the notebook was never found. So why is Nan smiling?
A Most Unusual Christmas SYNOPSIS: The ancient Mayans had a saying that when their gods seem temporarily powerless, you must take matters into your own hands. When ITZEL LUNA UCAN (24) is forced out of her village by a drug cartel BOSS (40s), she returns briefly to avenge the killing of her husband. She conks the Boss on the head, and steals his cash, satellite phone, and smartphone containing his bank account passcodes. She sneaks across the U.S. border and stows away on a charter bus surreptitiously headed to the Vice President’s residence in Washington, DC. Stranded in the freezing cold at night just days before Christmas, a warm coat is gently placed on the shoulders by SEAN REGAN (24), who is smitten by her. Sean kindly invites her into his humble home unaware that his troubles are just beginning.
Secret Service AGENT “ADDIE” HARRIS (30s), serving the Vice President, easily hunts down the one unaccounted-for immigrant from the charter bus. Seeing that the immigrant is safe and comfortable, the Vice President decides to make this a PR opportunity with Addie assigned to protect Itzel in Sean’s house. Addie is tantalizing Sean when Itzel drops her shawl to reveal she is 8 months pregnant. Itzel avoids being “processed” into the immigrant database by OFFICER PEREZ (50s) of the Border Patrol, afraid that the Boss will find her. Complications arise when everyone wrongly presumes Itzel is Mexican, the Vice President isn’t told about the pregnancy, and Itzel keeps stealing clothes and escaping.
Knowing that asylum seekers cannot have a criminal record, Itzel pushes the limits at every turn. She assaulted and robbed the Boss in her home country, brings stolen goods and money with cocaine residue across the border, and “borrows” a van to get Sean a Christmas tree in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, compassion leads to passion as Itzel and Sean fall deeply in love against the backdrop of Christmastime.
The stakes rise when the Boss is alerted about Itzel’s location and he sets out for revenge, hunting for Itzel in Washington DC. There are plenty of twists and turns in the cat and mouse game ending at a local park where Itzel has lured the Boss with his satellite phone. In an exciting showdown, Itzel details her intricate plan to prove she deserves asylum, traps the cartel Boss on U.S. soil, and professes her love for Sean in her ancient Mayan language. It turns out that love is love in every language.
A Most Unusual Christmas Logline
The Million Heirs SYNOPSIS: A strict catamaran owner, the CAPTAIN (35; female), and tour guide, NIGEL (32), are challenged to protect and entertain the rambunctious teenage children of American millionaires in the paradise of Belize over spring break. DION (17) is the tall, African American son of an NBA star. SHARIE (17) is a spoiled daughter of a movie producer. PAULO (17) is a Cuban ladies' man who is afraid of heights. HUI (15) is a cute Asian comedian. MARINA (16) is a sweet Latina bookworm who can't swim.
Even before boarding the catamaran, the teens are spotted as targets by three local thieves: "the Pirates," JUANITA (18), a Creole clone of Wednesday Addams; IKAL (17), a male Mayan farmer; and ZEE (20), an ex-pat English thug. Keeping the rich teens safe will not be easy. After snorkeling all day, the teens aren't too tired to escape Nigel's B&B to a nearby nightclub, where Sharie is abducted by Zee and Ikal while Paulo and the others are distracted by Juanita's seductive dancing. When the Million Heirs return without Sharie, the Captain goes into rescue mode.
Sharie is found safe, but coming-of-age relationships between Zee and Sharie, Paulo and Juanita, and Hui and Marina complicate group dynamics the next day as Nigel guides a tour of the Mayan ruins at Altun Ha. The Million Heirs share secrets with the Pirates and keep secrets from the Captain and Nigel. Zee is stalking Sharie as Juanita connives a credit card from Paulo. Sharing travel plans with the Pirates sets up a major theft of credit cards, passports, and smartphones the next day at a waterfall on the jungle tour. The Million Heirs lose everything, including their dignity.
The Captain, Nigel, and the Million Heirs request the help of a Garifuna village, descendants of ship-wrecked slaves who are renowned as the friendliest people on Earth. MAMA ELOISE (60) proclaims a "spiritual day," closing the town for music and dancing to prevent the Pirates from escaping. The Captain, Nigel, and the MillionHeirs capture the Pirates and reclaim their booty. The Pirates are released after touching confessions and everyone celebrates. The Million Heirs learn so much more from the generous and kind Garifuna people. The African proverb is profound: "It takes a village to raise a child."
In a surprise phone call aboard the catamaran, the Million Heirs are told by their parents that they conspired with the Captain to hire the Pirates to teach the teens to become more responsible. The teens are jilted, especially about the friendships they formed. Then, everyone is kidnapped by a real Crime Boss, and everyone's life is in danger. The Captain and teens rise to the occasion and the Million Heirs escape for another adventure.
Of Gold and Murder SYNOPSIS: ELLE JACKSON (35) is a brilliant but desperate Assistant Professor of History who needs one more successful field study to get promoted. She sets her sights on solving a 90-year-old murder mystery involving a fortune in gold coins buried in the Yuba River near the historic Rustic Lodge in the High Sierra. She meets with the heavy-drinking lodge owner, BRETT PARKS (40s), who searches for the gold daily but has little information about the murder. While speaking about the difficulties in finding the gold in an ever-changing riverbed, Brett is called by kidnappers claiming to have his daughter, NORA (20), who is away at college. The kidnappers demand $100,000 which Brett doesn't have. Brett begs for Elle's help to find the gold and she finally agrees, for half of any gold discovered. Brett notifies his estranged second wife, LISA (early-30s), of the kidnapping and warns her that Nora will be killed if they go to the authorities.
Finding the gold at night won't be easy. Based on a one-paragraph news story about the 1932 murder following a poker game, Elle recreates the scene and calculates the weight of gold coins and the distance the winner could have run in the five minutes it took the loser to drive home to get his gun. Elle uses a statistical approach to finding the gold. She has Brett make several runs from the tavern to the river carrying two pillowcases with a 40-pound dumbbell in each. Brett's heart condition and drinking take their toll.
Things turn worse when Brett's jealous wife, Lisa, arrives and conks Elle on the head to take over the search. We learn Lisa is motivated by gambling debts, not her stepdaughter's predicament. Realizing they need Elle to use the mapping models, Brett and Lisa coerce Elle into helping. Betrayals abound after Elle reveals the antique $10-gold coins are valued over at $4 million. Lisa is trying to kill Brett for his life insurance and both suspect Elle of the kidnapping. Unknown to everyone is that Nora is spying on them all with cameras from upstairs in the lodge.
Elle discovers Nora, fragile and frightened, who wildly claims Lisa staged her kidnapping and that her dad and stepmom murdered her biological mom, Mary, five years ago. In the end, Elle and Nora ally to trap the criminal parents into confessing. Motives get intertwined, Brett and Lisa confess to Mary's murder, Lisa attacks Brett and gets shot, and Brett has a heart attack before Nora storms into the Tavern with a pistol. In a twist at the end, psychotic Nora admits to staging her kidnapping and Elle survives a gunshot to capture Nora, solve two murders, and finds the gold the next morning.
Conspiracy to Omit Murder SYNOPSIS: Everyone at his “Days of Views” vintage RV park wanted ADRIEL LONG (30s) dead. The drunken womanizer reportedly observed a One-Eyed Yellow-Breasted Crossbill that had not been seen in 24 years. Several campers wanted that glory for themselves, but before Adriel could divulge the location of the rare bird and verify the sighting with a photograph, he was shot in the stomach and conked on the head. The lead suspect is BIRDIE LONG (32), Adriel’s wife, who has the most to gain financially, but DEPUTY ALEJANDRO SANTOS (27) also suspects several extended family members may be co-conspirators.
JUDY JENKINS (20s) is a flirty ornithologist married to BETSY (30s), a kindly chiropractor and amateur birder. CHERYL MANN (35) is Judy’s ruthlessly competitive sister who will stop at nothing to claim the bird sighting. Her wimpy husband, LARRY (35), must contend with a delinquent stepson, ARVIN (10), and a demanding baby (1). TALIA SMITH (24) is a struggling singer-songwriter seeking credit for the bird sighting to propel her career. Her sleazy husband, ZACH (30s), wants to kill the rare bird and purchase the RV park for development.
When Adriel returns from the hospital in a wheelchair and on pain meds, Birdie takes him to the archery range on the property to relax while she “helps” the Deputy with the case. Adriel gets shot in the foot by an errant arrow, just before his slacker brother, BUCK LONG (20s), shows up with a rifle, bow, and dead songbird. Buck becomes the lead suspect in Adriel’s multiple assaults and the target of ire from the birders, especially Cheryl, his ex-wife. The plot thickens like the mac ‘n cheese casseroles that dominate the RV park potluck and bird slide show where the Deputy has all the suspects gathered for his “big attempted-murderer reveal.”
The Deputy leads us through his accusations concluding that Birdie committed the assaults with a .22 pistol taken from the Lost and Found. He goes on to suggest she conked him on the head with a rock and shot him with a hunting arrow in the foot the next day. The motive, he claims, is Adriel’s life insurance policy which only pays out with accidental death, not murder. With twists at the end, Adriel stages a comeback. There are confounding confessions from several suspects, and the Deputy’s case collapses like a house of cards. The strange members of the extended family stick together, proving that blood is thicker than mac ‘n cheese. Adriel apologizes to Birdie for being a louse, and Birdie apologizes for injuring him many times, accidentally, of course. The rare bird is spotted as the frustrated Deputy storms out and life goes on in rural America as God did, or did not, intend.
Conspiracy to Omit Murder Logline
Last Call at Shorty's Speakeasy SYNOPSIS: By the time female DETECTIVE DAYO WATERS (35) arrives at Shorty’s Speakeasy, CHEF WILBER (40s) has died from a knife attack, and EMMA IRONS (30), a former hand model turned sex worker, has been bludgeoned to death with a candle. Shorty’s is a trendy hangout behind a candle shop front in the bad part of town frequented by pretentious snobs and at least one murderer. The only “backup” available for the Detective is clumsy POLICE CADET RED SMILEY (26), who has failed the Police Academy twice. The Detective’s investigation is hampered by frequent power outages lasting up to two minutes in the bar.
The bar’s suspects and potential victims include the owners, SAMANTHA (35) a tough blonde in a tuxedo, and her ex-wife, BARBIE (35), a feisty Asian woman with a temper; two “mixologists,” VICTORIA (26), a Mexican beauty, and MAX (22), a black law student; arrogant PROFESSOR BOND (40) and his former grad student, KATINA (25), a fiery black woman; and two local thugs. DASH (30) is a slumlord, and BETO (30) is a new-age mobster. A sexy REDHEAD (22), new in town, blends in with the 15 other Patrons.
Many suspects emerge for the Chef’s and sex worker’s murders. As the Detective investigates, the lights go out again and the much-hated slumlord, Dash, is found strangled to death with his skinny red necktie. The Detective and Cadet make little progress by gathering statements. The Patrons are more concerned about the small portions of the appetizers, the outrageously expensive cocktails, and the live-streaming “Best Speakeasy in America Contest,” than about the deaths of the unlikable barflies.
The Professor is the next target when the lights go out. But the lights come on quickly and we see the Professor hunched over with a bratwurst stuck in his throat. The Detective saves his life with the Heimlich maneuver, but she thinks the Professor planned his attempted murder. Beto dies next by chugging a drink with dry ice pellets in it. The bodies mount up in the walk-in fridge, where the Detective makes a startling discovery: each victim has a small puncture wound in the neck suggesting a serial killer is at work. However, someone locks the Detective and Cadet in the fridge and the lights go out again.
In a conclusion with twists and turns, the Detective and Cadet are released from the fridge and backup police now guard both exits. The Detective accuses the Professor of the crimes and sends the police back to the station to trick the real killer into escaping the next time the lights go out. The ploy works and the Detective captures the escaping killer after a near-death fight in the dark kitchen.
Last Call at Shorty's Speakeasy Logline
Vanishing Witnesses SYNOPSIS: Deputy U.S. Marshal EVA SANTOS (25) is the new caseworker protecting JAY (43) and PAT WELLS (41) who have been in the Witness Protection Program for fifteen years. Within 24 hours, the billionaire killer/torturer the Wells’ put behind bars, Mr. ZANO (65), is freed from prison pending a new trial, Eva’s predecessor abruptly quits and disappears, and the Wells’ daughter, MARY (18), vanishes under suspicious circumstances. Eva must find Mary while protecting Jay and Pat from Mr. Zano and his hired killer, Danny “GLOVES” Tosca (60).
Eva gets help from inexperienced Sheriff DEPUTY EASTMAN (24). They are both smitten. The search for Mary on the dangerous Riptide Beach where her wet jacket was found comes up empty, and Eva suspects foul play. Meanwhile, Mr. Zano, who is under house arrest, gets help from his grandson to circumvent the ankle monitor transmitter and is free to hunt for Jay and Pat.
Jay and Pat are moved to a remote hunting cabin, but they keep escaping for various reasons: to avoid being found by killers, to gather supplies from their old house, and have affairs, but not to search for their daughter. Eva’s investigation to find Mary is hampered by Jay and Pat, who think their daughter wants to reveal their whereabouts to Mr. Zano. Jay and Pat also reveal they moved Mary’s nanny, FRAN DEMONTE (30s) from Florida when they were relocated, not knowing she was Mr. Zano’s secret informant on Jay and Pat who are skimming Zano’s money. Jay is having an affair with Fran, while Pat carries on an affair with Mary’s friend, ACE (24).
Eva and Deputy Eastman have their hands full because everyone is a suspect in Mary’s disappearance, all of them lie (a lot), some of them are killers, and no one is easy to track down. Eva’s office is bombed with her predecessor inside, and FBI AGENT NICHOLS (55) who was also assigned to watch Mr. Zano, is brought in to find Mary. Eva, Jay, and Pat are shot at on two occasions in Eva’s car. However, when Ace is executed at the beach where Mary disappeared, Eva begins to masterfully solve all crimes. A showdown at the hunting cabin is orchestrated by Eva bringing everyone together. Mary disappeared with Mr. Zano’s ledger with his bank accounts and passcodes to protect her parents. Eva accuses FBI Agent Nichols of killing Fran and being on the take from Zano like her predecessor. Gloves is arrested behind the cabin for attempted murder, while in front of the cabin, Agent Nichols shoots Zano and is arrested. In the end, Eva and Deputy Eastman find love and the criminal mastermind, Mary, who is happily spending Zano’s money on a beach in Montenegro.
Holiday for Spies SYNOPSIS: ANNIE (22) completed her degree in Criminology before returning to work for her MOM (40s) at the family’s Bed and Breakfast over the stormy Christmas holiday. She’ll need to solve many mysteries overnight because her five guests are all spies lured there for mysterious reasons. BLAKE SMITH (30) is a handsome, shy, honest black man who is immediately smitten with Annie. FIFI JONES (35) is a clumsy French femme fatale who is no Mata Hari. JIMMY SMITH is a weakling James Bond-wannabe from London. GENJI JONES (35) is an easily distracted Chinese kleptomaniac to whom Jimmy is immediately attracted. YURI SMITH (40) looks like a dangerous Russian mastermind but isn’t dangerous and certainly is no mastermind. Fifi falls for Yuri who fails to notice her even in her skimpy black dress.
As the guests gather for complimentary box wine and cheeseballs, Fifi is found unconscious on the lobby floor. Accusations fly and the mistrust among the guests builds like the storm outside. Fifi coughs up a cheeseball, and the suspected poisoning has left her with stomach pains and gas. Later, Blake is found partially strangled leaving him with bouts of spontaneous coughing whenever he tries to be romantic with Annie. Making matters worse, the electricity goes out with only a small generator outside to light up the Christmas tree.
Annie begins investigating the injuries by searching each bedroom as everyone watches from the hallway. They are all masquerading as international salespeople. Jimmy sells dangerous Kitchen Fryers and curiously has an electronic bug detector in his room. A book in Fifi’s room has a sophisticated GPS tracker in it. Blake’s room has an unused camera pen. Genji’s room is full of stolen tiny electronic gadgets. Yuri has a switchblade knife. After Jimmy is drugged with truth serum, Annie becomes more suspicious of their aliases, secretive behavior, and spy equipment. Later, Genji is stabbed in the upper shoulder with an air fryer rotisserie spit rod, implicating Jimmy. All the cases mystify Annie and the others. Annie now keeps the group together in the lobby for everyone’s safety, but Yuri sneaks off to the kitchen and is stabbed in the butt with his own knife.
In the morning, Annie pieces together last night’s events like a seasoned detective. She concludes all the attacks may be warnings for the bungling spies. That’s when Annie’s Mom bursts in to reveal that she, too, is a spy, stunning Annie and the guests. Mom admits to luring the spies to their B&B with color brochures to persuade them to quit the profession. She confesses to attacking the guests to prove they were easy targets for assassins. Mom convinces the inept spies to retire. Annie is driven to become a famous detective, and three new couples, and mom, make it the best Christmas ever.
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Changing Arts and Minds TV Series : SYNOPSIS: MARIA PAPPAS (30s) is as smart and tough as they come. After her art history and teaching degrees, she served two tours of duty in the Greek Army in the Middle East. Now hampered by P.T.S.D. and homelessness, she uses her gumption to snag a temporary teaching job at Daedalus Gymnasio in the suburbs of Athens. She basically steals the job she badly needed. It’s a tough world out there, and, as it turns out, even tougher in the classroom.
Only six students remain in the class from the previous domineering teacher now out on maternity leave. The students, none of whom want to be there, include LYRA SIDARIS (13), a brilliant Greek who would rather hang out with bullies; DIMITRIS KALLIS (13), a jock looking for an “easy grade;” MATT LOWENSTEIN (13), an insecure Jewish newcomer from New York with a prosthetic leg; Hui “EMMA” CHANG (13), an underachieving student of Chinese descent; DORRI KHAN (13), a hijab-conscious Greek Muslim; and ERNESTO BAROS (13), a clinically-shy Greek student on the Autism spectrum, whose father, NIKO BAROS (40) is the school’s janitor and Maria’s only initial friend.
Maria’s real nemeses include PRINCIPAL MIKOS (60), who wanted to hire another teacher, and KYRIA GEORGIOU (late-60s), a strict office lady with a hidden heart. Maria’s troubles begin early on as the Principal and Kyria Georgiou learn that Maria may have taken her job under false pretenses. She had threatened the other applicant, and the District Office also finds issues with Maria’s resume (no home address). We learn that Maria sleeps in her car at the City Park and suffers night terrors. Her devotion to teaching changes everything. It’s an “international” story of inspiration filled with the natural comedy of six wild teens stuck in an art classroom in Greece. What could go wrong?
Young love is in the air. Lyra gravitates to the “hunk” Dimitris despite being polar opposites. Matt becomes smitten with Dorri across religious lines, and Ernesto “falls in like” with Emma across intellectual lines. Even more surprising, the students become better artists, while the janitor Niko eases his way into Maria’s impenetrable heart, and vice-versa.
This is a global story of comically imperfect people helping each other to become the best versions of themselves. We all learn important lessons from art and history along the way but it’s Maria’s love for teaching that makes the world a better place. Over the course of five seasons (with 60 episodes per season), we see every imaginable daily conflict and comical adventures that help our favorite six students learn important life-long lessons about changing hearts and minds.
Changing Arts and Minds TV Series Logline
Corn Maze 2030 : SYNOPSIS: It’s Halloween and opening night for Corn Maze 2030, a high-tech Corn Maze, where customers are supposedly helped through the physical maze by Virtual Reality “Spirit Guides” linked to an Artificial Intelligence computer. The proprietor, MR. DOMINIC (50s) acts surprised when his first customer is hauled away by ambulance.
Enter three teens determined to conquer the maze. TRACEY (18) is super smart, walks with a limp, and has a big, baseball-playing boyfriend, BLAYDEN (18). RILEY (18), a black wrestler who also yearns for Tracey is Blayden’s best friend. When they enter the maze with their VR Headsets on, they meet their virtual “Spirit Guides:” Tracey’s is a handsome bookworm, Blayden’s is a sexy blonde, and Riley’s is identical to Tracey. The teens discover that each of them has a tailored suite of horrifying experiences based on their online registration surveys. For example, Blayden sees Nazis, Tracey sees hospital corridors, and Riley senses he is hopelessly alone.
Riley’s dad, SHERIFF ALVEREZ (40s), is sent to investigate the first victim of the maze, who is now in I.C.U. He’s suspicious of Mr. Dominic’s shabby trailer office from the start. He sees Blayden’s car but doesn’t know Riley is in the maze. Meanwhile, the Spirit Guides become hypnotic and unhelpful, and the AI computer becomes more demonic. The teens are tormented in the maze, but the conniving, sexy Spirit Guides coerce them on. Mr. Dominic’s employee, HECTOR (50s), adds the frightening reality of a chainsaw and AK-47 in the maze. The teens return to the trailer without their VR Headsets to confront Mr. Dominic, but he convinces them not to be quitters.
The teens return to the maze with life-threatening consequences. Hector, the VR Headsets, and the AI Server are purposely detaining them in the maze, while Mr. Dominic steals their identities in the trailer. The teens ambush the gun-toting Hector and complete the maze without VR. In the trailer, the Sheriff lies in a pool of blood. Mr. Dominic claims it was an accident. Tracey catches on to the identity-theft operation and Mr. Dominic pulls a gun on the teens. Hector returns with the chainsaw and goes after Blayden in the parking lot, while Riley and Tracey battle it out with Mr. Dominic and his evil AI Spirit Guide in the trailer. In the end, the police arrive, Tracey pushes the Server Computer onto Mr. Dominic, sparks fly and the trailer, Server, and Mr. Dominic go up in flames. However, the AI Server backed itself up to the Cloud with the ability to send deadly night terrors to Blayden, Riley, and Tracey, unless Tracey becomes the next Mr. Dominic.
There's Trouble in the Valleystone HOA synopsis: SYNOPSIS: Many westerners would consider it a step up to own a new 4,000-square-foot home in the deluxe Valleystone subdivision in the scenic town of Mountain Vista, Montana. For our hero, Bradley McKey (35), it was a step down. Bradley’s identical twin brother, Billy Bob, inherited the family’s massive ranch bordering Yellowstone because that eldest son was five-minutes older. Booted from the ranch, Bradley moves into his new home and reluctantly becomes Chairperson of the Valleystone Homeowners Association (HOA). Bradley is assisted by vice-chair, Molly Pierce (30), a fiery black (and gay) rocket scientist who works from home. Cheryl Mathews (35) is their self-appointed Landscape Committee. Muhammed Ahmadi (50), a widower and militant Sargent at Arms for the HOA, has three beautiful daughters (17-21) and owns the local Hardware and Gun Shop. Lyle Chen (25) is a handsome homebuilder who wears his toolbelt to HOA meetings in hopes of impressing any or all of Muhammed’s daughters. Bradley holds their frequent HOA meetings in his home following proper Parliamentary procedure.
Bradley’s nemesis is Silver Night Hawk (30), a Native American who is the Chairperson of the adjacent Riverstone Homeowners Association. The homes in that subdivision are “only” 3,000 square-feet, and a few years older. Silver is loosely assisted by John Russell (24), a former child-TV star who has fallen on tough times, and Danny Sanchez (25) is a telecommuting tech nerd who met his Russian wife (Olga, 21) on the web-dating site he created. Their HOA committee has two irregular members including Ana Patel (30), an introvert trying to maintain her Indian culture by not assimilating, and George Jackson (60), a well-respected black dentist and voice of reason who hates meetings, especially HOA meetings which are held twice a year with a 20-minute limit.
Bradley must convene joint-HOA meetings to design and budget for a community dog park and swimming pool and solve dozens of everyday dramas in his community. If Bradley succeeds for five years, he’ll be given half of the family’s enormous ranch. And maybe, just maybe, he’ll find the woman of his dreams to share it with.
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A Motive To Die For synopsis: SYNOPSIS: HELEN THANOS (30), an American detective on holiday in Samothrace, Greece, is about to learn that asking too many questions can get you killed. She takes a tour of The Paleopoli, the ruins of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods and home to an ongoing secret cult. She meets SIMON PARSONS (40), an unorthodox British archaeologist, who uncovers a skeleton that Helen immediately suspects is a murder victim. With only two days left on his dig permit, Simon needs her help but is hesitant about answering all her questions about the cult known only as the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Others on Helen’s tour include the Greek tour guide, ZINO DRACOS (25), CLAUDIO and GINA (30s) from Rome, and an Egyptian couple, NUBIA and CEPOS (30s), and each has secrets. Zino is an antiquities security guard. Nubia and Cepos are current cult members, and Claudio and Gina are former cult members who now steal antiquities.
Helen is unaware that her new love interest is setting her up for antiquities theft. First, Simon passes her an old iron ring in a café before he is searched by Zino. Next, he hides an ancient wine jug in his car which she was driving. Simon has innocent excuses each time, which trusting Helen overlooks. Meanwhile, current cult members including Nubia, Cepos, and the local POLICEMAN (50) force Simon to stop working to avoid uncovering cult secrets. Helen is knocked unconscious and shoved into a body-sized pit within the pit covered by a stone with the symbol of Hades (Hell). Helen regains consciousness, finds a second ancient skeleton, and escapes the cavern to find herself trapped under a heavy tarp. She peeks out to see Simon is an apparent hostage in a cult procession headed by Nubia. Helen phones Zino only to find his dead body next to her. She is more determined to uncover the motives for the two ancient murders and Zino’s killer. Helen digs up a terracotta tablet with five Aristotle-like questions carved on it that will rock our world.
She escapes from cult members in a hail of bullets and spears before a showdown in a café. A WAITER (25) helps Helen by drugging most of the twenty modern-day cult members at their banquet ceremony. Helen confronts the armed Policeman and Simon. In Agatha Christie fashion, she first pieces together the two ancient cold-case murders and unravels the Eleusinian Mysteries, proving that asking too many questions can get you killed. In the surprise ending, Helen solves the two present-day murders implicating the Policeman and his high priest and recently ordained cult leader, Simon. Helen loses her new boyfriend but returns to the dig site, now a crime scene investigation, with a confident smile.
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The Three Wise KIds synopsis: SYNOPSIS: It’s Christmas Break in a small ski town besieged by an elusive porch pirate stealing packages and ruining Christmas for everyone. Three troublemaking 16-year-olds become the prime suspects: LATISHA (a female African American), CAZ (a female of Middle Eastern descent), and BOGS (a recent male immigrant from Ukraine), who drives a white van similar to one associated with the thief. It doesn’t help that the three teens are on detention from school and assigned work-study assignments at a local B&B and Christmas tree lot. The Deputy Sheriff, MARIA SANTOS (30) has her eye on them.
The teens begin their work assignments at the B&B owned by BEN ABRAMS (30s). Because Ben’s water heater parts were stollen by the porch pirates, his B&B is closed for guests, leaving no work for the teens. His daughter EVA’s (8-10) Christmas present (a tablet computer) is also stolen, but the teens take the bad news in stride and hit the slopes before going to work at the Christmas tree lot for old GUS WATERS (80). They arrive shortly after a tree was stolen by a thief in a white van, but Gus’ poor eyesight left few details for the Deputy. Even kindly Gus becomes suspicious of the teens.
Bogs moonlights delivering food and meals in town so he can send money to his refugee parents in Poland. He was provided the van by his employer, known only as V, as long as he makes his deliveries and takes notes of any security cameras at the homes he visits. V says he also sells home security devices, so he needs the information. Meanwhile, V is tracking Bogs’ van with a GPS device, and Bogs has no idea he’s helping the porch pirate. And because Latisha and Caz help Bogs with his deliveries, they unwittingly become accomplices.
The porch pirates run amuck, especially on the night of the town’s Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony when everyone is at Gus’ tree lot. Bogs, Latisha, and Caz remain the prime suspects. Fearing Bogs would be deported if caught, the teens put together a plan. With a little help from Eva and Ben, they set a trap to catch the pirate and clear Bogs. They discover V’s hideout and spend all of Christmas Eve returning the stolen packages. Christmas morning, V discovers all his packages have gone missing and he goes after the teens with a vengeance. However, the teens are tracking V with their own GPS device, and they help the Deputy catch V as he tries to escape. Eva gets her tablet computer back, the Three Wise Kids are heroes, and Ben and the Deputy find love.
Crypto Club TV Series synopsis: SERIES SYNOPSIS: Four intelligent, computer-savvy, high school seniors naively enter the mysterious world of cryptocurrency. Their clever idea of running pay-to-play global contests online barely skirts gambling regulations and makes them rich in Bitcoins overnight. However, they learn that individual account holders become their own banks that are easily robbed if thugs or shysters learn, or extract, their account numbers and passcodes. The richer the teens get, the bigger targets they become. Their paths cross early with two highly professional Russian thugs and a shyster banker. When the sole banker for the group is accosted and goes missing, the three remaining members of the Crypto Club must step up to find their missing member, share in the banking responsibilities, sanction the thugs who are responsible, and prevent future attacks. As Season One progresses, they must contend with hackers who ping their account routinely seeking to rob them blind, and mobsters who seek their help in laundering money from drug and human trafficking. They have to avoid meddling law enforcement officials who don’t care if the teens are exposed as crypto-scammers, putting them in greater danger. The teens are in over their heads and need a rapid education in the new global economy and the good, the bad, and the dangerous elements involved in the trading of cryptocurrency. How they find time for fun, love, and sex is a mystery.
MAJOR ROLES:
LAURA SANTOS (18), is a feisty Hispanic heading to a top engineering school upon graduation.
TYSON LANE (18), African American was self-taught in the field of cybersecurity.
JIMMY JACOBS (18) doesn’t fit in with the group. He’s an average, comical, sloppy, and irreverent student with a great memory.
CARRIE WILSON (18) is the mastermind of the Crypto Club and its predecessor, the Computer Club.
SUPPORTING ROLES:
MARCY PHILLIPS (30s) is a determined FBI Agent who grudgingly works with MUHAMMED PATIL (40s), the local police detective investigating the teens.
CHARLES WEBLEY (20s) is the teen’s sleazy crypto banker and money-launderer in Belize with his own agenda.
LOCATION: PRIMARY – any city or town with a high school, coffee shop, police department; a mix of houses from rich to poor, and bars. SECONDARY – scenic outdoor locations with campsites, rivers, forests, dirt roads, cabins, and meadows. OCCASIONAL: Any beach resort from Bermuda to Belize.
Ask for the TV Series Bible: email: tjstohlgren@gmail.com
Episodes for Season 1
101 -- Banks and Bankers: The Crypto Club’s leader, Carrie, goes missing at the same time the FBI is tracking two suspected crypto thugs from Russia. Laura, Tyson, and Jimmy are forced to step up their game. A post-mortem-type video by Cassie redirects the teens from their safe and comfortable lives. They are compelled to find Carrie, avoid her pursuers and law enforcement, avenge her captors, and survive in the new world of individual crypto banking involving shysters, hackers, thugs, and murderers. Jimmy commits fraud… big time.
The Christmas Twain synopsis: BECCA (28), a waitress/writer at a struggling historic hotel in Virginia City, Nevada, and TOM (28), a history professor in Reno, were childhood friends who played along the Truckee River like a couple of Mark Twain’s characters until Becca moved away at age eight. Becca invites Tom to the hotel for Christmastime dinner party where, unbeknownst to Tom, the handsome-hunk hotel owner, HANK (30s), will propose to her. Becca hopes to console her Best Friend Forever, Tom, before the party. Several obstacles stand in their way, one of which is the GHOST of Mark Twain (70s), who can’t be seen or heard, but who makes insightful observations about human nature for the audience.
Becca’s engagement is encouraged by her dad, POPS (50s) who bartends part-time in the hotel’s saloon, and by her vivacious younger sister, CHRISTIE (26), a single New York businesswoman on the prowl. Tom’s uncomfortable position as Becca’s “Best Friend Forever” is further strained when his infatuated graduate student, MILLIE (24), crashes the party to help him report grades to the university. The Ghost has fun observing the playful and jealous human interactions when Hank finds a 1920 stock certificate for 100 shares of Coca-Cola while renovating the office. Like finding the Comstock Lode in 1859, the stock could be worth millions today.
A storm hits trapping them all in the hotel and saloon, and the prospect of millions changes people. Enter JIMMY (20s), a heavily tattooed ex-con and busboy who takes over catering the engagement dinner when the chef can’t make it. Hank has gold fever and big city dreams with Christie now making a play on him. Becca is happy with her life in the historic mining town and sees Tom as a satisfied professor with doting students in Reno, and Jimmy plots to steal the stock certificate. Hank’s impulsive announcement to marry Becca on the local tourist train the next day surprises everyone.
The engagement dinner is a disaster, where Hank is too distracted to propose. The sleeping arrangements lead to a French farse with women visiting men and vice versa in the hotel rooms, kitchen, and saloon. Hank secretly hooks up with Christie, Millie hooks up with Jimmy, and Becca and Tom end up sleeping alone.
In a twist, Becca vows to be the hero in her own life story. The showdown takes place on the train with everyone, including a Justice of the Peace, onboard. Christie is notified that the stock certificate is worthless, and Becca writes her own beautiful story ending. Hank and Christie are exposed as lovers, Becca thwarts Jimmy’s train robbery, and Becca and Tom profess their love before Mark Twain’s ghost, as it was meant to be.
Murder at St. Dominic's synopsis: The emergency Alumni and Donors Meeting at struggling St. Dominic's College is off to a rocky start. The only donor attending, WARREN FOOT (20s), a tech mogul, offers a generous $200 million "gift" with devilishly liberal conditions that insult the staff. Warren quickly alienates the ultra-conservative REVEREND FATHER (70), and stuffy college President, PETER (60). College Counselor and Alumni Chairperson, GINA (30), and pre-med Student Body President, ROSA (21), welcome many of Warren's suggested changes regarding equal rights and modernization, but they cling to religious education which he seeks to swap for technology and science. A violent right-wing Theology major, ROBERT (21), assaults Warren, gets thrown to the floor, and sees the basketball coach lying dead under the meeting table. A bloodstained statue of the Virgin Mary rests by his head. The college is otherwise deserted for St. Christopher's feast day, so all the suspects are around the table.
Enter a competent transgender DETECTIVE (30), who attended St. Dominic's as a bullied male 12 years earlier. She recalls the college as a bastion of intolerance. Her mood darkens mood from sweet to angry as the investigation begins with all the suspects withholding secrets and telling lies. A turning point comes when Robert panics and is frightened into a murder confession. The Detective thinks he's protecting someone or the college that would benefit from the Coach's $4 million life insurance payout. The staff appear satisfied until the Detective reports the Coach's autopsy found his stomach was full of pills. Life insurance doesn't pay out for suicides, and now it looks like someone bludgeoned the coach after he was dead to make it look like murder: insurance fraud.
None of the suspects have solid alibies and some suspects have motives for murder or fraud. Peter was jealous of the Coach's salary. That day, Gina reported years of the Coach's and Peter's sexual misconduct and she was to be fired the next day. The investigation takes another turn when the pills in the Coach's stomach are found to be testosterone, for which overdoses are extremely rare. The Coach was unresponsive but alive when he was bludgeoned, returning it to a murder investigation. We learn that all the suspects met with the coach immediately before and after his attempted suicide. The no-nonsense Detective, armed with a stun gun for liars, painstakingly unravels the Coach's last few minutes. She finds that several of the suspects precipitated the Coach's suicide attempt, but the holy Reverend Father is guilty of murder. In the bittersweet end, we see there's a little Devil in all of us... and the Devil appears to be winning!
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I Refuse To Kill synopsis: FRANCESCO DA VINCI (18) is a young man born into a wealthy, dysfunctional family. His psychiatrist father, DR. DA VINCI (45) and his mother (40), are pacifists and alcoholics. A series of incidents in the early 1960s crystalize Francesco's nonviolent stance: duck and cover drills in high school during the Cuban Missile crisis, Dr. King and the March on Washington, the assassination of JFK, and the mandatory registering for the draft. The aftermath initiates his transformation from bystander to activist. Meanwhile, Francesco's best friend, JERRY (18, African-American) is serving in the Navy in Vietnam.
In college, Francesco faces hatred from professors for his personal philosophy of nonviolence. He participates in the '67 March on the Pentagon and is beaten by national guardsmen. A chance encounter with SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY (43), coupled with the growing student peace movement, give him hope. In 1968, at the risk of prison, Francesco files for conscientious objector status. His legal battle and personal hardships are just beginning. At war with war, there is too little time for his fiancée, JANE (21).
Francesco's CO stand and peace work attract the attention of mysterious federal agents who detain and interrogate him. With support from CESAR CHAVEZ (40s), he forms an anti-war organization, Nonviolent Action, drawing more unwanted attention to his CO case. Finding a supportive draft attorney, CHARLIE KHOURY (mid-30s), is not easy.
In a "David v. Goliath" moment, Francesco rents a small boat to display a banner to sailors, urging that the USS Constellation aircraft carrier not return to Vietnam. In response, two navy cutters charge full-speed, almost capsizing Francesco's boat. He ends up on national news and attracts support from Joan Baez's activist husband, DAVID HARRIS (25).
Jane abruptly leaves Francesco. His life is in shambles. The city-wide vote on whether the USS Constellation should return to Vietnam, orchestrated by Francesco, is covered by CBS and ABC news. The notoriety may seal Francesco's fate - denial of his CO claim and a five-year prison term. Despite the government's threats, Francesco's CO case comes before ERNEST FEARS, JR. (40s, African American), the Virginia State Director of Selective Service. Against all odds, Francesco wins his appeal, leaves his peace organization, and reunites with Jane in San Francisco.
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F.B. Eyeglasses synopsis: As political favors, two underachieving FBI agent trainees, beautiful MEGAN Foster (22) and handsome African American TERRELL Jackson (22), are recruited by Special Agent Anika “DOC” Sharma (30s) and Miguel “CHEZ” Sanchez (25) into a top-secret program. The trainees are fitted with cochlear implants linked via high-tech eyeglasses to supercomputers to become super-smart and highly skilled operatives. Training with and without the special glasses illustrates the amazing effectiveness of the glasses. However, if the glasses are removed or used with alcohol, or when satellite reception is poor, the trainees immediately regress to their comical, dim-witted selves.
Megan and Terrell are thrust into action posing as newlyweds in a small mountain town where they must locate and eliminate two foreign terrorists, gorgeous OLGA (25), a waitress at the diner, and devastatingly handsome DIMITRI (25), a bartender. In their first visits to the diner and bar, Megan and Terrell inadvertently remove their special glasses. Their cover as newlyweds is immediately blown because Terrell hits on Olga and Megan hits on Dimitri. The trainees are sitting ducks in their rustic cabin where a small bomb explodes in their mattress, and later, sniper bullets penetrate their walls.
After an assassin’s arrow narrowly misses Olga at the diner, the trainees chase an ATV deep into the forest where their glasses fail again. The trainees narrowly escape, rescued by Maxine “MAX” Li (30s), a butch Asian logger, who also has a thing for Olga. The trainees require assistance of Doc and Chez to uncover an old trailer that is being used to make a bomb disguised as an air fryer. In the bar that night, Olga confesses to Terrell that she resigned as a terrorist, so Dimitri is out to kill her too. A fight breaks out on Ladies Night at the bar allowing Dimitri, disguised as a Biker, to escape into the forest, and Olga to escape to Max’s house. The chases are on!
The trainees forego their special glasses yet manage to capture Dimitri after a fierce gunfight. Terrell and Megan rely on their questionable instincts. However, Olga eludes capture, and a terrorist bombing is predicted at the diner where the entire town is expected for Spam Platter Night. Olga is cleverly disguised as a bitter elderly waitress anxious to kill everyone with the air fryer bomb. However, the Director of the FBI visits Doc and Chez at the diner to take credit for capturing Dimitri and all hell breaks loose as the bomb starts ticking and an assassin tries to kill Dimitri. In the end, Olga is captured in a chaotic showdown, and Megan and Terrell get the bad guys, find love, and get promoted.
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Spinoza's Revenge synopsis: FATHER CHRISTOPHER PAUL (30s) is a young and loveable, but below-average Roman Catholic priest assigned to a small-town church. His peaceful existence is challenged first by a beautiful but pesky, MARIA RODRIGUEZ (30s), the executor of the priest’s grandfather’s will. She demands a DNA test on the priest, who doesn’t want the inheritance. The irony of the potential inheritance is immediately obvious as it contains letters written by Benedict de Spinoza, an ignored 17th-century philosopher who was harshly critical of God and organized religions. Maria stands to profit by the commission of the sale of the highly prized letters. Hot on Maria’s heels, is sexy ANGELA ABRAMS (30s), who works for the Spinoza Restitution Foundation. Angela wants to see the letters posted on the Internet for free. Enter HELEN ROBBINS (60s), an attorney and financial advisor to the Archbishop, Father Paul’s direct supervisor. Helen demands that Spinoza’s potentially damning letters be turned over to the Church, though no one has seen the letters yet.
Everything becomes more difficult for Father Paul. He has nightmares about Spinoza. Maria temps his vow of poverty, Angela tests his vow of chastity, and Helen demands he keep his vow of obedience. Then, Father Paul’s first cousin, who is contesting the will, is killed on the church steps. DETECTIVE KLINE (40s), an experienced African American sleuth is on the case, but Helen uses the Archbishop’s power to protect the dumbfounded priest until the Archbishop is found dead the next morning on the church steps, also implicating Father Paul, or maybe Maria or Angela. However, no murder weapon is found.
The reading of the will brings out the worst in the contentious women. Helen stakes the claim for the Church, Angela demands a full examination of “provenance,” the history of ownership of the letters, and the Detective serves up search warrants for Father Paul, Maria, and Angela and sequesters them in a hotel suite. However, Maria sneaks Spinoza’s letters, written in Latin, into the hotel suite and the English translation reveals why the Church was trying to “bury” the letters. They contain the most inflammatory, anti-religious material ever!
An innocent POLICEWOMAN (30s) is the next victim on the church steps and the Detective finally solves the case. Helen and her accomplice, a deeply religious POLICEMAN HARRIS (30s), killed to acquire Spinoza’s letters for the Pope to bury in the Vatican Secret Archives. Still, there are many twists at the end, as more is learned about the provenance of the letters including their theft by Swiss Guards, the raiding of the Vatican libraries by Napoleon, and a missing crate of Vatican treasures later found by Father Paul. This leads to a surprising above-average life for our hero.
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Silverbeard synopsis: Captain TEDDY TEACH (30s) is a comical and irresponsible pirate history tour guide for drunken tourists on his catamaran in the Caribbean. His ex-wife SHANTELL (30s, a fiery black woman) wants her alimony, he’s broke, and his three-day-old beard is prematurely gray. His life changes when he finds a stowaway claiming to be MARY READ (20s), an English pirate from 1717. She hits him over the head with a fire extinguisher as his catamaran collides the Blackbeard’s “ghost ship,” or so he thinks.
He awakens, naked in the Captain’s Quarters of the Queen Anne’s Revenge. He finds BLACKBEARD (30s) is gone, but his female hostage, Irish pirate ANNEY BONNEY (20s), is angry and tied to a post. She assumes Teddy killed Blackbeard and took his ship, but that he’ll soon be dead when her husband, feared pirate CALICO JACK (30s), rescues her. To keep Teddy alive temporarily to aid her escape, she gives him a respectable nickname for a cutthroat pirate: Silverbeard! Teddy gains the respect of Blackbeard’s first mate, a deep-voiced muscleman named ISRAEL HANDS (30s), who also assumes Silverbeard killed Blackbeard. However, Blackbeard is alive and well on Teddy’s catamaran in the present day with Mary.
Everyone’s answers seem to lie with MADAM SCHMADAM (30s; Shantell in 1717 costumes), a fortune teller at the Grog and Grill, a pirate hangout. We discover Mary is Calico Jack’s missing “cabin boy,” who dressed like a man, Larry, to become a pirate. Silverbeard is compelled to ransom Anney for Calico Jack’s treasure, despite being smitten with her. Mary and Anney are desperate to return to Calico Jack, while Blackbeard and Teddy are desperate to return to their former lives. And Blackbeard is more miserable than Teddy as a pirate history tour guide.
Mary, dressed as Larry, gravitates to Blackbeard, but Shantell, who is also aboard the catamaran, begins to suspect they killed Teddy. Stuck in 1717, Teddy sees no way to get “back” until Blackbeard hits Mary on the head with a fire extinguisher and sends her back in time from the catamaran to Blackbeard’s quarters. Meanwhile, Calico Jack abducts Anney from the Grog and Grill, so Teddy plans the ultimate showdown -- a great sword fight on the beach with Calico Jack to win his treasure: Anney. Calico Jack gets the best of Teddy until Blackbeard appears on the beach clutching a fire extinguisher. He helps Teddy defeat Calico Jack and claim his treasure, while Blackbeard reunites with Mary/Larry. But our story is far from over. Teddy’s ultimate plan is to return to the present with his new and dearest friends. The spectacular story twists at the end ensure a happy ending for all!
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S.T.E.M. Cell synopsis:
AVALON CARNAGE-ZENT (12), a trust fund child and near-genius is kept isolated for her own protection in a gated beach estate owned by her once rich and royal parents, CONSTANCE (mid-40s) and BRIGHTON (late-50s). Avalon’s parents are obsessed with her IQ, which falls just below Mensa standards, and declines further each year. Avalon and Constance have weekly sessions with an attractive psychologist, ELLEN (40). On Avalon’s birthday, she also learns that her intellect benefited from an experimental injection of stem cells into her brain when she was an unresponsive two-year-old. Nowadays, for Avalon, there is no unconditional love except from her gay uncle, THURMOND (40s), her trust fund executor. Avalon’s only confidant, and her first love interest, is her ninth successive tutor, MAX (22), who is referred to as “NINE” to discourage familiarity. Nine secretly obtains and shares with Avalon her medical records, which sets her quest for honesty, true love, and justice.
Avalon confronts her mom and later finds her shot in the head of apparent suicide. Avalon feels responsible. However, the crime scene clues don’t add up for streetwise DETECTIVE THERESA RAMOS (40s). Ulterior motives slowly surface, suspicions rise all around, and surveillance videos have been tampered with. The next day, the doctor who operated on Avalon ten years earlier, dies under mysterious circumstances. Avalon convinces Nine to burn her blood-stained birthday dress and gloves, destroying evidence. However, Nine is watching out for himself by recording damning conversations with Avalon and safeguarding them at a friend’s home.
Avalon learns of her father’s affair with the deceitful Ellen, who exploits Avalon’s trust fund through Brighton. Detective Ramos, who is “following the money,” suspects Brighton, Thurmond, Ellen, and even Avalon, who behaves more like a deranged killer by the hour. Avalon is infatuated with Nine. She demands Uncle Thurmond transfer trust executorship to him, which would bankrupt Brighton, Ellen, and Thurmond.
In the end, Avalon and Detective Ramos anticipate the next moves of the real killers. Soon Brighton, Ellen, and a stranger are in handcuffs. The stranger is EIGHT (23), a beautiful computer programmer and Avalon’s previous tutor. Eight could sneak into the house and erase security tapes. Eight, a Mensa member, conspired with Brighton to take Avalon’s official Mensa IQ test after drugging her. To make matters worse, Nine expresses his love for Eight, the penultimate betrayal to Avalon. With a twist at the end, Avalon, despite her now near-average IQ, proves Nine and Eight conspired to murder Constance, implicate Brighton, and gain executorship of the trust fund. Detective Ramos makes the arrests. Avalon has her bags packed and smiles as she exits the estate with Uncle Thurmond.
COMEDY NIGHT AT THE CRYPT synopsis:
RILEY O’REGAN (24), a quick-witted and vivacious woman who suffers from stage-fright, misses her opening night at a comedy club when the manager, MAC (30s) shuts it down due to a pandemic. She takes online classes as a funeral service manager where jobs are plentiful. She lands a job at the morbidly conservative and struggling Cox Funeral Parlor. MR. COX (75) runs the place with help from his grandson, PRESTON (26), a handsome medical student who faints at the sight of blood; LUCINDA BROWN (24), an African American who fears live people, but works well preparing corpses; and JUWAN MUHAMMED (30s), a recently hired homeless veteran.
Things don’t begin well for Riley. She finds herself saddled with a tipsy priest, FATHER O’BRIEN (60s), who officiates most of the services. Other mistakes are self-inflicted. She buries the Bishop’s wife in fishnet stockings and uses the corpse of a male porn star for a ring-toss game. To shake up traditions and attract new customers, Riley adds a food truck outside and a full-service bar inside. However, the business still struggles.
Her next funerals lead to mixed results. One service ends in a shootout. The funeral for two middle school teachers, one from a public school and one from a Catholic school, only ends in a brawl. Things are improving. Meanwhile, Preston bombs out of med school and returns to work at the funeral parlor unsure about Riley’s methods, especially while his Gramps is on sick leave. Two more services, one for an atheist professor and another for a witch, go very well. Her small funerals provide the opportunity to lose her fear of public speaking, and her reputation grows along with the business.
Mr. Cox discovers Riley’s practices and fires her right before her planned “Comedy Night at the Crypt,” a benefit for the poor. So, Riley, Preston, Lucinda, and Juwan break into the funeral parlor to hold the event anyway. Preston’s former girlfriend, DARLENE (30s), the former manager of the parlor, and Riley’s former boyfriend, Mac, are present when the police raid the unsanctioned event. Mr. Cox is so furious he fires Riley again and disowns Preston and throws him out.
Riley’s comedy show goes viral, and she gets an offer to do a sitcom in Los Angeles. In the middle of a showdown with Mr. Cox, Preston professes his love for Riley, and vice versa. Riley makes another life-changing decision to stay and help Preston and her friends alter how funerals will be conducted forever. Best of all, Riley gets permission to host her weekly comedy show for charity from the Chapel. Why die with dignity, when you can die with comedy?
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Police academies teach that the criminal mind allows for four possible motives for homicide: lust, love, loathing or loot. The full moon knows differently! Five personal assistants for billionaires are sequestered on a private island off the Yucatan peninsula to uncover which of them has broken the confidentiality agreement with his or her boss. The highly educated PAs include: DANI (40), an athletic, brilliant, and brassy woman of Spanish descent; SAMUEL (30), a handsome, edgy, streetwise Latino; LI (32) a sexy Asian with a dark secret; BLAKE (28) a polite Canadian with secret passions for Li; and EAGAN (35), a lustful Englishman, and self-appointed leader of the group. They all know that if the leak isn’t discovered and reported, they will all be fired after the weekend.
The PAs are ferried from the mainland on a fishing boat proudly owned by CAPTAIN ANGELO (50s), a short, gruff Mestizo (mixed Mayan and Latino) to the private island home of ITZEL UCAN (50s), a seductive, near-blind Mayan still mourning for her son’s disappearance seven years earlier.
After a rum-filled night of bickering and zero progress uncovering the leak, Li is found bound and dead of an apparent heart attack on her bed. The electricity is out so all Wi-Fi and emergency communications cease. Blake admits to the kinky sex, but claims he left Li alive and untied. Eagan has disappeared leading the others to suspect he may be the leak, or worse, a murderer. Itzel tosses the distressed Blake out of her guesthouse to wait at the dock for any passing boat, while Dani and Samuel search the jungle island for Eagan. Later that day, Blake is found below the dock of an apparent suicide by drowning, anchored by his suitcase.
Dani and Samuel distrust each other because they were supposedly searching opposite sides of the island during Blake’s suicide. Samuel is on the dock, and Dani is secretly watching him from the forest, when Captain Angelo returns to the dock with his fishing boat at dusk. Somehow, Angelo has “heard” about the deaths. He marches Samuel at gunpoint to the house until the police can arrive. Later, Dani finds Eagan’s body washed up on shore.
Itzel commands Angelo to hunt down Dani, who also finds the body of Itzel’s son in a cave. Dani is convinced Angelo is the killer, and she incinerates his boat with Angelo aboard. Dani has a showdown with Itzel, who is killed as OFFICER SANTOS (50s) arrives on the scene. The policewoman and Dani sort out the thieves from the murders among a whirlwind of plot twists, where a fifth possible reason for murder takes center stage: simple lunacy.
The Battle of the Black Hills. Action-Adventure for the theatrical release, edited by Lee Levinson. (Based on my novel of the same title; third in the trilogy). [Female Native American co-lead] Beautiful Cheyenne chief and shy professor husband are besieged by angry Tea-Party-like militias fueled by anti-Indian sentiments, culminating in a modern cowboys versus Indians battle for the sacred land. [Part 3 of a film trilogy or TV mini-series]. See Battle of the Black Hills synopsis.
TREATY TV Series synopsis:
In the pilot episode for TREATY, a shy young professor (WES POWELL), flirty student, and a sexy Indian activist attorney (SILVER WHITEHORSE) are swept into a murder investigation of an Indian activist. The present day killing, extortion, and strong-arm tactics by the water-grabbing corporation, California Water and Trade were set in motion by a seemingly unconnected chain of social injustices beginning 140 years earlier. In the second episode, Hidden Treasure, the professor finds love and an Indian’s journal, which provides the map to the original copy of the TREATY, returning a third of Colorado to the Cheyenne Indians.
Episode 3 picks up a few years in the future, and the lead role shifts to Silver Whitehorse. The western third of Colorado, and all its water and riches are in Indian hands. A small band of ultra-patriotic Americans, the “New Sons of Liberty,” led by a charismatic COLONEL TRAVIS KEY, will stop at nothing to take the land back. To speed the revolution along, western water interests enlist a mercenary to assassinate the top three Indian leaders. It’s up to one of the leaders, SILVER WHITEHORSE and her husband, WES POWELL, who are on a high-class wilderness trip, to avoid wolves and grizzlies, torrential storms, and the Colonel’s small army. Episode 4, “Revolution,” explores the fine lines between freedom-fighters and terrorists; racial prejudice and blending; and diplomacy and violence. A ghost town near Aspen provides the backdrop for the showdown. Will Silver and Wes sink to a military solution to save their new nation-within-a-nation?
In Episodes 5 (“Pahá Sápa”) and 6 (“Battle for the Black Hills”), Wes and Silver are called upon to return the Black Hills to the Sioux Nation. Anti-Indian sentiment, a growing unlawful militia, a gun rights activist, and a slightly-fading movie star stand in their way. The Battle of the Black Hills, isn’t just a story where the Native Americans win, they win BIG! The sacred Pahá Sápa is returned to the Native Americans.
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It’s been medically proven that the brain can function three to five minutes after the heart stops beating, so when wisecracking JIMMY REGAN (30) gets in a serious car accident on Christmas Eve, he has time to sort things out before Christmas day. He winds up in The Green Room (a church basement) with a door to Heaven on the lighted half of the room, and the door to Hell on the dark side. Next to Jimmy, is a beautiful, intelligent nurse, ANA SANTOS (30), also an “Almost-Dead” where they have time to reflect, repent, apologize, say their last good-byes, or fall in love. They are met by MAUI JACKSON (20s) a PA (personal assistant) to St. Peter since 1831, and LUCAS PEREZ (20s), a PA for the Devil since 1591, who work case files for their masters. Maui’s desk has outboxes labeled “Prime Real Estate” and “Hold,” while Lucas’s read, “Fried” or “Extra Crispy.” Everyone Jimmy and Ana meet are figments of their shared imaginations of what the Pearly Gates must be like, and an annoying ticking clock reminds them they won’t be there long.
There is trouble from the start. Jimmy and Ana learn Ana shouldn’t be there. Ana is at Jimmy’s throat, the home movies reflecting on their lives are blurry, and they are destined to miss Christmas. In addition, Jimmy has philosophical issues seeing the door to Hell, which he doesn’t believe in, even after meeting the DEVIL (50s), imagined by Jimmy and Ana (combined) to look like Dolly Parton. Sparks fly and whips crack as Jimmy meets his nemesis. Luckily, two bickering St. Peters enter, one an ARAB (a Tony Shalhoub-type), and one a JEW (a ROB REINER-type); Jimmy’s and Ana’s imaginations didn’t converge on one description. They summoned Jimmy and Ana for one purpose only, to give the themselves a day off to work on their Pickleball skills.
Working case files for the almost-deads is never easy, and eternal decisions prove agonizing for Jimmy. Where should you place the file of a homeless man, a veteran, and their own files? Extra crispy is not an option, and the PAs are no help, feeling they’ve been replaced while their case files have been in the Hold box for centuries! The ticking clock becomes another nemesis giving Jimmy and Ana little time to reflect, repent, apologize, or say last good-byes, but along the way, they begin to fall in love.
In a twist at the end, we find Jimmy has never left the ICU room, where Ana is performing CPR surrounded by the people he imagined in The Green Room as hospital staff. Jimmy regains a heartbeat in the arms of Ana for the greatest Christmas miracle of all.
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To say the adventurous MARY HELWIG (25) loves dogs is an understatement. However, when the transplant from the California wine country finds work at Middy’s Racing Dog Kennel in frozen Unalakleet, Alaska, her life takes an even wilder turn when she finds an orphaned one-month-old Husky, BRAVO. Mary is reluctant to take on the rambunctious, easily distracted puppy as a pet, and he doesn’t have the skills of a sled dog. But Bravo snuggles and nudges his way into Mary’s heart. Bravo is surprised that Mary (a “not-a-dog”) doesn’t speak his language, so their story, a dual-hero’s journey based on actual events, has to be told from Bravo’s point of view. That part of the story and all the doggy dialogue is entirely made up, but everything else is true!
Bravo’s training as a “runner” gets off to a slow start, but his positive attitude and sheer determination begins to win over some of the other dogs, including TUCKER, a wise, old sled dog; and ALLIER and NADALIE, bickering sisters; but Bravo can’t seem to please the lead dog, NATASHA. MIDDY (40s), an experienced Native Alaskan musher, mentors Mary, as Tucker mentors Bravo. Soon, Mary, Bravo, and a team of sled dogs find they have similar goals in life: to prove loyalty, to be loved, and to run.
After a visit from Mary’s DAD (55) and MOM (54), Mary and Bravo see a sign in the Northern Lights, and their destiny is sealed to cross a Finish Line in a major sled-dog race. Despite poor practice runs, Mary signs them up for the Yukon Quest 300. Bravo overcomes injuries, and Mary loses her house and everything she owns in a wildfire, but nothing deters them. Bravo sees firsthand that Mary’s personal faith, and faith in her dogs, friends, and family never weakens. In fact, they strengthen every day. Meanwhile, Bravo learns his greatest ability is in motivating others. The adventure of a lifetime across the Yukon nearly kills them all, but the finish line is not the experience Mary and Bravo dreamed about.
Bravo and Mary convince each other to enter the most dangerous sled-dog race in the world, the Iditarod, a 1,000-mile trek from Anchorage to Nome in the dead of winter. The two rookies, Bravo and Mary, never give up. Old Tucker has the most difficult time but proves to them all that heart is more powerful than strength. They all must rely on loyalty and perseverance to survive the extreme cold and the relentless Old North Wind. After fourteen grueling days of racing, Bravo and Mary lead Tucker and the team across the finish line they envisioned to reap the greatest reward life has to offer: friendship.
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A stunning blonde “CAPTAIN” Sheri Zenner (mid-30s) runs tourists from the snow belt to the Cayman Islands. She also runs diamonds, which her flippant flight attendant, MAURICE Bisset (25), knows nothing about. The six single Canadian passengers on Christmas- getaway from Toronto include; “DOC” Brennan (40s) a spinster physician; DAN Gardner (30s), a tall dark and handsome attorney; mysterious EVA Madrone (22) a fem fatale; ROBERT Lansing (22) a dapper trust-fund baby in Hawaiian shirt and shorts; “PROFESSOR” Trent Dettinger (late-40s, heavyset) in a tweed sports coat; and CASSY WILSON (30s) his exceptionally meek research assistant. The Captain knows one of the passengers is secretly a security guard for the underworld BOSS (40s, female) in the diamond trade, but who? On everyone’s mind is escaping the growing pandemic of a highly contagious virus, especially the Captain, who is planning the heist of the century. Everyone is an opportunist; some are better at it than others.
Soon after take-off, the Captain is told Toronto is infected, and Caymans are denying them permission to land, so the flight is diverted to a remote Canadian airfield and town. The Boss immediately dispatches two goons to retrieve the stones from the jet’s safe, not knowing the location of the airfield or the quarantine house. Communication is hampered by a lack of phone service and the Internet, and stormy weather. Quarantine brings out the worst in people. Eva is found dead the next morning, either suicide or the virus according to the CONSTABLE (mid-30s). Maurice suspects foul play and he returns to the jet for confirmation. He finds bits of plastic below the jet’s safe.
The next morning, the Professor is found dead, and the Constable and medical professionals are too overwhelmed to properly investigate. Meanwhile the Boss’s goons are closing in, when one of the goons (ALFONSO; 40) goes rogue and wants the diamonds for himself. When Doc falls ill, panic escalates, and escape becomes their only option. The Captain and Robert steal an ambulance carrying Doc, and Maurice and Cassy disguised as EMTs in full contamination suits. Meanwhile, the Boss flies in to save her diamonds from Alfonso and the Captain. This sets up a showdown at the airfield where it’s hard to tell the good thieves from bad.
In the end, the body count increases with traitors and thieves, and the Boss and some diamonds are captured by the Constable. The Captain and Robert escape in the Boss’s jet, and Maurice, Cassy, and Doc, recovering with the help of her own miracle cure, escape in the other jet. However, as Cassy recounts a surprisingly different story of the actual events, it becomes shockingly evident how some opportunists are far better than others.
Lovable SHERIFF RAMON WEBBLEY (30s) is without a care. His mountain town is devoid of serious crime, he’s happily married to HANNAH (30s), and a beautiful and smart family friend, ABBIE BRIGGS (21), has volunteered to be a Sheriff’s Trainee before she heads off to law school. However, everything changes on election night when voters pass a Red Flag law allowing sheriffs to confiscate guns from the mentally ill. That same night, a vicious murder occurs in the county. Suddenly, citizens are labeled anti-gun nuts or gun-rights nuts, and a dozen sheriffs across the state proudly create Second Amendment Sanctuaries. Sheriff Webbley is non-committal, which makes quick enemies of both sets of nuts, and everyone encourages him to “stand for something, or you stand for nothing.”
At the murder scene, yellow smoke escapes the victim’s burnt car and injures the Sheriff’s eyes, forcing Abbie to become his driver and “eyes.” The case involves cold-blooded murder, drugs, weapons, and a firebomb that attracts the attention of FBI AGENT TOMPKINS (40s). To complicate matters, unsafe target practice with AK47s in a meadow on MAGGIE CARVER’S (50s) ranch involving District Attorney BOBBY HOWELL (40s), JUDGE SUSAN BRIGGS (50s; Abbie’s mom), and the Governor’s Chief of Staff, MARSHA INGRAM (30s), who is accidentally shot in the foot by the town’s petty-thief, DONNY PRUITT (20s). For the Sheriff, defining mental illness becomes incredibly murky. Everyone’s crazy!
The murder appears better planned and more sophisticated than originally thought. The “perp” hides his tracks well, and the investigation is hampered by the Sheriff’s poor eyesight and a pesky TV news reporter, TAMMY CHONG (30s). A heroin overdose of a homeless man appears unrelated, until chemically identical drugs are found in the first murder victim’s car. And, when two assault rifles are stolen, Donny’s past psychiatric care and rap sheet move him up on the suspect list. However, the Sheriff gets suspended and Abbie is detained by a Deputy Sheriff for leaking the Sheriff’s body-cam video of the accidental shooting in the meadow, exposing the county’s VIPs as gun-rights nuts.
The Sheriff gets reinstated, and with Abbie’s help, closes in on the homeless man’s estranged son, HARRY (20s), who recently returned to town. Harry secretly joined a white supremacist group but has no history of mental illness. Judge Briggs finally allows the Sheriff to confiscate Donny’s guns because he’s on the FBI watch list, but not Harry’s guns, because he’s not on the list. All along, it was the unsuspected Harry who went berserk, killed the drug dealer and the homeless man (his estranged dad), amassed automatic rifles, and planned the school mass shooting, which the Sheriff prevents in a shockingly wild ending.
The Battle of the Black Hills. Action-Adventure for the theatrical release, edited by Lee Levinson. (Based on my novel of the same title; third in the trilogy). [Female Native American co-lead] Beautiful Cheyenne chief and shy professor husband are besieged by angry Tea-Party-like militias fueled by anti-Indian sentiments, culminating in a modern cowboys versus Indians battle for the sacred land. [Part 3 of a film trilogy or TV mini-series]. See Battle of the Black Hills synopsis.
Changing Arts and Minds synopsis:
TERRI ROBINS (30s) is as smart and tough as they come. After her art history and teaching degrees, she served two tours of duty in the U.S. Army in the Middle East. Now hampered by P.T.S.D. and homelessness, she uses her gumption to snag a temporary teaching job at a middle school with a month remaining to summer vacation. She basically steals the job she badly needed. It’s a tough world out there, and, as it turns out, even tougher in the classroom.
Only six students remain in the class from the previous domineering teacher now out on maternity leave. The students, none of whom want to be there, include RHONDA JAMES (13), a brilliant African American who would rather hang out with bullies; JAKE STONE (14), a jock looking for an “easy A;” MATT LOWENSTEIN (13), an insecure Jew with a prosthetic leg; Hui “EMMA” CHANG (13), an underachieving student from China; DORRI KHAN (13), a hijab-conscious Muslim-American; and ERNESTO SANTOS (13), a clinically-shy student on the Autism spectrum, whose father, OFFICER RAY (40) is the school’s security cop and Terri’s only initial friend.
Terri’s real nemeses include, PRINCIPAL NORDLIN (60), who wanted to hire another teacher, and MRS. BECKMAN (late-60s), a strict office lady with a hidden heart. Terri’s troubles begin early on as the Principal and Mrs. Beckman learn that Terri may have taken her job under false pretenses. She had threatened the other applicant, and the District Office also finds issues with Terri’s resume (no home address). We learn that Terri suffers from P.T.S.D., sleeps in her car at City Park, and suffers night terrors. When she loses her temporary job for application irregularities (being homeless), depression sets in. Getting her knapsack stolen at City Park gives her seizures that send her to the hospital.
Meanwhile, love is in the springtime air. As the last month of the semester progresses, Rhonda gravitates to Jake across racial lines, Matt becomes smitten with Dorri across religious lines, and Ernesto “falls in like” with Emma across intellectual lines. Even more surprising, the students become better artists, while Officer Ray eases his way into Terri’s impenetrable heart, and vice-versa.
In an inspirational conclusion, Terri’s determination and friendships with Officer Ray and her students come to the rescue. Terri moves in with Officer Ray and Ernesto to establish a permanent address to satisfy the school and District Office. The substitute art teacher quits, and Terri gets her teaching position back just in time to prepare for the students’ final art exhibition. Principal Nordlin and Mrs. Beckman are compelled to make Terri the “Teacher of the Month,” and the six students learn important life-long lessons about changing hearts and minds.
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NORA KARLSSON (early-30s), an attractive, strong-willed Swedish immigrant is planting tree seedlings on a remote ranch when she hears the gunshot in the valley below. She runs two miles to find her drunkard husband LIAM (50s) dead of an apparent suicide. However, rugged SHERIFF GLENN (30s) arrives to find no powder burns on Liam’s head, and a troubled marriage incriminates Nora who must wear an ankle monitor under house arrest. This makes Nora a sitting target for three disgruntled neighbors who also face foreclosure if Nora doesn’t sell the oil and gas rights for the pipeline to their upper valley ranches. Big CY WATSON (45) and his father “GRAMPS” (70), own two of the ranches. DAX GILLIAM (50) a wimpy mixed-ethnicity college professor, owns the other. To make matters worse, Nora’s self-serving banker/divorce attorney, RONNY HARRISON (60), has strong ties to the oil company. Nora, a die-hard environmentalist, is all alone.
Nora is befriended by SARAH TREMAIN (30s), the curvy town gossip, who sells home security devices including doorbell-cams, household alarms, stun guns, Tasers, and every firearm imaginable. Sarah reminds Nora that, “a woman alone isn’t a target; she’s a threat!” Nora enthusiastically buys a doorbell-cam and reluctantly buys a stun gun from Sarah. But Nora remains out-gunned by her neighbors who hope she defaults on the mortgage or dies so that Chemco Inc. can step in and buy her ranch and make them all oil barons.
Nora has difficulty teaching herself martial art moves to fend off the potential killer on the loose, but luckily, the new doorbell-cam connected to her smartphone works. When Cy comes after her, Nora sends him to the porch with a lucky kick before she jolts him with the stun gun. Dax takes a different tact and shows up with a bottle of wine, where he reveals a past of sexual misconduct, but no conviction. When they sort through Liam’s receipts, they see suspicious patterns of Liam’s infidelity emerging, bringing Dax and Nora closer. Later, when Gramps comes to the door with a shotgun to plead his case, he ends up dying from a stun gun, with Nora being the primary suspect again.
After a series of threatening events from a grief-stricken Cy, a lovelorn Dax, and a darkly twisted Sarah, Nora shifts from self-defense to offense. She’s determined to solve the homicides. She confronts Ronny, Sarah, and Cy before a showdown with Cy and Dax in a remote corner of the ranch where she’s planting tree seedlings. With a twist at the end, Nora uses cunning and wits to trap Dax as the vicious murderer.
Everyone Hops A Train synopsis:
TOM (66), in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts, approaches a freight train in Jack London Square, the seafood restaurant capital of Oakland, California. Four college freshmen pull him to safety only to be cornered to hear his autobiographical tale. Flashback to the summer of 1971, where four teens going nowhere meet at the same spot. TOMMY (19) is a younger, impetuous, irreverent version of TOM. He wears wild curly hair and bellbottom pants and works part-time at a grocery store with BOB (18), who sports a ponytail. Dear friend, BILLY (19), works at a fast-food restaurant and smokes more than cigarettes. Tommy, Bob, and Billy are community college students, but no one knows Tommy’s innermost secret: he reads like a fifth-grader. DRAKE (19) seems out of place as the tall, handsome university quarterback and aspiring architect. When Tommy has an impulsive idea to hop a freight train, all the boys are inexplicably onboard.
The young men hop on an open-air automobile-carrier and have to hold on tight as the train gains speed. The cars are all locked, so they must cling to the railing and ladders to avoid falling off as the train switches tracks. There is no escaping the train. Their spirits are high for several reasons, but they are slowly being covered in black soot, and spirits dim. At 2 AM, the train comes to a stop in the Milpitas Train Yard, where barking German shepherds and engineers await them. It’s a mad race to scale the chain-link fence to freedom and the diner by the freeway.
With little money for food, Drake is called upon to sweet talk the waitress, who works nights while seeking her teaching certificate by day. The waitress observes Tommy’s poor reading skills when he struggles with page four of the 100-page portion of Don Quixote he carried in his back pocket for weeks. Tommy relishes her succinct summary of Don Quixote, while his buddies dine on free pancakes. The adventure is over for Billy and Drake, who hitchhike home to Oakland, but Bob suggests extending the adventure to Tommy, and they hitchhike south to the Santa Cruz mountains. Bob and Tommy break into Bob’s grandpa’s cabin to spend the night, and argue, vent, and reflect on life.
A morning cleaning up in the ocean and an afternoon clearing their minds is badly needed. Hitching a ride home in a truck hauling mattresses is great luck. Bob falls asleep immediately providing Tommy the time to read the first hundred pages of Don Quixote. Our story ends back in the present, where Tom ponders what he would tell his younger self, who wouldn’t listen anyway. “You’re on your own, kid! Everyone hops a train!”
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Short Order Buzz Kill synopsis: OFFICER JASON O’LEARY (35) has failed the Detective Exam three years running, mainly due to lack of experience in his small rural town. That’s about to change as FLOSSIE MAY MANSON (30s-40s), the town diner’s rude waitress, goes on a killing spree targeting lousy tippers. High on the list, so to speak, are four “Stoners” including Jason’s younger brother, RICKY (33), JOSÉ (30), a stocky unshaven Mexican, DESHAUN (28), an overly dramatic African-American, and RAINA (26), a wildly beautiful voice-of-reason. The Stoners are funny, irreverent, and doing everything they can to forestall adulthood.
Flossie’s killing spree gets off on the wrong foot after the town’s young, enthusiastic preacher, PASTOR MIKE (30s) borrows Ricky’s hoodie and skateboard and is mistakenly shot with a crossbow, stabbed five times, and burned with a napalm bomb meant for Ricky. Jason’s investigation doesn’t go well, as Flossie seems to have a perfect alibi, and suspects are few. Flossie’s second “Slash and Burn” attack is aimed at Raina, but Flossie mistakenly kills Councilwoman Lamb (70s), also the town’s pharmacist. Next, Vic the plumber is mistaken for José, who should have been unclogging toilets for Vic, but called in sick. Crispy-critter bodies are mounting up for the town’s bizarre, pansexual coroner, DR. JUANITA SANCHEZ (30), who offers comical and unhelpful advice to Jason. In fact, throughout the entire story, laughter and bloodshed are evenly mixed.
Evidence weakly points to the diner’s cook, MAX SIMPSON (45), a muscular former U.S. Marine with bomb squad and special forces training. Max has solid alibis, but a criminal record for breaking the weirdest laws in several states. Meanwhile, Jason gravitates back to his ex-girlfriend, Raina, who helps on the case. Still, the Mayor and Chief of Police call in AGENT COLT GANNON (40s) of the FBI, an inept blowhard, to take over Jason’s unsolved case. Soon after, the Mayor and Chief of Police are the targets of Flossie’s remote-control cheese-knife and napalm bomb, and Agent Gannon decides Max is guilty for fitting the stereotypic serial killer profile: white, male, ex-con, and possibly vegan. Flossie has committed the perfect murders.
Jason finds no evidence that Max is guilty, and his suspicions circle back to Flossie. When Agent Gannon is killed, Jason uses his wits and improved detective skills to save his girlfriend, his brother and his friends. He investigates the diner as the staging area of the killings. He rules out Max with phone records, and methodically re-traces the killer’s steps leading him to Flossie. The trap is set, and Jason, with a little help from Max and his Stoner friends, captures Flossie, saves the town from the now famous “Slash and Burn Serial Killer,” and finally becomes a Detective.
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Becoming We synopsis: HUI "DOC" GAO M.D. (29), whose Chinese beauty is only enhanced by occasionally wearing “Princess gowns” in public, rides a Greyhound bus to Colorado, in the opposite direction of the Austin airport and her marriage in China. Hui doesn't know she is being followed and photographed. A redneck passenger dives at her grandfather's medical bag thinking it’s “suspicious,” spilling the contents. Hui bursts into tears. She never fit in at med school, she's $200,000 in debt, she's never dated, and she's not pleasing her parents. An ever-smiling, somewhat-awkward farmer, SAMMY (23), comforts Hui, and convinces her to spend Christmas Break in the ski town of Breckenridge with his college-grad friends. Hui, having never seen snow, just wants to get as far away as possible from her upset parents and fiancé in Beijing. However, her few days in the mountains is anything but a winter vacation.
Hui finds there is no room at the inn. She's stuck with Sammy and his three roommates in a dump of a house. BURNER (28), a fearless American snowboarder, parties like there's no tomorrow. SOCCER (25) is a gay Belizean bartender who has a title for her novel and little else. OLLIE (34) is a professional freestyle skier at the end of her run. Hui must quickly learn to reach outside her comfort zone to survive. Over the next three days, Hui excels at a local doctor's office, adapts to the western custom of shaking hands and hugging, frequents a bar (without drinking), and befriends her wild roomies, who remain suspicious of their new Chinese friend and adulthood.
As Hui learns she is tailed by a private investigator, her parents visit Breckenridge to bring their daughter home. WEI GAO (54), a successful divorce lawyer, and his wife, LILLY (47) see the family torn apart. And now Hui is in love with the irresponsible snowboarder, Burner!
When a quietly-gay policewoman, CINDY (35) forces Burner to quit drinking and performs community service teaching disabled kids to snowboard, many lives are changed. Hui smiles more than ever. She finally comes of age on a real date. Her new friends mature, too. Cindy openly gravitates to Soccer, and Ollie and Sammy courageously move on from their ski-bum lifestyles.
Still, Hui's culture leans towards conformity and obedience, and she surrenders to her parent's wishes. Hui is about to return to Beijing to get married, when Burner transforms into the man of her dreams by helping children with disabilities. When Hui finds out her fiancé arranged for the private investigator, she reaches a turning point. It's a heartwarming story of gaining tolerance, respect, and acceptance in the world, two people at a time.
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Christmastime in Holly's Woods synopsis: CAZ DARROW (30s), an almost-engaged single-mom and successful attorney plans to buy a small cabin in the woods for telecommuting. Caz has her sights on a historic diner and cabin rental property in the quaint hamlet of Holly’s Woods. Her stubborn daughter, MERRY (9), would rather stay at the ritzy resort and spa nearby. Caz’s personal assistant, MICHAEL (23), is asked to stay in a cabin and secretly investigate the owner’s finances to lower the sales price. That’s the plan, but things quickly go awry. The property has no cell phone service or Wi-Fi. Caz is estranged from her almost-fiancé, who Merry doesn’t like anyway. In the empty diner, Caz and Merry meet MA BRENNAN (60s) and GRAMPS (70) and get pulled into a loving family at Christmastime. Caz and Merry are infatuated with Ma’s oldest son, DASH (32), a charismatic B-movie producer. Younger brother, IAN (30), is a shy struggling theatre actor on Christmas Break, where cute BRITTANY (25), the Juliet to his Romeo, is lured to Holly’s Woods to be the femme fatale in Dash’s low-budget monster film, “Return of the Yeti.”
Ma talks Caz and Merry into staying in the cabin, while Michael enjoys the ritzy resort. It’s apparent that Ma and Gramps are awful cooks, unless they exactly follow Ian’s recipes. The diner has suffered since Ian, a trained chef, pursued a theatre career. Meanwhile, Dash’s hopes of saving the diner are hampered by a fumbling Yeti and a lousy camera. Caz takes pity on Dash and buys his rusty old car, so he can buy a new lens, but bad performances by a series of Yetis (a Hollywood actor, Gramps, and Michael) dooms the production.
Ian’s hidden talents as a gifted chef slowly come to light. However, he struggles to express his emotions, as evidenced when he practices his lines as Romeo, and despite his infatuation for Brittany, who is drawn to film stardom. Plans change more as Ian becomes smitten with Caz, and Caz and Merry are enchanted by Ian’s cooking.
When county officials threaten to rezone the property from commercial to residential only, Caz steps in to mastermind a plan to save the diner for the Brennans. She advises Dash to edit his film from a monster movie to a comedy. She convinces Ian to be the chef for a new food truck and the diner. Caz also directs Michael to seek a historic designation for the diner. Michael gravitates to Brittany. Dash falls for a famous food critic. Before Caz’s ex-boyfriend and his troupe director exit, Ian openly expresses his love to Caz. Caz is the hero for saving the diner, Merry is euphoric, and, yes, they live happily ever after.
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Worship synopsis: This story is inspired by terrifyingly true events from Yerba Buena, Mexico in 1963. Two brothers, SANTOS (32) and CAYETANO (30) HERNANDEZ, are small-time crooks and con-artists determined to bilk the villagers of all they own. They present themselves as High Priests of Incan gods who will release gold from the mountains if they are worshiped and brought offerings. The brothers are brought money, food, water, and sexual favors for several weeks, but no gold appears from the gods, and the villagers become disillusioned. The brothers up their game by involving a young prostitute, MAGDALENA SOLÍS (14) and her pimp-brother, ELEAZOR (20), not knowing that Magdalena is an evil-incarnate no one could have imagined.
Magdalena assumes the role (and soul) of Coatlicue, a topless, snake-charming, Aztec goddess who demands more offerings from the villagers, coinciding with peyote-fused ceremonies in a cave above the village. She demands more money and sex, and an increasing number of sacrifices, first from chickens, then from humans. Her punishments are brutal, ranging from torture to hanging and dismemberment. Santos, Cayetano, and Eleazor, are now in over their heads as High Priests, and co-conspirators a growing cult.
Suspicious villagers are branded non-believers, and traitors who will deny the promised gold to fellow villagers. Magdalena gets her drugged cult members to participate in the punishments, followed by blood-drinking ceremonies and orgies. Coatlicue now demands human blood following the Aztec ritual of ripping out a beating human heart. Cult members cheer Magdalena on, including a MOTHER (40) and her YOUNG DAUGHTER (16).
JESUS RUBIO (20s) wants in on the scam, and tensions build with the Hernandez brothers. As the cult gets more murderous, a schoolboy, SEBASTIAN GUERRERO (14) spies on an elaborate human sacrifice of the Young Daughter at the cave, and runs 17 miles to a police station Villagrán. Sebastian tells his wild story to Officer Martinez (40), who returns to Yerba Buena with Sebastian to investigate. Four State Police find their dismembered bodies two days later, and the Army is called for backup. Cayetano is assassinated by Jesus, initiating an intense shootout between cult members and the army, Magdalena, Eleazor, Jesus, and cult members are captured. Santos is shot dead. The Mother escapes, never to be seen again.
Surprisingly, none of the surviving cult members talk to the police. Instead, they accept thirty-year sentences for more than eight bodies found in shallow graves by the cave. Only Jesus Rubio, a deranged killer himself, talks to reporters. Our story provides horrifying insights on how devious con-artists can take advantage of gullible people, and what or who we chose to worship. How could this have happened in 1963? Could it happen today?
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The Last Witch Trial synopsis: We see the last actual witch trial in Salem in 1878, then cut to the present-day Halloween season in rural Massachusetts. DANICA JAMES (15) posted a near-perfect score on a college entrance exam at age 11 and has been heavily recruited by prestigious colleges and research laboratories ever since. When a recruiting professor is found dead of mysterious causes, SHERIFF SANTOS (50) suspects Danica may be a witch. Gossip spreads around town that Danica may be using “malicious animal magnetism” to cause pain in others using her mind, claimed in the last witch trial in 1878. Danica’s dysfunctional MAMA (40s), who is a couch potato; and brother, NORM (18), who has a learning disability, are oblivious to Danica’s plight. Norm’s best friend, LOUIS (16), an African-American whom Danica tutors, has picked an awkward time to reveal his crush on her.
Meanwhile, Danica is recruited by mysterious DR. SASHA KINSKI (30), a top scientist from a genetics research laboratory, whose top-selling product is a probiotic-infused coffee sweetener. Danica is alarmed that the brilliant Dr. Kinski, with two Ph.D.s and a medical degree has settled for designing genetically-modified coffee sweeteners, and she makes a bitter enemy. Once out to recruit Danica, Dr. Kinski fears her innate intelligence, and is set on destroying her.
The Sheriff’s investigation soon involves local townsfolk including JUDGE ROY BRICKLE (60), FATHER PETR NOVAK (50), Danica’s former teacher, MS. REYNOLDS (40s), and IZZY BRUENER, the German waitress at the café, which is the center of town gossip. Many in the town begin to experience aches and pains, and nervous hives, which they begin to attribute to Danica’s use of malicious animal magnetism. The town doctor, “DOC SHELLY” (70), Danica’s grandma, is the town’s sole voice of reason, and another target of Dr. Kinski.
The Sheriff’s unsolved case of the dead professor and eerily similar death of Danica’s father three years earlier, are compounded when Danica’s Mama is found dead, and Doc Shelly’s house is burned to the ground with her inside. The Sheriff can’t find Doc Shelly’s body. Norm is suspected in Mama’s death, but Danica’s use of witchcraft hasn’t been ruled out for the other deaths.
A showdown is set at night in the café, where the last witch trial in America will be held. Evidence appears overwhelming that Danica is a witch, and Dr. Kinski looks smug until Doc Shelly, covered in soot, barges into the café to re-direct the focus of the guilt onto Dr. Kinski. Danica proves it was Dr. Kinski who instigated the crimes fearing that Danica was smarter than she. In the end, Danica finds true love in Louis, and the townsfolk have their latest victim for a good old-fashioned witch-burning.
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Pattern of Evil synopsis: When a quiet, unassuming, but brilliant, PROFESSOR JAMIE CARTIER (30s), exits the Statistics Building, an explosion sends her flying to the ground. DETECTIVE ANTHONY SANCHEZ (35), a handsome, street-smart, but sloppily-dressed cop is bewildered why the woman he crushes on is the target. He suspects that she made enemies in the crime world when she used her predictive spatial models, typically reserved for cute forest creatures, to help nab a bank robber. Sure enough, waiting nearby is ATF AGENT VIHAAN GIRI (40s), of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), who wants Jamie’s help in catching an elusive serial mail-bomber. Agent Giri begs for Jamie’s modeling help, but she refuses. Predicting psychotic behavior is impossible, and Jamie must protect her daughter, VALE (9), and graduate students, LISA MASON (20s), RYAN PETROV (20s) and HUI TAN (20s). She can’t get involved.
That night, Jamie discovers her laptop is hacked Agent Giri, and previously by criminal elements. Agent Giri helps them escape; Vale to a friend’s house, and Jamie to an ATF safe house in the woods, where she must help hunt down the bad guys with her predictive models. The stakes are raised when Jamie learns that Lisa is being held hostage by the serial bomber. In exchange for Lisa’s release, the bomber demands Jamie’s help selecting targets where he can best avoid detection and capture. Meanwhile, Agent Giri wants Jamie’s models to catch the bomber. As Detective Sanchez hunts for Jamie and Lisa, as missing persons, ATF AGENTS BOB TANSLEY (40s) and MOLLY O’BRIAN (30s) intervene to focus the investigation on Agent Giri, who they think has gone rogue.
Jamie is surprised to learn that the safe house in the woods is heavily guarded, and that Ryan is working there to help with her predictive models. Jamie grows suspicious as Agent Giri locks them in the upstairs room ‘for their own protection.’ Jamie’s first models fail. Predicting the psychotic behavior of past serial bombers appears impossible. Jamie plans an escape, but Ryan yells for Agent Giri to stop her. However, the Guard (the bomber in disguise), kills Agent Giri. The Guard then sets a remote-controlled bomb in their room and exits. Jamie hatches an escape plan.
Jamie and Ryan escape from the killer/bomber, who is revealed as Ryan’s estranged father, MARTIN PETROV III (50s). Detective Sanchez gives chase, but the bomber escapes. On the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, ATF agents assume the bomber’s next target is the Federal Building, but Jamie’s models predict it’s her daughter’s elementary school. In a nerve-shattering ending, they catch the bomber, despite Ryan helping his lunatic father. Jamie proves her intellect and mathematical models to be indispensable in catching serial criminals.
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Tubers synopsis: ERIN REGAN (23) lives with her dad, JOHHNY (50), and grandpa, JIMMY (94) in Boston, with one requirement to complete her graduate degree in creative writing by traveling abroad for three months. Erin’s boyfriend, LARRY (30), a stock analyst, offers wealth, security, and boredom. As a token of his love, he buys her flight insurance before a three-day trip to hunt down the family’s roots (tubers) in Ireland.
Despite her father’s success writing international travel guides, Erin fears traveling, but she promises to find the silver coins her Grandpa buried before immigrating 90 years earlier. Grandpa claims the hole also contains High King Brian Boru’s gold crown and more. All she has to do is find the old farm of the village eejit: Grandpa.
Erin’s father’s traveling advice is comically disastrous. Foregoing first-class seats for sleeping pills and an absorbent diaper is a bad idea. Taking a large suitcase, but trying to change clothes in a bathroom stall is a bad idea. Hiring a dependable driver is a good idea, but he left Erin at the terminal. In steps EOIN (pronounced Owen) DOHERTY (24), a less-dependable, sarcastic, unemployed cabinetmaker from Dublin, who freelances as a cash-only driver to afford rent at his girlfriend MARY’s flat. Eoin’s world is about to be rocked!
From Dublin, Eoin and Erin stop at Clonmacnoise, monastery ruins, where they meet a clandestine treasure hunter, SEAN O’BRIAN (50), who overhears Erin discussing Grandpa’s buried treasure. Sean loans the couple a metal detector, so he can track them on his phone. In an old hotel and pub in Galway, Erin learns more about Ireland, the Irish, Eoin, and her father’s bad travel advice. This sets the stage for the treasure hunt the next day.
Locals in Carrick-on-Shannon help Erin and Eoin narrow the location of the old family farm to 200 acres, but finding Grandpa’s treasure is harder than finding true love. Meanwhile, LARRY proposes by text-message from Boston, and Johnny and his new girlfriend, Dr. MADHU SHUDRAS (40s), fly overnight to convince Erin to say yes. Chaos ensues when Grandpa dies suddenly, Erin discovers her father never traveled anywhere (he’s a fraud), and now, a wake and wedding must be planned. Drinking lunch leads to a wild afternoon of treasure hunting, the recovery of Jimmy’s silver coins, which are cheap copper pennies, and King Brian’s gold crown, which is tin. However, Erin and Eoin spend a magical night together, as do Johnny and Madhu. Erin returns home to discover Grandpa wasn’t the village eejit after all. As Eoin removes old kitchen cabinets, he finds several first-edition classics in a hidden bookshelf. Erin is left with a great family story to tell, especially about falling in love.
The Last Nighttime Story synopsis: No one remembers the last night their parents read them a bedtime story. Sadly, it just happens. However, one day, bickering siblings, WEI GAO (10) and his sister, HUAN (8), and a few of their classmates, discover a some of their classic story books have inexplicably disappeared. To make matters worse, Wei discovers several more of his favorite bedtime books disappear the next night too! They think it's happening only to them.
However, each day, more classmates appear cranky and tired, and some stayed awake half the night after being denied bedtime stories. Their teacher, MRS. XU (35), sees failing creative essays from her entire class. This is a disaster. Walking the one block home from school, the siblings pass the Old Ancient Secondhand Antique Emporium and Junkyard on Last Street, owned by a village elder, LI JUN (60s), and see many items that remind them of their missing books. They investigate, only to be caught by Mr. Li Jun, and hauled off in a police car. Their parents will have to be told.
This means war! Third grade is a madhouse with so many students lacking sleep from being denied bedtime stories and books. The siblings are hit with boyfriend- and girlfriend-issues they didn't know they had with friends, WANG YONG (8) and ZHANG LI (10). On Friday, the day of tests, a costume parade, and a class picnic, the siblings take matters into their own hands.
Wei leads his sister and their classmates in the costume parade, not to the playground as designed, but to storm old man Li Jun's place in an epic battle to rescue their precious bedtime storybooks. The kids, dressed like superheroes and heroes of every type, are armed with toy Dao, Qiang, Jian, lightsabers, pirate swords, and every manner of childhood weaponry. However, the weapons are useless battling the junk. The tide changes when Wei and Huan remove the sword in the stone by pulling together. They storm the house with a final charge to save their stories, as Mr. Li Jun, surprisingly, cheers them on! They recover their bedtime story books and more, and Mr. Li Jun rewards Wei and Huan with brass keys: the "Keys to Every Story" with a Beginning, a Middle, and an End.
However, the adventure of a lifetime remains in store for Wei and Huan, who claim their story needs a true "End" to their story because the children have many unanswered questions. With their best friends, Wang Yong and Zhang Li, the siblings return to Mr. Li Jun's junkyard and creepy old house that night to face their darkest fears, answer gnawing questions, and successfully end their story. All kids have unanswered questions. That's okay! That night, every child around the world hears a fabulous bedtime story from their parents.
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Tony's Smokehouse Crematorium synopsis: JAMAL CURRY (20s), a handsome African-American opens a drive-thru crematorium, offering fast and cheap cremations. The building, previously a Gold’s Fish & Chips then a Mignon’s Smokehouse Restaurant, is in a battle zone of fast-food chains. Jamal leases a fast-acting cremation furnace, and employs three oddball friends: TONY RUGGIERO (20s), a wise-cracking Italian; KELLI MATTHEWS (20s), Tony’s heavily tattooed ex-girlfriend; and HUAN LI (20s), a Chinese-American business major, who Jamal has a crush on. They’re all in for the night of their lives.
Their three bodies on their Grand Opening include: MR. WILSON (50s), a non-violent man who was run over twice; MRS. BARBIE MIGNON (50s), a previous third-grade teacher and wife of the previous owner of the Smokehouse chain, “PHILLY” MIGNON (50s); and Mr. BARRY GOLD (60s), the previous owner of Gold’s Fish & Chips chain. Mr. Gold, AKA the Codfather, smothered Mrs. Mignon, and is one of two people who ran over Mr. Wilson.
After two cremations, the group is visited by the CHURCH LADY (50s), a hitman disguised in women’s clothing. The Church Lady is up to his neck in murders, but remains well hidden at St. Theresa’s Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt Catholic Church.
The drive-thru viewings and cremations don’t go as planned, as the “newly-cremated” return as angry spirits, who the workers can see. The workers also feel the wooden ruler used by Mrs. Mignon. Customer complaints mount, drawing a visit from the coroner, DR. REUBEN RAMOS (50s), who can’t see the angry spirits, but who is smitten with the Church Lady. When Mr. Gold’s angry spirit emerges from the furnace missing a shoe and swinging a baseball bat, all hell breaks out. The staff fear for their lives, but the place is surrounded by well-armed fish-lovers and beef-lovers, who want their restaurants back. Furthermore, the angry spirits will only disappear when their remains are picked up by loved ones the following morning.
Laughter, fear, and chaos reign overnight in the crematorium with three newly-cremated spirits running amok. Finally, several murderers are exposed, and attempted murders are prevented. The surf versus turf war ends with Mr. Gold’s “burial at sea,” as Jamal and Huan flush his remains down the toilet. The Church Lady finally falls for Dr. Ramos, retires as a hitman, and leaving the job to Kelli. Jamal and Huan find love, but Tony is shot accidentally, once by Kelli, then a dozen times by the fast-food mobs surrounding the drive-thru. No worries! Tony’s newly-cremated spirit appears as an Elvis impersonator at Jamal’s new drive-thru wedding chapel. Their first customers are the Church Lady and Dr. Ramos married to the tune of Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up.”
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My Liberty synopsis: GWEN ANTONELLI (19), an attractive but frustrated history major survived a school shooting two years ago and became an outspoken advocate and media darling for gun control. Now ignored and forgotten, she rallies a team of “GOONS” (20s-30s) in a last-ditch effort to be heard. The Goons, who each survived a school-shooting include: YU YAN, an Asian woman; JOSEPH, a Native American male; LEVI, a white Amish male; and ROSA, a Mexican woman. The Goons kidnap a social studies teacher, Mr. DAN BELLINGHAM (40s), who has been “red-flagged” as a potential mass shooter by a former bullied student, MILES UNGSTRUM (19).
Having lured JUDGE REGGIE WILSON (60s) and attorney, ELLIE R. MARTINEZ (40), to a workshop on school gun safety, the basement of Mr. Bellingham’s school becomes a makeshift courtroom for the trial of the century. The Judge, attorney, and teacher are handcuffed and chained to metal chairs, and wired to receive mild electric shocks, with Gwen menacingly holding the switch.
Gwen acts as a prosecuting attorney, with Miles as her only witness, as they produce evidence that Mr. Bellingham is not the self-proclaimed “good guy with a gun” he imagines. They prove, over the objections of his defense attorney (Ellie) and the protesting Judge, that Mr. Bellingham’s concealed carry permit has been revoked. However, that didn’t stop him from stockpiling weapons at home, including an AR-15 and twenty other firearms. The Goons serve as a biased jury, and the trial continues with electric shocks administered by Gwen for untruthful or incomplete answers. At issue is whether all students’ inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, have been infringed upon by the Second Amendment.
The Goons realize that they are breaking the law with kidnapping, false imprisonment, and torture, just as the Sons of Liberty broke laws, but it’s to prevent another mass shooting at the hands of the psychologically disturbed Mr. Bellingham. The trial progresses poorly for the prosecution, despite evidence that Mr. Bellingham is breaking some laws and skirting others. In the end, the captives are freed, and the police and FBC Newscaster KERRY BRIGGS (30s; a gun supporter) are notified.
Before the Goons are taken into custody, Mr. Bellingham returns to exact revenge with his AR-15 and two pistols. The police are not far behind, but Gwen is killed, and Kerry and two Goons are wounded by Mr. Bellingham. Despite a doctored video of the night’s activities going viral on the Internet, the newscaster paints the Goons as criminal civic terrorists. The Judge and Ellie, torn by the night’s events, now advocate for the Goons. Before this page in history turns, the Goons of Liberty have inspired a generation into massive non-violent protests.
Tiny House, Big Christmas synopsis: TRICIA RAWLINGS (30s), a third-grade teacher, and BEN RAWLINGS (30s), a real estate agent, are arrested for disturbing the peace after one of their legendary arguments. The small county jail is full, so JUDGE THOMAS (60s) sentences the bickering couple to three weeks in his “tiny house” in a remote forest over Christmas Break. They will have no car, a restricted landline phone, no WiFi, TV, or radio. If they escape, they get three months in the county jail. When strict SHERIFF LACY (40) drops them off at the tiny house, the couple’s situation looks hopeless, but all the Sheriff’s attention must go to catching a serial arsonist.
The couple receives supplies from a general store an hour away from PAULY THE PIZZA GUY (16), a scruffy lad on a motor scooter, dashing the couple’s hope of escape. Things turn uglier one week later, when their ill-behaved children, SARAH (A.K.A. SASSY; 13) and MIKEY (A.K.A. VEGAS; 9) are ceremoniously dumped off by AUNT MARTHA (35), who breaks her promise to keep the kids for the full three-week sentence. The nightmare escalates as the family shares the two-hundred-square-foot house, while raccoons and a bear share bags of garbage outside the house. The tiny house becomes a source of ridicule and frustration from within. From the outside, the family’s financial troubles, the source of all arguments, creep in with the Sheriff’s mail deliveries. Ben and Tricia are losing their family’s home.
A visit from the Judge after two weeks forces a turning point like a voice from on high! This triggers the family to dig deep to change things in the final week. Tricia advocates the “Golden Rule” as a guiding principle. They clean up the house and yard, pick out a “Christmas seedling,” and treat each other better. Pauly sees Sarah in a clean outfit and is smitten. Mikey’s fears dissipate. Tricia and Ben fall back in love, despite their monetary woes.
While “doing time,” the tiny house becomes their efficient home. That’s good, because the Sheriff stops with the foreclosure notice of the couple’s real home. They respond by sharing a meal, and working through it as a family. Tricia sneaks away on Pauly’s motor scooter and returns with simple gifts for the family, Christmas lights, and fire retardant paint to save the house from the arsonist. Tricia links the arsonist’s victims to Aunt Martha, setting up a showdown at the tiny house. The family is ready for her. They save the house from a fire, and delay the aunt for the Sheriff. The Judge gives them a reward and the tiny house, but their greatest reward is each other and a new lease on life, love, and Christmas.
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Stray Bullet synopsis: REGAN DORAN (early-30s), a successful land acquisitions attorney in Boston, strolls through a city park that her firm wants to develop into condominiums. She is with her little redhead daughter, ROWAN (10), eating ice cream cones, when a drive-by shooter kills the girl and injures two others by a majestic, old tree. Coincidentally, earlier that day in school, Rowan read her story about lone “Fairy Trees” in Ireland. Rowan’s story and her untimely death inspire Regan to spread her daughter’s ashes in Cloonfad, Ireland.
Initially, Regan must navigate the grieving process past her estranged mother, MRS. DORAN (60), and an impatient boss, CHARLES THATCHER (55), who demands Regan immediately convert the park into condos, despite Rowan’s death. And, Regan is hounded by DETECTIVE SEAN DONAHUE (40), who thinks the drive-by shooting is politically related, and connected to Irish Republican Army activities near Cloonfad where Regan’s father was a suspect in 1986. In preparing for the trip to Ireland, Regan is surprised to find dozens of Rowen’s written stories, establishing her as a true Irish storyteller. Regan plans to read one story per day to minimize postmortem depression.
Once in Ireland, Regan is assisted by a wise-cracking car rental agent, PETR NOVAK (30), and a history-loving hotel clerk, CONNOR MURPHY (20), while thwarting a nosy Irish detective, CHIEF INSPECTOR EOIN GROGAN (50), who is assisting Detective Donahue in establishing a political motive for Rowan’s killing. The AR-15 used in the drive-by shooting can be traced to IRA terrorist activities in 1987, a week before Regan’s parents immigrated to Boston.
However, the heart of the story is in the growing mother-daughter relationship between Regan and her daughter. Rowan’s stories come alive in Ireland, as Regan visits a university and pub in Galway, and meets her parent’s former colleagues and makes new friends. Regan suspects her father has ties to the IRA, but realizes she must reconcile with her mother, despite her parents’ past. It takes two trips to Cloonfad for Regan to finally part with Rowan’s ashes around a fairy tree in a pasture. But, this time, Regan is not alone. She is surrounded by new friends, who help conduct a grand Irish wake around the tree. Throughout her travels, Regan learns to treasure her daughter’s wisdom and stories even more.
Regan returns to Boston and quits her job, which saves the park and the tree from her boss’s development firm. She comes to grips with her mother’s militant past, self-publishes Rowan’s stories, opens a Center for Nonviolence in Rowan’s name, and repairs her own mother-daughter relationship. The grieving process teaches Regan how to live, how to love, and how keep her daughter’s stories alive forever.
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Murders Don't Have To Be Perfect synopsis: Lovely TINA RYAN (late 20s), a sommelier-in-training, works the tasting room at an exquisite winery and B&B, as guests gather for the wedding of the owner’s daughter, MANDY YARBROUGH (30s). Mandy is a wealthy heiress and wino, but all the guests have brought extra baggage. The handsome groom, EVAN WRIGHT (30s), has a history of drug use, and the best man, CHARLIE TURNER (30s), a closeted-gay NSA agent. Winery owner, JERRY YARBROUGH (60s), a brutish cowboy, and JENNY (50s), his Amish-dressed wife, enter the tasting room despising their daughter’s choice for a husband. The groom’s obnoxious parents include a disgraced philandering Hollywood producer, BRANSON (60s) and washed-up actress, SHERYL (50s), a monument to plastic surgery. The town psychiatrist, Dr. MILLIE JACKSON (30s), who treats half the wedding guests, is the maid of honor. The lecherous pastor of a bankrupt church, RACHEL PENDLETON (40s), who knows half the guests from the local A.A. meetings, is asked to conduct the ceremony.
The smoke from nearby wildfires forces the motley group into the tasting room, where Tina attempts to delight them with fine wines. However, rookie SHERIFF STEPH WINDSOME (30s) stops by with bad news: the wildfires have closed the roads; everyone is safe on the winery grounds, but trapped, as is the sheriff.
Jerry forces Evan to sign a pre-nuptial agreement to keep their wedding present, the winery, in his daughter’s sole ownership. After a brief ceremony on a smoke-filled patio, Mandy hears about the prenup and is furious with her father. Evan exits the bridal suite to fetch hot coffee for his bride from the tasting room, he confides in Tina, and returns to find Mandy is dead. The sheriff returns to find chaos, a possible suicide, accusations of murder aimed at Evan, and a heavily contaminated crime scene.
The sheriff is without a coroner or crime scene team, so he enlists Tina to help him solve the case. Everyone had the opportunity, and almost everyone had a motive. During a break from intense questioning in the tasting room, the pastor is found dead. Tina sniffs a wine glass and detects aconite poison; nearly impossible to detect and it leaves no trace after two hours.
Tina and the sheriff return to the bridal suite and she sniffs the scent again. But, who did it? The raging wildfires in the area force the group down into the air-filtered wine cellar. There, Tina may be able to sniff out the killer. Charlie is outed, Jenny is off-the-wagon, and Rachel and Millie wanted Evan for themselves. Tina secretly deduces that the killer must be Sheryl, who is getting away with murder, until lovely Tina concocts a perfect murder of her own.
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Santa's Chairs synopsis: GINGER PAISLEY (late-30s) runs the small, Mountain Café and Gift Shop on property about to be sold to the highest bidder. Her bright but sarcastic daughter, HANNAH (9) sees nothing good coming from Christmas, partly because she is colorblind, benefiting less from the Christmas decorations all around her. MR. RANKER (60s), the Scrooge-like landlord, demands the rent by Christmas Eve, prior to the land auction, further stressing Ginger and Hannah. Café employees include the cook, DENNY GRANT (18), a handsome football player, and waitress, ANGELA ESTEVEZ (18), a Mexican beauty, who is a better cook than Denny. Regular Patrons include Denny’s father, SHERIFF GRANT (40s), and a jolly Asian, ALBERT CHONG (60), a UPS driver and maker of Adirondack chairs. Everyone’s lives change when handsome LOUIS GAUTHIER (early-40s) and raggedy son RAPHAEL (13) roll up from Quebec, Canada in a broken-down RV. The visitors get off to a rough start. Louis fails to mention he’s a wealthy real estate investor.
Business is bad, so Hannah creates a “Santa Chair” by folding a six-foot-tall cardboard Santa into one of Albert’s Adirondack chairs. The Santa Chair fails to deliver Hannah’s and Raphael’s selfish wishes. Hannah and Raphael soon realize that the Santa Chair magically glows red when you wish something good for another person.
Things turn worse when Louis’s gorgeous ex-wife, BREA (40), arrives to partake in the land auction. She lures Raphael away for the night to the nearby ski resort, so he can snowboard and bunk in a deluxe estate instead of a decrepit RV. Louis gets special Enchroma glasses delivered by Albert to correct Hannah’s vision of colors. It’s heartwarming when Hannah tries them on, sees colors denied her entire life, then hands the glasses back. She sees all the colors of Christmas without them.
Ginger hits another rough patch when she learns Louis has come only for the land auction. He explains that he wants the best for Raphael, but Ginger worries about Hannah’s future, too. Ginger persists. Things begin to turn around for the café. She finds that Louis’s French roast coffee is a marked improvement over her coffee. She borrows Louis’s satellite Wi-Fi system, and promotes Angela to head cook. Business picks up, just as the land auction takes place.
Hannah and Raphael add a second Santa Chair, where they wish away. In a turn of events, Brea loves the new food offerings at the café, and she and Louis are the only ones bidding at the land auction. Mr. Ranker is stunned when they lower the bid, and Louis gets the property for a steal. After a series of heartwarming wishes from the Santa Chairs, it appears that Ginger and Louis are falling in love.
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Inhuman Faces synopsis: DOC O’MALLEY (35), a beautiful, highly successful dermatologist is addicted to pills and loses her license to practice, her husband, and her home. Only the African American janitor HERB JACKSON (50), Latina receptionist, MARIANA REYES (25), and Doc’s half-wolf dog (BOTOX) remain behind in her office, where DOC is spending the night until she sorts things out. Herb offers to pay cash if Doc examines a twelve-year-old boy, CASEY, with a facial rash. The boy’s mother, EVE (32) is frightfully worried, because the rash has gotten progressively worse for a year since she adopted him.
Doc finds that the tiny mites that grow on all human faces are astronomically abundant on Casey’s face. Doc’s suspicions are raised further when Mariana reveals her rash on her breasts, but she declines to wash her heavy face makeup off for the exam. Doc’s microscope reveals human skin cells in her two patients, but unbelievably active mites benign to most people. At first, she helps young Casey and Mariana. However, when Eve mysteriously disappears, and Doc finds she is being watched by tiny cameras, she goes on the offensive. When Doc learns that there are twelve people in Herb’s group, all with heavy rashes, she feels outnumbered and alone. She tries to escape, only to be retrained by a heavily armed, neurotic security guard, OFFICER DOWNS (40), who also has a facial rash.
Doc agonizes about the Hippocratic Oath she took to heal the sick, but she dislikes and distrusts her patients because of their inhuman behavior. She plots to take them down with science. She tests their skin, and determines which lotions and creams exacerbate the rashes. As Mariana leaves to distribute a harmful facial cream to the others, we learn the insidious truth: her patients are human clones, and the mites, which have co-evolved on humans, are slowly eating them alive.
Officer Downs has a psychotic meltdown, and is prepared for a shooting spree, when BOTOX attacks him, resulting in Herb being accidentally shot. Confessions begin to spew as the rashes get worse. The clones planned Doc’s addiction, and assured that she lost her license to practice, so she could treat them. But Doc gets her revenge. Her prescribed creams help the two species of mites to hybridize on the clones, and their faces get eaten away. Casey is confused why Doc hasn’t helped them, given her Hippocratic Oath, but Doc has a more important mission now: saving the world. Inevitably, the clones lose the battle for co-existence, or do they? When the police arrive, Doc and her dog have another surprise: the officers have facial rashes, too.
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Innerstate 70 synopsis: MAXINE (MAX) RAMIREZ (17) is a pathologically shy, slovenly dressed Latina from a small town on the eastern Colorado plains. Informally, she was voted the least popular girl in her high school graduation class. BRANDON LANGLEY (18) is equally shabby, with long, ratty hair. Informally, he was voted least likely to succeed. Brandon decides to change his destiny by undertaking an epic journey across the state, his universe, along Innerstate 70. He doesn’t realize that it’s an Interstate highway. He posts an ad on Craigslist for a traveling companion, and is surprised that only Max answers.
Brandon has visions of a TV show his grandfather told him about, Route 66, in which two confident, competent men drive across the U.S. in a new ’61 Corvette, working odd jobs along the way. Brandon buys an ugly ’84 Chrysler LeBaron convertible with severe mechanical problems. Max has the $100, sleeping bag, and GoPro camera needed to document every part of their ill-fated trip. They have car problems from the start, and stop an hour away at the Sand Creek Massacre Site to let the car cool down. This isn’t going to be anything like Route 66.
They meet IRVING WILD HORSE (35), a Native American who goes berserk on their tour of the massacre site, but the two travelers learn plenty. Max and Brandon meet a few more oddball characters on their trip. There’s T. EDWARD DOWD (65), an old farmer near Burlington, who believes the Earth is flat. There’s NORM SANDERS (40), an ex-con hitchhiker, who pulls a pistol on them just to fulfill the stereotype. And, there’s ESTER (40), a junkyard owner near Denver, who needs help. They survive the oddballs, and Max learns to drive in Denver traffic despite a near panic attack, before they both see the mountains of Colorado for the first time. Slowly, the travelers gravitate to each other in comical ways. However, their trip is cut short when Max learns her immigrant parents might get deported.
Back in their hometown, the teens work through personal issues and financial woes to retrace and finish their epic journey, again documenting it with video. Unbeknownst to Max, Brandon has been uploading all the videos, making them YouTube sensations. When Max learns she’s “gone viral,” she slugs Brandon in the jaw. However, their friendship becomes stronger, and the relationship flourishes for the completion of the epic adventure of a lifetime. They prove to themselves and their massive YouTube audience that they won’t be defined by what others think of them, but rather, how they view themselves. They return to their small town, different people, and a couple in love. Back to Innerstate 70 Logline
Love Terrors synopsis: On a field trip to the cemetery on Halloween, MRS. RAINTREE (45) details the sordid history of the Potter’s Field, where criminals, slaves, hobos, and the poor were buried in mass. This entertains, but doesn’t spook, the class (24 kids), including JENNA (14), the teacher’s nerdy, wallflower daughter; CARLOS (14), a short, ever-smiling Latino; DESI (14) a tall, handsome, African American surrounded by giggling girls; BRITTANY (14), a cute blonde battling unsuccessfully to nudge closer to Desi; MARTIE (14) a butch girl with short-cropped hair; and SAMMY (14), a pudgy Italian talker.
On the field trip, Desi dares the entire class to camp out in the Potter’s Field from midnight to dawn. At midnight, only the six named teens above show up. They’re not close friends. All, but Desi, are loners and outcasts. And, they’re all unwelcome by the spirits in the Potter’s Field, whose ghostly arms shake branches, generate spooky sounds, and physically prevent them from leaving. They’re all stuck, so when Jenna reveals that her dad is in prison, the other teens begin to open-up.
The socially uncomfortable night takes a sinister turn when a town vagrant, VICTOR GRAHAM (47) crashes through the campsite, extinguishes their fire, and runs off, only to be gunned down by two thugs with automatic rifles. The teens witness the murder. Jenna, the smartest in the group, takes command. She takes photos of the shadowy killers, and when the thugs leave, Jenna and the others investigate the body to get an ID. Carlos secretly robs Victor of a thick roll of bills, and quickly loses it.
The teens try to escape the cemetery, but the spirits seem to pull them back. The killers return to burn and bury the body, with Jenna documenting the crimes. The teens can’t escape the cemetery, because the killers may be waiting for them. Snuggling eases the tension and fear. In the coming-of-age backstory, bonds from between Jenna and Carlos, Desi and Brittany, and between Sammy and Martie.
Dawn brings more danger to the teens, as one of the thugs returns to find Victor’s cash. The teens, armed with wooden spears, and with the help of the spirits, overtake the thug, who Jenna recognizes as her UNCLE JOHNNY (40). The POLICE CHIEF (55) arrives, but when he shoots Uncle Johnny, the teens find themselves in a hopeless situation. The Police Chief is the town’s crime kingpin. Again, the spirits help the teens out, as Jenna, the master detective, uncovers how her father was framed. The FBI arrives to arrest the Police Chief, and later, Jenna finds the thick roll of laundered $1,000-bills. Jenna’s father will be released from prison, and all ends well for “the Potter’s Field Six.” Back to Love Terrors Logline
Drone On Trial synopsis: A four-foot wide, six-propeller, military Drone named the Peacekeeper-0608 is powered-down in the center of the courtroom. It’s fully loaded with a rifle and two small but deadly missiles. In walks the plaintiff, a meek Syrian woman, HALI BASSIM (28), gorgeous in a Hijab (head scarf) and flowing black gown. Her innocent civilian husband and baby were murdered by the Drone following 131 successful terrorist kills. Her assigned lawyer is a nervous, African-American, first-year lawyer, DAMEON HARRISON (28). The defense table includes MARY KOWALSKI (30) the Drone’s software designer, and PETER SAMUELS (22) the computer programmer who operated the Drone. They’re represented by a slick, experienced lawyer, REDMOND DAVIS (50). The JUDGE is Major Harlan Foster (60), in full-dress uniform. The Judge’s digital bailiff is ALEX, a glorified Google Echo device to save court costs.
From the opening statements of the defense attorney, things look hopeless for the plaintiff. The prototype Drone is hugely successful in finding terrorists with enhanced facial-recognition technologies. It’s equally efficient in eliminating enemy combatants with its powerful weapons. However, for unexplained reasons, the Drone becomes a real monster in the courtroom. It takes flight, shoots the brash defense attorney, controls Alex’s voice, and puts the courtroom on a prison-like lock down.
The Drone demands the trial continue, and it forces Dameon to argue only for the defense. Hali must represent herself. Fearing for their lives, the trial presses on. The Drone operator, Peter, brags about the Drone’s artificial intelligence. It now deploys on missions by itself. Peter, who takes no personal responsibility for accidental civilian deaths, is the next to be killed by the Drone. Mary, the software engineer describes her role in designing and programming the Drone, and has second thoughts on the monster she created, but she is the next to be shot dead.
The trial is forced to go on, and the Drone gets more agitated. Hali and Dameon plea their cases as best they can under the circumstances, until the Judge is killed by the Drone after divulging that the entire case was a sham: the verdict of not-guilty was predetermined from on high.
Hali and Dameon are determined to survive. They change their appearances with makeup to confuse and wear down the Drone. Hali shorts two electrical outlets to prevent the Drone from recharging. In a last-ditch effort, they start a fire to set off the fire sprinklers. In the end, the monster Drone chooses not to self-destruct, and helps the lone survivors, Hali and Dameon, escape. But GENERAL TAPPIN (55) arrives on the scene and he’s furious! To save the Drone Program by blaming a suicide bomber (Hali), he resets the self-destruction sequence on the Drone. KABOOM! Back to Drone On Trial Logline
Mountain Mysteries synopsis: Young Deputy Sheriff, ELLIE MAY LYONS (25), isn’t the best-dressed or subservient law enforcement officer in the mountains of Colorado, but she exudes the talent and tenacity for solving crimes. When the ski town’s 92-year-old historian (CECIL) is shot at an old gold mine, Ellie’s boss, Sheriff HANK PORTER (45), quickly assumes it was a stray hunter’s bullet that killed him. He wants the case wrapped up before the Founder’s Day Picnic and 1890s-baseball reenactment the next day, but Ellie has doubts, as a few “townies” may have lots to gain by the death. Meanwhile, the victim’s 95-year-old drunken sister (WINNIE) reports a lost “Cat,” which we learn is a ten-pound gold nugget, missing for 130 years.
The new Middle-eastern, female “DOC” in town, Ellie’s confidant, also serves as the town’s coroner. Things don’t add up for her either. The townies with the most to gain from Cecil’s death include: TONY (40), ski-bum living in Cecil’s barn; DERRICK (40), the African-American donut store cook; ROSA (35), a sultry museum volunteer; and DELANO GREEN (45), the town’s richest banker and lawyer. Each has an air-tight alibi, being seen by Ellie or Hank immediately before or after the sound of a booming muzzle-loading rifle is heard.
Ellie filters through carefully conceived lies, as dark secrets of the past emerge putting the current events into a sinister perspective. Tiny inconsistencies and departures from normal behavior begin to lead Ellie from the stray-bullet theory to a well-planned, well-timed, premeditated murder. The town’s Founder’s Day Picnic and historic baseball game brings all the suspects together, and Ellie uses the game to her advantage, picking away at her prey. Ellie also meets a former major league baseball player, TRAPPER JACKSON (35), who is mysteriously playing incognito for the Old-Timers, and may be another suspect.
Ellie proves Cecil’s death occurred an hour earlier than assumed, but without the murder weapon, she has no case. Ellie gathers the suspects at the donut shop, and goes overboard with accusations. Hank is unsupportive, and it looks like someone will get away with murder. But Ellie’s revised timeline and speculation about Cecil’s death have struck a nerve, and Delano sneaks off to dig up two buried rifles near the old mine. Ellie and Hank capture Delano as the mastermind of the near-perfect murder.
The celebration is short-lived. Immediately after Winnie’s lost Cat (gold nugget) is rediscovered in the cradle’s pillow, Ellie gets a disturbing call from Sheriff Hank. During the night, the rifles and shovel were stolen from the trunk of Hank’s patrol car. Critical evidence disappeared, coincidentally timed with the reappearance of a certain retired baseball player. Back to Mountain Mysteries Logline
Terminally Séanced synopsis: CHRISTI BENSON (28), an attractive blonde widow of her late 80-year-old billionaire husband, is required by the will to hold a séance with those inheritors named in the will. Included are handsome, professional singer and Scientologist, JOHNNY MACK (40); rugged BUCK STENSON (40), the deceased-man’s favorite safari guide and fellow trophy hunter; and FATHER PAULO CERONI (80), a Nigerian Catholic priest from Rome. The hired medium for the séance is MADAM VERONA (60), a gray-haired gypsy covered in colorful cloaks and a veil to conceal her face.
The famous singer, Johnny, is immediately uneasy with simple gusts of wind. When the fireplace tools rattle, a bell slides across the table, and the table shakes spontaneously, he panics, breaks out in hives, confesses to being a Scientology recruiter, and races out of the farmhouse in shock. He is automatically disinherited for leaving.
Later, Father Ceroni faces the same fears he did as an exorcist. The elderly priest, weakened by previous heart disease and a pacemaker, grows uneasy about the seemingly paranormal activity. The priest becomes overly fretful, and suffers a fatal heart attack when his pacemaker mysteriously fails.
With each injury or death, Christi is sympathetic and comforting. Buck, the trophy hunter, refuses to be intimidated by paranormal activity. He needs the money. However, three black widow spiders emerge from under his chair, and he suffers what he thinks are three bites. He races out.
As human casualties mount, Madam Verona gets more suspicious of Christi. Finally, Madam Verona removes her veil and wig, and reveals herself as a professor who debunks mediums and faith-healers. The ruse does not sit well with Christi, who shoots the medium/professor in the stomach with a derringer. In races dowdy local sheriff, Ellie May Lyons (35), who struggles to put together the events of the evening.
Johnny returns as the perfect dupe for Christi’s plan to become the sole inheritor of her husband’s riches. Johnny is exposed as a gullible fool, but isn’t everyone? In the end, the Sheriff foils Christi’s four near-perfect attempted murders. It is all a trap. However, the sheriff is shot in the stomach by Christi, who tries to make her escape, only to be caught in trap set by the sheriff. Back to Terminally Séanced Logline
Milkmen? synopsis: It’s in Tahoe City, California, where three fun-loving unmarried milkmen, ACE (25, white), PONCH (23, Middle-Eastern), and CLUTCH (21, black), are doing their best to destroy the myth of the early-morning milkman. Ace’s conniving boss, Mr. ANDERSON (50), at corporate headquarters in Sacramento, tires of fielding complaints of late deliveries, and is about to buy-out Ace’s franchise. The milkmen decide to hire one “responsible milkman” to save the business.
Enter a beautiful, no-nonsense Latina, Martinique (MARTIE; 24), who attempts to get the dysfunctional, boyish milkmen to grow up and work harder. Tensions mount, and things get worse when Martie’s MAMA (50) moves in. She’s a Spanish-speaking, knife-wielding sleepwalker from Folsom Prison, who insists on cooking breakfast at dawn. The milkmen assume Mama was an inmate at Folsom, and they fear her, but the men don’t want to lose Martie, their best milkman.
Early rising helps the business improve, but at some personal costs. Ace’s girlfriend, CRYSTAL (24), is jealous of Martie, and demands to the red-neck Sheriff that Mama get deported. The milkmen are torn between providing sanctuary for the immigrants versus returning to their partying ways. In the chaos, Mr. Anderson goes after the business for himself.
Only marriage can keep Martie in the country when her educational visa runs out in sixty days. Her easy targets, the immature milkmen, bet on their “Worst Date Ever” challenge to thwart Martie’s plan. The dates are disastrous, and Martie loses hope. Then comes word that Martie’s PAPA (55), who looks like an infamous drug lord, arrives from Mexico to persuade Mama and Martie to come home.
Relationships gradually improve as Martie gravitates to Ace, Clutch meets the Sheriff’s 17-year-old daughter, Lilly, at an awkward AA meeting, and Ponch peruses the nutcase, Crystal. Then Martie audits Mr. Anderson’s shady billing practices, and Mama is captured by the Sheriff for deportation. This sets up a showdown at the Sheriff’s office.
The business would be spared if advanced sales increase ten percent. A new ice-making machine may provide the new product the business needs, and ice orders look promising. Martie and Ace orchestrate the business comeback of a lifetime, and even have time for little romance before the showdown.
At the Sheriff’s office, we learn Mama is simply a cook at Folsom Prison, not an inmate. Mr. Anderson is a white-collar criminal. And Papa isn’t a drug lord, he’s just a tequila-selling Baptist. Love fills the air until Martie learns of the “Worse Date Ever” bet, and storms away from Ace. However, all is not lost. One Lake Tahoe sunset on the beach sets the stage for a wedding, and everyone lives dysfunctionally ever-after. Back to Milkmen? Logline
Unacceptable Cargo synopsis: COSY (24), a beautiful Nigerian woman, follows her bossy best friend, AYO (25) to the mountains of Colorado, USA, on a temporary-worker program. Cosy dreams of a better life and achieving the American dream. Instead, she finds low wages, slave-like working conditions, and outlandishly high prices for rent, food, and utilities at the hands of her nemesis taskmaster, MS. HECH (44), who is little more than a heartless human-trafficker. After an attempted sexual assault by the staff’s pilot, RJ (45), Cosy steals the pilot’s expensive coat and escapes across snow-packed mountains to Denver. The coat, however, contains money and the pilot’s smartphone with photos that document sexual abuse and incriminate the group’s human-trafficking activities. Ms. Hech sends her Russian bodyguard, ALEXI (45) to retrieve Cosy and the phone. The chase is on.
Cosy escapes with the aid of a sympathetic FBI AGENT NEWMAR (40) and his friend, FATIMA (40), a U.N. official battling international crime and human injustices. For Cosy, freedom is worth dying for, and revenge is worth living for. It’s up to her to prevent slavery in the 21st Century.
Back in Lagos, Nigeria, Cosy enlists the aid of her rookie policeman friend, CHINEDU (25), to track the Nigerians involved in the trafficking ring. The chase uncovers frightened government agents and secretive underworld characters, and spans from Nigeria’s scenic national parks to trendy nightclubs in Abuja. Alexi gets help in the manhunt from thugs employed by the human-trafficking kingpin of Lagos, CHIEF HABIB (40).
Human trafficker’s capture Cosy’s two friends: Ayo, and a female hacker known as the KNIGHT (30), a former employee hiding from the Chief. Meanwhile, Ms. Hech and RJ have returned to Nigeria to expand their trafficking activities with the Chief. Simultaneously, Fatima fails to rally support for battling human-trafficking from the National Intelligence Agency and other government administrators. Everyone cares a little, but no one cares a lot.
Cosy and Chinedu enlist the help of Fatima and Agent Newmar to prevent the escape of RJ and his new lover, Ayo, at the Lagos airport. This sets up a dangerous showdown in Lagos, where Ms. Hech and Alexi use the Knight as bait for Cosy at Chief Habib’s estate.
The underdogs, Cosy and Chinedu, rescue the Knight, and with the help of reinforcements, Agent Newmar and Fatima, capture Alexi and Ms. Hech. The Chief escapes in a fortified Hummer, but not before Fatima adds a tracking device. With the government’s complicit support, Ms. Hech and Alexi will escape prosecution, riling Cosy and her gang. They take matters into their own hands to track down and kill Chief Habib, upending his human-trafficking empire. Cosy isn’t done yet! She gains a new mission in life! Back to Unacceptable Cargo Logline
Death Coach synopsis: ELLEN RORKE (21) is a history major determined to trace her ancestry in Ireland of spring break, with the aid of her African-American boyfriend, RILEY JAMAINE (21), a handsome philosophy major. It’s a cold rainy night when their taxi, driven by a crude gay Dubliner, CELESTINE O’OMALLEY (25), gets stuck in the mud outside their gloomy B&B. Ellen gets caught up in the folklore and assumes the Cóiste Bodhar (Death Coach) may be coming for her.
The owners of the dreadful B&B, ANNIE DORAN (75) and her brother, SEAMUS (77), are bitter for not being paid by the online booking agency. A tall, stone Irish cross in front of the cottage and a rocking cradle in the loft begin to divulge the eerie history of the cottage as a home for unwed mothers and their babies, where everyone led punishing, torturous lives, where runaways would have their kneecaps. Owners, Annie and Seamus both walk with a limp.
After a night of chilling stories and Irish whiskey, the three visitors wake to find their ankles are chained to each other. Matters are made worse when Annie learns Celestine is gay, and Riley is an atheist, and both get their kneecaps slammed by the butt of her shotgun. Attempts to escape are futile. A hidden drawer under the coffee table reveals darker secrets about Annie, Seamus, their “changeling” son, and the many deaths at the cottage. The captives are doomed.
A glimmer of hope arrives in the form of an elderly, slovenly policeman, OFFICER PADDY (61), who appears to help Riley escape. Office Paddy, armed with only a nightstick, explores the cottage in the dark. Ellen tells him about the shocking evidence in the coffee table drawer. Hope fades when Officer Paddy is captured at gunpoint by Annie.
Celestine painfully removes her chains and follows Riley’s escape route only to find him face-down in the bog, lifeless, and with a bloody skull. She trudges back to the cottage to warn Ellen that Office Paddy is a killer, only to find Seamus being burned on the Irish Cross by Officer Paddy and Annie. Celestine is shot in her taxi as she runs over Annie and wounds Paddy.
Officer Paddy appears to befriend Ellen, but she is wise to him. She deduces that Officer Paddy is the “changeling” – the mentally disturbed son of the incestuous relationship of Annie and Seamus, and the cause of all the mysterious goings on. He attempts to kill her, but she kills him instead. Driving Celestine’s taxi back to town, Ellen finds a stumbling Riley holding his bleeding head. They see the Death Coach coming for Annie, Seamus, Officer Paddy, and poor Celestine, while police cars come for them! Back to Death Coach Logline
Black Widow Journalist synopsis: In May 1968, Samantha (SAM) Eriksson (25), a conniving journalist on her first assignment for the Reno Examiner, is sent to write a “fluff piece” on multi-millionaire playboy, (CAPTAIN) George Whittell Jr. (86). She has no idea that the Captain is bunkered down in his impenetrable rock fortress on the shores of Lake Tahoe, confined to a wheelchair, and armed with a shotgun. The Captain welcomes the trespassing reporter with buckshot that sends her crashing into the stone stairway, knocking her unconscious. She wakes hours later in an opium den at the end of a six-hundred-foot tunnel with a bloody bandage on her head. Her troubles are just beginning.
Sam is brought to the Captain at gunpoint by the cook, HENRI, where she claims to be the Captain’s long-lost daughter from a Cal-Neva showgirl. The Captain is suspicious and naturally curious about Sam, but unremorseful about shooting her. The Captain brags that he never worked a day in his life, owns most of the east side of Lake Tahoe, has no apologies for past indiscretions, and never plans to tell his life story to anyone!
Ugly truths begin to emerge about the Captain’s past relationships with women and staff. His current nurse, RUTH, fearlessly protects his privacy. But Sam is determined to capture the Captain’s wild stories, and she snoops around until his honest reflections emerge. The glorified poker games he had with Howard Hughes and Ty Cobb were not as reported. Injuries leave a proud man wheelchair bound and dependent on others. State officials and real estate developers are continually after his land. And the Captain learns that a deadly form of cancer, melanoma, is devouring his body. While the Captain ponders his past and current life, Sam learns that two other famous people she interviewed died within a year. She is the Black Widow Journalist, and the Captain is trapped in her web.
Sam gives the Captain an opportunity to set the record straight before dying, despite everyone learning she lied about being his daughter. Amid the overly protective staff, a land-grabbing lawyer, Nevada’s Governor, and the Captain’s failing health, Sam pieces together the telling biography of a complex, sometimes well-intentioned human being. She makes her new friend a promise not to publish the story for fifty years. On one level, the “Black Widow Journalist” is a fictional story of a reporter’s last interview of the real-life multi-millionaire recluse, George Whittell Jr., and his legacy in helping to protect Lake Tahoe. On a deeper level, people like Sam are badly needed to awaken our conscience, forcing us to come clean in our “exit interviews,” so that the world can learn from our triumphs and mistakes as human beings. Back to Black Widow Journalist Logline
Rope Burn synopsis: In March, 1998, HERMAN MALONE (50), finds his communication business targeted for massive contract cuts at the hands of a Fortune 500 company, American West (names have been changed). Herman feels like he did when two white cops chased him into a swamp and out of Arkansas 30 years earlier. However, Herman finds he is not alone, and that several African-American small contractors and subcontractors have recently suffered the same fate at the hands of the corporate giant. It’s David(s) versus Goliath. Racism has been kicked upstairs, where it’s much harder to prove in a court of law.
Denver Post business news editor, ROBERT SCHWAB (40), gets wind of the story, and seeks the truth, but Herman doesn’t like reporters, and their relationship is off to a rocky start. As financial troubles mount for Herman’s company, he realizes that he can’t face Goliath alone. With four other “plaintiffs,” and a small, helpful story in the Post, by Robert, Herman is convinced to have his day in court.
America West CEO, SKYLAR BAINES (50), is driven by profit and a pure corporate image. He assigns the case to his top hired gun, a bulldog of an attorney named EMERSON HARRIS (45). Emerson has never lost a case, and settles most of them before they reach trial to keep America West’s image squeaky clean. One by one, he intimidates Herman’s co-plaintiffs in settling, and Herman is alone. Even Herman’s wife, PAT (45) leaves him before the trial, leaving Herman with one confidant, Jennifer, the crusty Post reporter, Robert, and the Lord to lean on.
Herman, alone in court, doesn’t stand a chance. His slipshod, drug-addicted attorney, BILLY PARKER (40) is in over his head. The African-American judge, MILES JACKSON (42) appears to be on trial too, as America West is found innocent of all charges. However, one juror, LAURIE JAMESON (30), sees solid evidence of discrimination and a mistrial must be declared. It’s a moral victory for Herman who has lost everything but two friendships and his faith.
Herman seeks refuge in the house of the Lord. His minister, FRANK JONES (50), consoles Herman with the story of Job. Job lost everything but his faith, and was rewarded with twice his fortune. And, as prayers would have it, Herman’s company is awarded a large new contract for communications at the new Denver International Airport, and America West goes out of business, bought out by another corporation. Faith, and faith is justice, go a long way! Back to Rope Burn Logline
Rock Springs synopsis: Beautiful electronics engineer, HWEI (30), in a large smartphone factory in China, learns late from her supervisor and boyfriend, MR. XU (35) that her mother died on their rural farm. Mr. Xu, reluctantly grants three-days off for Hwei to settle her affairs. Hwei finds an empty farmhouse, and learns that her mother left her only a ceremonial candle, covered with the symbol for Yin, and her great-grandmother’s journal written in English in 1885. The journal recounts her great-grandmother’s dangerous American trip from San Francisco to Rock Springs, Wyoming, after Chinese coal miners were massacred by whites. Hwei’s yearning for an adventure, is fueled and funded by a raw diamond she finds inside the Yin candle. There must be a Yang candle somewhere. And who has her great-grandfather’s gold watch?
Despite the threat of being fired, and the prospects of losing a boyfriend, Hwei decides to retrace the journey. She sells the diamond to a sinister old jeweler, MR. JUNG (75), and flies to San Francisco to take the train east. She shares journal pages and scenic photos on a blog with her friends at the factory. Factory supervisors expect dissension due to the blog, but they find increased productivity.
We follow Hwei’s two adventures; one dressed as her great-grandmother in 1885, and one today, over the same geography, but separated by 131 years. The historical journey is filled with a hired thug named XAING (40), a wimpy anti-hero named YINGLIE (30), and the hate-filled white coal miners who perpetrated the Massacre. Hwei’s present journey includes a train ride with handsome private investigator, BILL YONG (30), who works for Mr. Jung, demanding text messages from her supervisor, and a corporate boss, DESMOND SALAZAR (60), tracking Hwei to regain “control” of the plant.
Danger escalates in the early journey, and suspense grips in the modern journey as we near Rock Springs. Hwei, as her great-grandmother, survives a kidnapping and assault looking for her great-grandfather, while Hwei in the present is deceived by Bill, robbed by Mr. Jung, and disillusioned by Desmond. Both have to battle the elements, bad guys, and the times to survive.
In Rock Springs, we relive the horrible massacre in 1885 that left 28 Chinese laborers dead, many more injured, and 75 homes burned to the ground, all because cheap foreign labor affected jobs for whites. We learn that justice was never served. However, Yinglie gains courage and with Hwei’s help, they defeat Xaing.
In the present, Hwei begins to trust Bill, and together they track Mr. Jung, find her great-grandfather’s gold watch, and recover the Yang candle. Hwei quits her job, and returns to China as an adventurer and writer. Bill joins her for a happily ever-after ending.
Back to Rock Springs Logline
Belize Heat synopsis: THADDEUS LAKE (32), a handsome mixed-race Detroit detective with exceptional hearing, on loan from the London police department, is awarded a citation for “Detective of the Year.” Later that day, he takes several bullets for a prominent billionaire and spends three weeks in the hospital. Forced to retire, and hide from vengeful gunmen, Thad decides to relocate to the small, Central American country of Belize. He’ll have to leave his identity and girlfriend, Detective WIGGENS (32), a cute brunette behind. However, as a parting gift, the billionaire, whose life Thad saved, presents him with an undisclosed amount of cash and credit from the Bank of Belize.
Once in Belize, he becomes THAD PERKINS, and hires a local Mayan cabdriver, IKAL EK (30), to be his personal driver and confidant. Things go smoothly until Thad meets San Pedro Police Chief, PENELOPE DIAS (35), a beautiful Creole woman with a Jamaican accent and severe memory problems, but a keen eye for catching criminals. Thad invests in a local coffee shop in Belize City because it’s the only place in the world where he fits in among the clientele. He befriends the barista, MAMA EBOE (55), a spiritual Creole monarch, who “sees things;” and a ten-year-old ORPHAN GIRL who steals tips and your heart. An assortment of believable, but oddball, characters round out Thad’s new crew, from PULU (30) the gregarious Coroner, to Antoni (25), the doting but protective gay desk clerk at the resort.
It’s clear from his first day in Belize that Thad will not get to retire or recuperate. He’s tossed into the investigation of a murdered Customs Agent. However, getting to the bottom of the crime and corruption in Belize is like peeling back the layers of an onion, only to find it’s a never-ending job. Thad’s sense of justice and remarkable detective skills won’t be put to rest. He chivalrously volunteers to work with Penelope to solve crimes involving illegal exports, drug cartels, human trafficking, extortion, gang activity, terrorists, and good-old fashioned murder. While Thad himself is the target of killers from Detroit, he, Penelope, and the cadre of misfits track down culprits through jungles, over Mayan ruins, into coral reefs, and across Belize.
Belize Heat showcases a unique multi-racial and multi-cultural perspective on an eclectic group of strangers working together to solve crimes to protect their Caribbean paradise. Back to Belize Heat Logline
Becoming We synopsis: RUFA “DOC” KALKHAN M.D. (29), whose Muslim beauty is only enhanced by wearing a hijab (head scarf), rides a Greyhound bus to Denver, in the opposite direction of her arranged marriage ceremony. Rufa doesn’t know she is being followed and photographed. A redneck passenger dives at her grandfather’s medical bag thinking it’s a bomb, spilling the contents. Rufa bursts into tears. She never fit in at med school, she’s $200,000 in debt, she’s never dated, and she’s not pleasing her parents. An ever-smiling, somewhat-awkward farmer, SAMMY (23), comforts Rufa, and convinces her to spend Christmas Break in the ski town of Breckenridge with his friends. Rufa, having never seen snow, just wants to get as far away as possible from her upset parents and fiancé in New Orleans. However, her few days in the mountains is anything but a winter vacation.
Rufa finds there is no room at the inn. Instead, she’s stuck with Sammy and his three roommates in a dump of a house. BURNER (28), a fearless Jewish snowboarder, parties like there’s no tomorrow. SOCCER (30) is a Belizean bartender who has a title for her novel and little else. OLLIE (34) is a professional freestyle skier at the end of her run. Rufa must quickly learn to reach outside her comfort zone to survive. Over the next three days, Rufa excels at a local doctor’s office, adapts to the western custom of shaking hands and hugging, frequents a bar (without drinking), and befriends her wild roomies, who don’t know what to think of their new Muslim friend.
As Rufa learns she is being tailed by a private investigator, her parents visit Breckenridge to bring their daughter home. YUSUF KALKHAN (54), a successful divorce lawyer, and his wife, SHATHA (47), see only the pragmatic benefits of the arranged marriage. They had no idea Rufa would fall in love, especially with the irresponsible snowboarder, Burner.
When a policewoman, CINDY (35) forces Burner to quit drinking and perform community service teaching disabled kids to snowboard, many lives are changed. Rufa smiles more than ever. She finally comes of age on a real date. Her new friends mature, too. Soccer gravitates to Cindy, and Ollie and Sammy courageously move on from their ski-bum lifestyles.
Still, Rufa’s culture demands conformity and obedience, and she surrenders to her parent’s wishes. Rufa is about to return to New Orleans to get married, when Burner transforms into the man of her dreams by helping others. When Rufa finds out that her fiancé arranged for the private investigator, she reaches a turning point. This is a heartwarming story of gaining tolerance, respect, and acceptance in the world, two people at a time. Back to Becoming We Logline.
Luke Stone and the Secret of the Golden Buddha synopsis. In Ocean City, New Jersey, in 2005, ELIN GRUDEN STONE (82) recalls the most exciting weekend of her life. We flashback to July 3rd, 1941, when young history professor, LUKE STONE (25), is eager to test Jacques Cousteau’s latest Aqua-Lung and retrieve a 500-pound Golden Buddha from the Sindia, a shipwreck just 50 yards offshore. However, Hitler wants the Golden Buddha for his art collection, and Japanese spies want two 40-pound Jade Dogs buried with the Golden Buddha for their emperor. Luke reports seeing a German U-Boat on his first dive, and the government sends a strong-willed rookie agent, ELIN GRUDER (23), to assess the claim. No one believes Luke, opening the door to enemy spies, who are after Luke’s new diving gear and the treasure.
Luke is chased by two German THUGS (30) under the direction of U-Boat Commander, FRITZ WOLF (35). Luke battles German sympathizers at every turn, including Elin’s Papa, HEINZ (50), and members of the Hitler Youth. At a local Biergarten, Luke uncovers plans to arm German sympathizers, but he gets little help from Elin’s supervisor, FRANKY (30) and his partner, MORT (35). Fritz and the Japanese spies steal Luke’s new Aqua-Lung, and the race for the treasure is on.
The Japanese spies hunt down survivors of the 1901 shipwreck for information, while the Germans prepare for a Bund Rally (allegiance to Hitler). Along with the feisty Elin, Luke faces additional obstacles at every turn: a Nazi wrestler, BIG OTTO (30), a double-agent (Franky), and Elin’s kid-brother HANS (18), who is in the Hitler Youth. With assistance from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (JUNIOR; 66), Luke and Elin take their case to FDR’s Chiefs of Staff, but still, no one believes them.
Luke and Elin find love as they are continually hunted by Nazis, but their situation appears hopeless when the Japanese spies kidnap Elin’s mother.
The first showdown is the night of July 4th; the Bund Rally. Fireworks fly as Luke foils Fritz’s plans to distribute rifles to the crowd. Elin, her Papa, Hans, and pro-U.S. Germans help. The second showdown is the sunrise dive on the Sindia. Luke must stall the Nazis and Japs, despite Elin’s parents being held at gunpoint in view of the dive site. Luke leads the treasure hunt, with Fritz and the Japanese spies armed with explosives and spearguns. The explosives open the Sindia for a glimpse of the Golden Buddha. Luke battles underwater to protect the treasure as the U-Boat closes in. In the end, Luke saves the day, the treasure remains buried, and help from FDR finally arrives. We flash forward to meet OLD LUKE (84) who shows old Elin a new plan to retrieve the Golden Buddha! Back to Luke Stone logline.
Rescue Me Twice synopsis: Three former military operatives have to put their emotional issues aside to rescue victims of human trafficking around the globe, and capture those responsible. The team is led by RHONDA BUTLER (35), a fiery black woman with a dark personal history. She’s joined by TREY STENSON (28), a rich, religious Texas cowboy out to save the world, and Lin Su (25), a beautiful Chinese-American who previously washed-out of the military and a TV-reporting job. They are funded by LEXI WORTHINGTON (70), whose foundation wants to put a dent in the $32 billion human-trafficking industry. The “field operations” are based on actual human-trafficking cases.
The team’s recent operation in West Africa is disastrous. Five young girls are rescued, but the ringleader, MBEETU (50), escapes, hires more goons, and kidnaps twenty girls in retribution. Rhonda is distraught to learn that Mbeetu shot a 12-year-old boy-soldier (TEWDROS) in the stomach after the boy failed at guarding the girls the night before. Mbeetu also killed the boy’s family to prove that fighting human trafficking in the region is futile. The rescue team’s emotions are at an all-time low.
Lexi Worthington creates a high-tech “Rescue Room” and hires three young computer geeks (Rosa Sanchez, Jan Rejmanek, and Bret Munson), former-trafficker (Willy Leyman), and a wealthy retiree (Ted Reynolds) to ensure future operations are more successful. The next field operation goes a little smoother as Rhonda and her team follow human-traffickers from Bucharest to Paris to capture the bad guys and rescue kidnapped children. However, Trey discovers that his adoption by rich Texans has masked deep personal feelings for the Central European orphans he’s rescuing. He was one of them.
The next mission involves the leading trafficker in the world, known as the Godfather, who ships millions of poor Bangladeshis to Malaysia for slave labor and the sex-trade. The team goes to great lengths to capture the Godfather in a brothel in Teknaf, Bangladesh. But the mission takes its toll on Lin, who relives her TV reporting of the devastating 2013 fire in a garment sweatshop that killed over one thousand underpaid laborers, many of them children, so Westerners can buy cheap clothes. Lin feels the full emotional weight of personal responsibility.
The team returns to the States to fight human trafficking here. The target is a madam known as Tencha, the ringleader of the largest human-trafficking ring in Texas history. Tencha earns millions by smuggling young, pretty, illegal aliens from Mexico and locking them in rooms behind a bar in Houston. But Rhonda’s past is revealed when she finds that one of the victims is a very young girl. Rhonda collapses. In the hospital, Rhonda’s own history of abuse unfolds, but she recovers more determined to attack a beast that got away: Mbeetu.
Rhonda devises one final mission to bring Mbeetu to justice, save twenty additional young girls, and rescue Tewdros for a second time. Using disguises and cunning, she and her team are successful. Now the long process of healing begins.
Our story ends with sad reminders. The human-trafficking cases were real. The industry flourishes with high demand for cheap garments, food, electronics, and the sex-trade around the world. There is no “Rescue Team” or “Rescue Room,” but there should be. Return to Rescue Me Twice logline.
The Trophy Hunters Synopsis. Two crazed scientists invent invisibility cloaks for military applications, but they have one small problem; they are difficult to see out of at night. They decide to test them with vendetta killings of trophy hunters. Enter a brilliant, sometimes bitter, Latina paleontologist, Alexandra (ALEX) Sanchez (33), who makes an alarming discovery at a mastodon dig site on the other side of the continent: a remote Pacific Northwest island. The fossil has a surgically removed leg, and may be missing its skull and tusks. It’s Christmas Break, so Alex is joined on the island by her team of fossil hunters, including: elderly mentor, Professor HENDRIX (75); research assistant MARTIE (26); and two college students: TREVOR (19, black, secretive) and comical SUNNY (19, half-Asian). The next day, the island’s game warden HERB (65), is found brutally murdered, and missing his head and leg. In addition, the team’s food is stolen, and all their mobile phones and electronic devices cease working.
Tribal detective, LINUS (35), arrives to investigate and to see his old flame, ALEX. They realize that the sadistic, well-camouflaged hunters are now stalking them. Only ALEX’s dog, INDIANA, can sense them. TREVOR is murdered and dismembered ten yards away from them. ALEX deduces that metal attracts the killers, only after MARTIE’s death and dismemberment reveals her titanium knee. Two interloping drug dealers (PAPA and JUNIOR), associates of TREVOR, bring rifles that are easily detected by the killers. One by one, people are murdered, with heads and legs taken as trophies. The killers always return to “clean up their mess.”
Terrorized, starving, and cold, ALEX is determined to fight back, with the help of three sticks of dynamite taken to the island by HENDRIX, who is convinced that once the mastodon site (evidence of fossil poachers) is destroyed, the killers will leave them alone. HENDRIX blows up the mastodon site, and is genuinely surprised the killers attack him. The killers try different “baits” to lure the four remaining prey from two cabins. ALEX strikes back with dynamite, and one killer explodes, but gunfire sends her back into hiding.
On day three, the lone survivors (ALEX, LINUS, SUNNY, JUNIOR, and INDIANA) break for the dock. ALEX deduces that only people who have trophy-hunted defenseless animals are targeted by the trophy-hunters. JUNIOR, a previous trophy-hunter, sacrifices himself for the others with the last stick of dynamite. LINUS reveals he once trophy-hunted and refuses to board the ferry. He’s right! These killers never leave a mess or loose ends to tell the story. We hear half-a-scream from LINUS. The “loose ends,” ALEX, SUNNY, and INDIANA, must abandon ship to survive the last attack on the ferry, but they survive to tell the story. Return to The Trophy Hunters logline.
Resorting to Love and Violence synopsis: It’s December 2019, and a counterfeiting ring in Mexico starts releasing the new U.S. $20 bills a month early, where few people know what Harriet Tubman looks like. Meanwhile, B-list movie actress, DANIELA (DANI) DIEGO (28) from Los Angeles, pummels her two-timing producer boyfriend, REX WELDON (50), and escapes to Cabo San Lucas for spring break using his time-share suite. There, she is the only eye-witness to a body falling from a luxurious penthouse at the resort. First to arrive at the scene is ERNESTO REYES (30), a handsome investigative reporter, with his curvy camerawoman, THERESA (26). Ernesto is smitten with Dani, but more tension than love is in the air. Resort night manager, MIGUEL (50) and a sultry maid, ANA (18), the counterfeiters, arrive next to quickly hush up what they call a suicide. Ernesto’s father, Chief Detective ALPHONSO REYES (64) and his overweight partner, ROBERTO (35), arrive next and find the victim has no fingerprints. A murder investigation ensues. Ernesto convinces his father that Dani is a private investigator who could help solve the case.
The murder investigation hits several snags. The police need DNA evidence to ID the body. And distractions arise when the phony American money starts showing up around town, especially because Harriet Tubman looks more like Oprah Winfrey. Things get worse when an elderly crime boss known as “BONE CRUSHER,” shows up to his penthouse in a power struggle with the head counterfeiter, a mysterious crime lord known as LA MANO (The Hand). Then Rex arrives at the resort to avenge Dani and meet with the vain La Mano planning his autobiographical movie. Dani, Alphonso, and Roberto go undercover at the resort to trap the two most-wanted men in Mexico.
Dani thwarts one kidnapping event by La Mano’s henchmen, before being captured by Bone Crusher’s men. She offers to uncover information about the film meeting between Rex and La Mano in exchange for her freedom. However, when Rex is captured by Bone Crusher’s men, La Mano’s men take Ernesto and Theresa as leverage against the local authorities.
When Alphonso learns that his murder victim is La Mano, Dani uses his severed head to quell a blood bath from La Mano’s many supporters. Bone Crusher plans two escapes from the penthouse, but Dani chases him down on the beach, and Alphonso arrests him. Alphonso figures out how Dani killed La Mano the previous night and why she couldn’t afford to let Bone Crusher get away. All along, Dani knew about Rex’s meeting with publicity-seeking La Mano and about the price on La Mano’s head, dead or alive. All she had to do was survive to tell about it. Back to Loglines.
The Last Nighttime Story synopsis: No one remembers the last night their parents read them a bedtime story. Sadly, it just happens. However, one day, bickering twins, Alec and Brenda (9), and a few of their third-grade classmates, discover a few of their classic story books have inexplicably disappeared. To make matters worse, the twins discover several of their favorite bedtime books disappear the next night too!
Each day, more classmates appear cranky and tired, and some stayed awake half the night after being denied bedtime stories. Their teacher, Mrs. Scoggins, sees failing creative essays from her entire class. This is a disaster. Walking the one block home from school, the twins pass the Old Ancient Secondhand Antique Emporium and Junkyard on Last Street, owned by Old Man Rapple, and see many items that remind them of their missing books. They investigate, only to be caught by Mr. Rapple, and hauled off in a police car.
This means war! Third grade is a madhouse with so many students lacking sleep from being denied bedtime stories and books. The twins are hit with boyfriend- and girlfriend-issues they didn’t know they had with friends, Willy and Chelsea. On Friday, the day of tests, a costume parade, and a class picnic, the twins take matters into their own hands.
The twins lead their classmates in the costume parade, not to the playground as designed, but to storm old man Rapple’s place in an epic battle to rescue their precious bedtime storybooks. The kids, dressed like superheroes and heroes of every type, are armed with toy swords, plastic baseball bats, lightsabers, pirate swords, and every manner of childhood weaponry. However, the weapons are useless battling the junk. The tide changes when the twins remove the sword in the stone by pulling together. They storm the house with a final charge to save their stories, as Mr. Rapple, surprisingly, cheers them on! They recover their bedtime story books and more, and Mr. Rapple rewards Alec and Brenda with brass keys: the “Keys to Every Story” with a Beginning, a Middle, and an End.
However, the adventure of a lifetime remains in store for Alec and Brenda, who claim their story needs a true “End” to their unanswered questions. With their parents and best friends, Willy and Chelsea, the twins return to Mr. Rapple’s junkyard and creepy old house that night to face their darkest fears, answer gnawing questions, and successfully end their story. That night, every child hears a fabulous bedtime story. Back to Loglines.
The Hobbyist Detectives synopsis: In this spoof of TV murder mysteries, the world-famous mystery novelist and hobbyist detective, JEZEBEL FETCHIM (91; a dead-ringer for Angela Lansbury), is found stabbed to death in the sheriff’s office of the quaint coastal town of Crabby Cove, the murder capital of America. An impatient inner-city detective, RITA DOWDY (30; black, bossy), quickly finds that solving the case won’t be easy with seven meddlesome hobbyist detectives in town. JENNIFER, the Junkyard Detective (30; perky blonde); HANDSY, the Bakery Store Detective (30; perky blonde); FATHER BEIGE (60, Irish Catholic priest); ABERDEEN, the Flower Shop Detective (30; tall brunette); HANK, the Diner Detective (35; tall, dark, and handsome); ANNA LIZA, the Professor Detective (30; powerful, black); and occasional visitor NANCY DROOP (28; dresses like 14-year-old Nancy Drew), are determined to help solve the case with constant eavesdropping and quirky, nosy behavior. To make matters worse, the electricity is out in town, and Jezebel is starting to stink as much as the investigation does!
Luckily, the town drunk, DOC (57, looks 90), is also the County Coroner. He lives in the small apartment in the morgue, which is the basement of the sheriff’s office. Doc offers less-than-expert opinion during the autopsy, while Rita tears apart the sheriff’s office looking for clues and evidence.
Detective Rita finds that everyone has contaminated the crime scene and handled the murder weapon. Furthermore, town “secrets” emerge casting suspicions on all the hobbyist detectives, who all have the means, motive, and opportunity to commit murder. Everyone is a suspect, just as Mrs. Jezebel Fetchim would have wanted.
The Annual Crabby Cove Town Picnic is disastrous, given the plummeting population caused by the TV shows’ weekly need for victims. However, in keeping with TV tradition, Rita gathers all the suspects to the sheriff’s office that night for a mock trial to unveil the murderer. With Rita as the prosecutor, and tipsy Doc as the judge, differences between TV murder mysteries and real-life murders are exposed in a humorous fashion. Accusations fly, and tensions rise, and a fight breaks out before Nancy Droop dives in the doorway to tackle Rita.
We learn Nancy is really 28 years old and an agent for the FBI, tracking Rita for a string of suspected murders. The Hobbyist Detectives unknowingly employed their entire arsenal of TV murder-mystery tricks: harmless distraction, misdirection, multiple suspects, and late-arriving clues, to help Nancy Droop solve the case. Rita is unable to pin Mrs. Fetchim’s murder on any of the detective-wannabes. Instead, Nancy and the wannabes frame Rita for the murder, and she stupidly confesses, proving that no one ever uses their “right to remain silent” on TV murder mystery shows.
Notes: Cast of 10 actors, no extras, no EFX; 4 locations (90% in a sheriff’s office). Back to Loglines.
Mountain Matchmaker synopsis: Having a “pre-mid-life crisis,” inner-city attorney, CHRIS ROSS (30), quits his job to become an investigative reporter set on bringing down a new online matchmaking site linked to a mountain campground: Camp Patibility. Chris, who has never camped, borrows an antique pup tent and takes up camping despite the prospects of bears, sleeping on dirt, and killer chipmunks.
The ruggedly handsome director of the camp is LANCE BOONE (35), who is overly proud of his matchmaking business for rich people with huge tents and lonely hearts. He checks in each of his six guests, who have previously completed extensive online questionnaires and paid $600 to meet their “match.” We learn that BRET O’BRIEN (35; tall Irishman) is surprisingly paired, by the computer, with an aging blonde bikini model and exhibitionist, SANDY MAHONEY (28). Sandy’s best friend, LUPE MEDINA (28), a pretty, but introverted, third-grade teacher, is skeptical about being paired with ARTIE ROSENBLUM (32), a short, wimpy diamond dealer. Chris is shocked to be paired with DEBBIE CHONG (30), an Asian “Goth” beauty with short, black hair and many tattoos and piercings. The first night is disastrous, as the campers question the legitimacy of Lance’s matchmaking operation. Everything unravels when Lance admits he created the camp to meet women. Furthermore, no one can leave the camp, because a windstorm has blown trees across the road. Then it rains, and Chris’s old tent leaks.
The second day is worse. Pizza and donut deliveries have ceased, and tensions rise. Chris’s girlfriend, SHEILA (26) visits after a 40-mile ride on a dirt bike driven by her new bodybuilder boyfriend. She exposes Chris as an investigative reporter, and the campers shun him. He apologizes, and works to regain their trust with humor and resourcefulness. Lupe proves to be equally resourceful, and highly skeptical about computerized matchmaking.
Lance suddenly becomes heroic, and starts the long hike for help. Meanwhile, Lance’s sworn new love from last weekend, MARILYN (30, full-figured woman in a wedding dress) hikes in from the other direction with rescue pizzas. Lance returns un-heroically, admitting he hates camping worse than Chris. Lance blows a proposal opportunity with Marilyn, and admits failure, until he learns that Marilyn stills loves him, and she’s extremely wealthy.
With all the chaos and craziness of the two-night campout, other tiny, gnawing personal secrets are slowly revealed around the campfire: Lance’s real name is Herman; Debbie is gay; Sandy is retiring from bikini modeling; Artie is stalking Sandy’s smile; Lupe is a little lonely; and Bret is a cross-dresser. Around the last campfire, Sandy gravitates to Artie, Debbie warms to Bret, and Chris declares his love for Lupe. Camp Patibility is a huge success, thanks to the Mountain Matchmaker. Back to Loglines.
Haven Gotta Clue synopsis: Sheriff ELLIE May Lyons (35) is happy in the little mountain town of Haven, Colorado. She’s like a daughter to BARRY GOLD (60) the gentlemanly proprietor of Gold’s Casino, Saloon, Hotel, and Restaurant. However, no one will get much sleep when a body is found behind Barry’s bar during the second annual Crime Scene Investigators conference. Luckily, Sheriff ELLIE has plenty of help to solve the murder, including the handsome Detective FRANK Redman (35) from CSI-Los Angeles, and the famous and debonair CSI-New York Detective THURMAN Slate (55). Ellie had a bit of a crush on Frank last year, and Ellie admits she was a little disappointed when the two unmarried detectives show up with their sexy partners. DIANE Ireland (38) is also single, and after her partner, Frank. Diane views Ellie as a frumpy, Andy-of-Mayberry-type public servant, but as a competitor, nonetheless. BEA White (26) is Thurman’s assigned partner for a little over a year. Bea is married, but can’t hold her martinis, while Thurman, divorced three times, is frustrated that he can’t hold Bea. Personalities clash even more when Ellie needs their help to solve the murder, because the victim has no ID, no money, no car keys, and no jacket.
Like the old days, the saloon remains the heartbeat of the town. This night, Gold’s Saloon stirs up laughter and vitriol, romance and sex, and good and evil. Ellie and her big-city detective friends soon realize that solving a murder in a small town is far more challenging without a handy coroner, fingerprint and DNA labs, and all those fancy computers found on all the major CSI TV shows. But the saloon contains everything that Ellie needs, as the detectives are drawn to a dead body like horseflies to wildflower honey! Ellie’s innate curiosity and unorthodox interrogation methods begin to unveil tiny irregularities, and inconsistencies in the behavior of the detectives, which lead her investigation in a myriad of misdirection. Nothing makes sense, and she’s over her head, but she’s not a quitter!
Over the course of one sleepless night, the four big-city detectives slowly degenerate from helpful advisors to untrustworthy suspects; especially after Barry’s priceless silver dollar collection goes missing. Everyone has secrets. And little lies, inconsequential when Ellie first hears them, begin to reveal the ugly truth. However, Ellie in her bathrobe and pink-fluffy slippers may be no match for the handsome, sexy, and impeccably dressed detectives from New York and L.A. But who is playing whom? In the end, Sheriff Ellie May Lyons uncovers the whereabouts of Barry’s silver dollar collection, and captures a murderer, a thief, and a rapist among the five other people in the saloon. How’d she do it? Haven gotta clue! Back to Loglines.
Twelve - My Age of Reason. There comes a time in everyone’s life when they cross a threshold from childhood to adulthood; when they quit believing everything their parents and teachers tell them; and when they unexplainably devolve from being a nice, sweet kid to being a smart-ass. The year is 1964, and the day before TOMMY STOHLGREN’s twelfth birthday, he finally speaks up to the nun in religion class, proclaiming that if God was all-loving and all-merciful, then there could be no Hell. His logical reasoning clearly is unappreciated by SISTER MARY-SOMETHING, but it does raise a smile from his classmate, STEPHANIE CROMARTIE – a girl! Tommy notices girls for the first time, even as he is dragged by the ear to MOTHER SUPERIOR’S office. Tommy’s troubles are just beginning, but he gets a lot of help from his four ill-behaved brothers. JIMMY (13 ½), GEORGIE (10 ½), JERRY (8 ½), and BILLY (almost 7) attend the same Catholic school, and share the same bedroom in their small house in Oakland, California. The comical and introspective week that follows will change Tommy’s life forever!
Tommy’s twelfth birthday is especially memorable. He gets a black eye at breakfast, a bloody nose at lunch, and after dinner, his brothers blow out his birthday candles, scorching his face with hot powdered sugar. However, in the school library that day, he discovers that age twelve is the Age of Reason. He begins to use philosophy and logic to question everything. Meanwhile, Tommy’s irreverent brothers and friends hasten his coming-of-age. The shenanigans of everyday life in this Irish-Catholic family are jaw-dropping and hilarious.
Tommy’s mind fills with questions and doubts about the only religion known to the family for generations, even as he and his best friend, JOHNNY GIUNTOLI (11 ½), are practicing to be altar boys. A day later, Tommy and his brothers dine-and-ditch from an ice cream parlor. The following day, the act of confession presents funny and awkward moments with FATHER MURRAY (30), as innocent questions challenge the young priest. Friday morning, Tommy’s first Mass as an altar boy is a comical disaster where “Dominus vobiscum” conflicts with Do Wha Diddy. That afternoon at the Altar Boys Picnic, Tommy accidentally touches a girl’s breast for the first time, as his mind contemplates the existence of Heaven and Hell.
By the end of the eight-day period, Tommy trades the chaotic shared-bedroom, for solitude Up on the Roof where he has a life-changing epiphany. He fully develops his critical-thinking skills to forever rebel against irrational authority, abandon his ancestral religion, and come-of-age, thanks to worldly lessons learned from his brothers. Tommy inaugurates his Age of Reason. Parents may help you grow older, but brothers help you grow up. Back to Loglines.
Rainmaker: Rainmaker is a contemporary, cutting-edge series that captures important headline stories supported by factual events surrounding the multi-year drought in California. [Versions are also written for Cape Town and Melbourne]
TARGET AUDIENCE: 18-49 demographic.
LOGLINE: A young Latina professor on the run seeks to loosen the fatal stranglehold the megadrought has inflicted on the desperate inhabitants of California.
TIME/PLACE: Today’s multi-year drought intensifies in the very near future, centered around Lake Tahoe with locations spanning Sacramento, California to Reno, Nevada.
MAJOR AND SUPPORING ROLES: Maria Ramos (a feisty Latina, 30), supported by Dax Green, Huan Zou and Parker Has No Horse (20’s), Deputy Walt Hanson (35), Sheriff Dalton (70-75) and; and antagonists including a major C.E.O., Water Pirates, and various Con Artists.
CHALLENGES: To “See the world as it should be, rather than how it is” as Don Quixote and Maria Ramos would characteristically declare in the wake of the Dust Bowl Two (the worst drought in centuries). To entertain first, and educate second. To overcome despair, panic, and gullibility with scientific reasoning, education, and hope.
OBSTACLES: The megadrought brings out the worst in people. Greedy corporations like Hollyfield, Inc., evolve into corrupt and opportunistic tyrants with close government ties. Everyday farmers, ranchers, and small-town folk are trapped in a sinkhole of uncertainty, which festers into fear. Reason is replaced by chaos and anarchy as our most vital resource of all -- water -- becomes increasingly limited. It is a certainty that some will profit, while many others are doomed to suffer the consequences. Solutions are never easy. A voice of reason is urgently needed.
RESOLUTION: Professor Maria Ramos personifies that lone voice of reason. On the run with three recent college grads fired from Hollyfield Inc., Maria transitions into a superheroine and a fearless legend, as she and her traveling companions courageously battle the greedy corporation and other charlatans who are hell bent to prosper on the downtrodden. Unwittingly, Maria gets caught up in her sudden fame and acclaim, which threatens to become her Achilles heel. Her parents’ ranch, friends, and love life hang in the balance.
Synopsis: In the near future, California is mired in a 20-year, record-breaking megadrought. Running amuck in the Dust Bowl Two are greedy corporations, Con Artists, Water Pirates, Citizen Water Guard Militias, and a crazed Pyromaniac. Traditional farmers, ranchers, and small businesses struggle to stay afloat. Water, the transparent gold of the West, has all but disappeared.
Our heroine, a beautiful Latina professor, Maria Ramos (30), is a descendant of a fifth-generation ranching family residing just outside Auburn, California. She loses her job at the prestigious Stanford University due to advocating science and cooler heads in a time of crisis. She is demoted and forced to teach at lowly Sierra College in Rocklin (just outside Sacramento), which is under surveillance for anti-American activities. Maria’s cabin in the woods is the target of a drone strike, and she is on the run.
Hollyfield Inc. is the largest government contractor in the country. It now monopolizes and controls the domestic drone program, dam construction, and energy development in the Western U.S. At its helm is their ruthless and arrogant C.E.O., Roderick Devlin III (60), whose company stands to profit billions of tax dollars from proposed Cloud Seeding programs, dam construction contracts, and privatized surveillance operations to weed out environmentalists who defiantly stand in their way.
Maria Ramos is befriended by three, young, seemingly harmless engineers, who were recently fired by Hollyfield, Inc., including an African-American, Dax Green; Asian-American, Huan Zou; and Native American, Parker Has-No-Horse; all in their early twenties, and each with their own hidden agendas. Unbeknownst to Maria, these three ardent activists have only revenge on their minds. And falling in love with handsome Deputy Walt Hanson (35) from Auburn, only serves to complicate Maria’s life. Walt’s boss, Sheriff Dalton is the stabilizing legal figure in the otherwise chaotic region. The eclectic team travels throughout the Lake Tahoe region battling the unscrupulous corporation, Con Artists, Water Pirates, and Water Guards at every turn.
Our proposed series will combine action, adventure, dark drama, and light comedy delivered with subtle lessons in science, critical thinking, and Maria’s quixotic wisdom. RAINMAKER is told through the worldly eyes of our series Narrator, Maria’s 14-year-old daughter, Angela, remembering with pride, her mother’s legendary life. Back to Loglines.
Texting Santa synopsis: Exceedingly bright but incredibly withdrawn third-grader, HOLLY BARRY (9), is in for the night of her life. She talks aloud only to her single father (LOGAN BARRY; 36), who roams L.A. in the Barry’s Fresh Seafood van, selling only to the finest restaurants. For obvious reasons, Logan rents nice cars for his very rare dates. He takes Holly to rundown Nick’s Diner for a quick dinner before his date with vivacious TV-actress MARIANNE DEMONET (36), who has a minor role on “Crime Scene, Burbank,” where her father is the series’ Producer.
Nick’s Diner, owned by NICK and MEL TOMAINE, who look surprisingly like Santa and Mrs. Claus, is “home” to the Barry’s, but the diner has just lost the catering job at the CBS Studio Center, and Nick must work a second job as a security guard at the studio.
While at the diner, Marianne phones to call off her date with Logan, due to late filming. In fact, she might lose her job, if the show gets cancelled by visiting Network Executives. Holly takes matters into her own capable hands by sending text messages to Santa. Holly’s Christmas wishes are for: Marianne to keep her job, Mel to get the catering job back, and an elderly homeless couple in the diner to receive a home. Holly wishes nothing for herself.
Holly convinces her dad to stop by the studio on the way home to bring Marianne dinner. Holly has only one homework assignment remaining: to write a short essay or speech abouther normal evening’s activities. However, tonight will turn outto be anything but normal.
The fateful night involves a car accident, an open box of a stinky fish, a light-up palm tree, and a long evening trapped in the TV studio taping the final episode of the TV series. Holly experiences fantastic daydreams throughout the evening, which provide a stark contrast to reality. Christmas themes come alive in her hopeful eyes. Santa and Mrs. Claus magically appear to be real, elves and hip background singers (Pentatonix or Leon Bridges) come to the rescue throughout the evening.
But nothing seems to help the dramatic television show. The show's scene-stealer and womanizing leading man, LES CANNY/DETECTIVE GUNNER DOWNS, botches almost every line. Marianne is clumsy. The new French caterer, CHRIS SAUNT, and his assistant, SUE FLAY, bring a dish accidentally spiked with medicine that affects equilibrium. Holly and Logan actively participate in the TV shows demise, and the Network Executives are ready to cancel the drama series.
However, during the chaotic night, love is in the air. Holly grows closer to her dad, Marianne befriends Holly, and Holly suggests the show should be done as a comedy. They stage a comedy version of the show, and the Network Executives embrace it. Marianne falls for Logan and Holly, and all three are offered contracts with the studio. Nick and Mel get their catering job back. And just as magically, the elderly homeless couple is offered a new start with place to live. Holly joyfully receives all three of her Christmas wishes.
The next morning at school, the day before Christmas break, Holly summons the courage to speak in front of her class for the first time. She skillfullysummarizes the whole story of her magical night, complete with Santa and Mrs. Claus, Elves, background singers, and Marianne and her dad falling in love – all because she was Texting Santa. Back to Loglines.
An Eye for the Game synopsis: When an exquisite, slightly plus-size Latina sports reporter, JAZZ RIVERA (26) is fired from her condescending sideline-TV job, and is thrust into the dangerous role of private investigator for an aging Denver basketball player, TOMAL OKEKE (28), we learn that Tomal's father took him to a sophisticated laboratory in Iceland when he was a child, preparing him to become the basketball star he is today.
Jazz is reluctantly on the trail of "just another steroids story in sports," when she meets a wildly eccentric former major league baseball star, ADAM MAGNUSSON (26), whose father ran a blood testing lab of his own in Los Angeles. Magnusson’s father’s private medical records may contain evidence of athletes dodging league testing for performance-enhancing drugs.
A ton of money is at stake to keep those medical records buried. The trail leads Jazz and Adam from Denver to Iceland, the Cayman Islands, and Los Angeles, before the showdown in Aspen, Colorado. Jazz's antagonists include a scheming, high-powered sports agent, LENNY ANDERSON (55), and his psychotic former client, ANTHONY BENEDETTI (28), a blood-doping cyclist and climber known as "The Spider."
Jazz is determined to solve the mystery of Tomal's rapidly declining health, the tragic steroid-related deaths of several young professional athletes, and the true occupation of her new partner and love interest, Adam.
A shocking ending occurs when Jazz and Adam uncover thousands of medical records and blood tests depicting the slippery slope from steroids, elective surgeries, and blood-doping to genetic engineering. It’s up to Jazz to survive their investigation to clean up the corrupt world of professional sports. Back to Loglines.
Off Switch synopsis: On the outside, EVAN DOHERTY is one of us: an amiable, intelligent, 28-year-old science teacher in Southern California. On the inside, his tortured soul has hidden a binge-drinking problem for years from his wife, MARY, a reformed alcoholic and devout Catholic, and loving step-daughter, MARTIE (12). Evan stops at Flannigan’s Pub, three nights per week ‘just to be sociable,’ as the Irish would say. He can handle two or three drinks with no problem at all—but Evan doesn’t have an ‘Off-Switch.’ One February night in 2001, Evan is so sociable that he passes out. Mary carts Evan’s body to a four-week program at St. Michael the Archangel’s Alcohol Rehabilitation Center in Lancaster. His troubles are just beginning.
Evan is slow to realize that alcoholism is only his first nemesis. His wife and old FATHER FRANCIS of St. Michael’s insist that Evan renounce atheism and convert to Catholicism, if he wants to return home after treatment. Then, Evan meets his greatest nemesis—the iron-fisted manager of St. Michael’s, C.C. CHAPMAN. She’s a strict disciplinarian and recovering alcoholic, who doesn’t like witty intellectuals.
Evan receives medical help from two staff members. An ancient resident physician, DOC HESTER, a recovering addict, sees himself in Evan. Substitute counselor, Dr. MARIE SANCHEZ laments the slim odds of recovery. Despite her constant pot-smoking, she is a breath of fresh air. Evan reluctantly trudges through the recovery program with his assigned buddy, PONCH, a simple-minded house painter, and a host of alcoholics from every walk of life, including a gorgeous, ex-high school student. Temptation is an ever-present demon at St. Michael’s.
On the surface, well-intentioned discipline trumps much needed compassion, and personal ideologies collide with long-held beliefs to complicate the treatment of a common disease. On a deeper level, the story investigates the societal costs of immediate gratification, and an ancient resistance of human beings to change (in many important ways). Evan discovers the power of ‘keeping your loved ones in your head’—as the key to his “Off Switch.” His internal powers, his wits, triumph over demons and return him to the family he loves. Back to Loglines.
Half-A-Love at First Sight synopsis: DENNY and GRACIE COLLINS met at a Christmas party exactly 36 years earlier. But Denny's Night of One True Love sours, when Gracie acts as cold as their gas-log fireplace. While they nap after dinner, Denny is visited by "figments of his imagination" -- best friends, JENNY SHERITON and ROBBY BELLINI as 19-year-old hippies from 1971. Jenny insists on taking Denny to the wild party upstairs to meet Gracie. Denny scoffs off the dream later to realize that Jenny and her sidekick are here to stick around.
A visit from Denny's and Gracie's practical-joking daughter, BEA, further disquiets the evening. She arrives from Big City with a rich boyfriend, WINSTON GABLES in tow, announcing she is pregnant and engaged after just three dates. The joke unnerves Gracie, who startles everyone more by announcing she is selling the house--tonight. Winston, a practicing Drama Therapist, tries to help, but the "perfectly calm environment" is further interrupted by the the figments and sultry realtor, SALLY SWIFT, potential house buyer, TAD DOOLEY, and a termite inspector, DILLON DANIELS, and old playmate of Bea's.
Pandemonium ensues as Jenny and Robby become figments of everyone's imagination. All the Christmas party guests violate the sanctity of Bea's purse, thinking they are borrowing harmless aspirin. However, Bea, a neurochemist, is developing memory drugs for Alzheimer's patients, and the pills have two side effects on non-Alzheimer's patients. First, they cause suggestive hallucinations where consumers see and hear "ghosts" of recently described people (always Jenny and Robby as hippies from 1971). Second, the pill causes diarrhea. The hectic evening intensifies as the still free-thinking adult versions of Jenny and Robby stop by for a holiday drink, and to provide Gracie support. They also take the pills, resulting in more madness and confusion.
It's anything but a perfectly calm environment for Winston's dramatic reenacted of the hippie party of the night Denny met Gracie, meant to discourage Gracie from selling the house. The figments are in their element. Brushes with the past, races to the bathroom, and a fortuitous visit by OFFICER PATTY BLACK complicate and resolve the chaotic evening that results in the capture of the infamous Bling-'n-Bobble Burglar, Bea falling in love with Dillon, Winston falling in love with Officer Black, and Gracie finally falling in love with Denny. The teenage spirits, Jenny and Robby, take all the credit, but it is all Gracie. It truly is the Night of One True Love. Back to Loglines.
Severed Treaty synopsis: In 1865, U.S. agents slice off an important line of a treaty with the Indians to cheat them out of a large reservation in the mountains of Colorado. A genius Cheyenne, WAKAN LONG RIVER is assigned to protect an unabridged copy of the treaty. Pages of his historic journal surface and begin to provide clues to the treaty’s whereabouts. A land-grabbing, water-stealing corporation, California Water and Trade, Inc. (CWT), would prefer the treaty remained lost. An unlikely hero enters the story.
Like 11% of Americans and many leading men (Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Kevin Costner), WES POWELL, a young Professor and climate predictor in Colorado suffers from shyness in small groups. But when an old Berkeley classmate, Indian activist, JOHNNY GREYFEATHER, is found dead in Denver, Powell is swept into a murder investigation. To make matters worse, he is stalked by his carefree, infatuated graduate student, MAGGIE ESPOSITO, and by a beautiful attorney from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, SILVER WHITEHORSE, who has her own political agenda. But Powell’s real nemesis in CLAYTON WEGNER, the head of CWT. Wegner covets Powell’s climate prediction models, and tries bribery and extortion to hire him. Accurate weather forecasts three months out will save California agriculture a billion dollars each year. Water is the transparent gold of the West.
Before he’s killed, Greyfeather mails Powell a handwritten, unofficial copy of a Cheyenne treaty. Rumors of the treaty and a potential large reservation in the headwaters of the Colorado River basin shake Wegner and the Governor of California because primary water rights would revert to Indians, who could strangle California’s economy. CWT will stop at nothing to suppress the treaty’s surfacing. The chase is on, providing the most exciting and dangerous spring break of Powell’s life.
The violence escalates at familiar historic sites throughout the western Great Plains and mountains. Love snuggles in despite shyness, prejudice, social injustice, greed, and unscrupulous politics. Powell slowly allows Silver into his heart, and vice-versa. The ingenious wits of our primary heroes, Powell and the Wakan, triumph over incredible odds. In the end, our heroes come together in a figurative sense at the Denver Mint. After surviving his third missile attack, Powell solves the Wakan’s riddle and determines the location of the unabridged original treaty of 1865 and the Wakan’s original journal, which carefully chronicled the quest for justice, gold, revenge, science, and survival. The U.S. Supreme Court cannot ignore THE TREATY and the corroborating historical documents, and reluctantly returns a large portion of Colorado and the primary water rights to the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Apache people. The Indians finally win one! Wes Powell and Silver Whitehorse ride off into a considerably different Colorado sunset. Back to Loglines.
The New Sons of Liberty synopsis: The year is 2018. The western third of Colorado is a large new Indian Reservation, designated by Congress after historical documents prove fraudulent. The fledgling nation within a nation is led by a two elders, G. STANDS TALL, and ROBERT LA POUDRE, and young SILVER WHITEHORSE, who are all political targets.
Terminally unemployed white refugees grow tired of living in Citizen Displacement Camps outside the Reservation, and a groundswell of patriotic resistance is born. A handsome, charismatic 26-year-old, JIMMY NEWMAN establishes THE NEW SONS OF LIBERTY, with a modern Tea Party-like movement and hateful blogs escalate anti-Indian sentiment. Greedy, western business interests seize the opportunity and enlist a mercenary, cult-like recruiter, and self-proclaimed “Colonel” TRAVIS KEY to crumble the Reservation by assassinating its tribunal. Violent retribution at the hands of the Indians will void the treaty and return the land to Colorado and the United States.
To mend a strained marriage, Silver, her shy professor husband, WES POWELL, and their five-year old boy, KIT, accept tickets for a high-class horseback trial ride with wealthy friends, a movie star (HAMILTON HUGHES), pop diva (ANGEL GARCIA), and a U.S. Senator, among others.
Violence escalates outside and inside the Reservation. La Poudre is assassinated, Stands Tall’s house is bombed, and now, Silver is targeted as the third head of the snake. She is being hunted down in the wilderness by well-armed mercenaries. It’s a Wilderness cat and mouse chase, complete with reestablished populations of gray wolves and grizzly bears, as the revolutionary New Sons of Liberty attack from the east and a small band of Ute Indians attack from the south seek to crush the occupied nation within a nation.
There’s a showdown in the ghost town of Ashcroft, pitting bows and brains against automatic rifles and brawn. Are the New Sons of Liberty called freedom-fighters or terrorists? Aren’t we, the United States, always the good guys? If so, this might be a story where the good guys lose! Back to Loglines.
Battle of the Black Hills synopsis: It’s October 12, 2022, and a roadside bomb kills a dozen motorcyclists at the Columbus Day Parade in Denver. However, the troubles begin ten years earlier, when the discovery of an old Indian treaty sends one-third of Colorado back to the Indians as a reservation. Non-Indians feel forced to leave their homes and businesses, fueling a growing gun lobby and anti-Indian sentiments by ultra-patriotic Americans, the Tea Party on steroids. Our heroes, Professor WES POWELL and Chief SILVER WHITEHORSE have additional troubles on their minds. Silver, the chief of the poor reservation, is overworked in Aspen, while Wes is single-parenting their child, five hours away in Fort Collins. Their marriage is failing faster than the regional economy.
The Columbus Day Parade is hosted by a declining movie star, BLAYDEN JOHNSON, who lost extensive real estate holdings to the new reservation, and is on a break from shooting “Custer’s Very Last Stand” in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The dozen victims are white militant motorcyclists, protesting reapportionment of Indian lands. Everyone blames the Indians. Blayden and his sweetheart, gun association president, Ms. REMINGTON DALTON, secretly advance the notion of a new Colorado militia to restore America to its greatness.
In the course of just one week, we come to realize that white business leaders, a militia commander named JEFF HANKEY, and a growing unlawful militia have two heinous objectives: to force public opinion to dissolve the Colorado reservation, and to prevent the Indians from ever regaining the Black Hills. After more than 140 years of delayed court cases and injustice, the Sioux have not yet reached a settlement with the United States regarding their sacred Black Hills.
Roadside bombs, various acts of terror, and unscrupulous settlement offers from Washington lure in poor Indians, while alienating Indian activists. CHARI CHANTELL, head of the Internal Terrorist Division at the Department of Homeland Security, and TRENTON BANKS from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, lend weak support from Washington.
It’s up to Wes and Silver to defuse and disarm the militia with a “Cash for Guns” exchange in Aspen, but there is no way to avoid the showdown at the All-Nations Indian Powwow at a wolf refuge in the Black Hills at the end of the week. It’s brawn versus brains in a modern “cowboys versus Indians” battle, filled with plot twists and Gatling guns. Villains become heroes, heroes become villains, and our heroes’ marriage is made stronger by adversity, and where the Indians stand to win their second biggest battle in over 140 years. Back to Loglines.