# Metropolis (2001 film)
`is a 2001 Japanese animated futuristic dieselpunk drama film based upon Osamu Tezuka's 1949 manga of the same name. The film was directed by Rintaro, written by Katsuhiro Otomo, and produced by Madhouse, with conceptual support from Tezuka Productions.`
Humans and robots coexist in the multi-layered city of Metropolis, although robots are discriminated against and segregated to the lowest levels of the city. Most humans in Metropolis are unemployed and impoverished, with many blaming robots for taking their jobs.
Duke Red, Metropolis's unofficial ruler and wealthiest citizen, has recently completed construction of The Ziggurat, a massive skyscraper which he claims will allow mankind to extend its power across the planet. A wayward robot disrupts the Ziggurat\'s opening ceremony, prompting Duke Red\'s adopted son Rock, the leader of an anti-robot paramilitary organization known as the Marduks, to shoot it down. Meanwhile, private detective Shunsaku Ban and his young nephew/assistant Kenichi Shikishima have traveled from Japan to Metropolis to apprehend rogue scientist Dr. Laughton, wanted for organ trafficking and human rights violations. Unbeknownst to Shunsaku, Duke Red has hired Dr. Laughton to secretly build a highly advanced android, modeled and named after his deceased daughter Tima, with the intention of using her as the central control unit for a powerful superweapon hidden at the top of the Ziggurat. Duke Red\'s plans are disrupted however when Rock learns of Tima\'s existence, and fearing for his father\'s safety, shoots Laughton and sets his laboratory ablaze.
Discovering the burning laboratory, Shunsaku locates the dying Laughton, who directs Shunsaku to a notebook containing his research. Meanwhile, Kenichi stumbles upon the newly activated Tima. The two fall into the sewers and are separated from Shunsaku. While Shunsaku searches for his nephew, Kenichi and Tima search for a way back up to the street level. They grow close as Kenichi teaches Tima how to speak, both unaware that she is a robot. Learning that Tima survived the lab\'s destruction, Rock and his subordinates hunt them relentlessly. The pair encounter a group of unemployed human laborers who stage an armed revolution against Metropolis\'s leaders and robot workers.


# Metropolis (2001 film)
Unhappy with the Duke\'s popularity and influence, the president and the mayor of Metropolis try to use the revolution to overthrow Red and regain control of Metropolis. However, the president\'s top military commander, General Kusai Skunk is revealed to be one of Red\'s subordinates and assassinates them both. Red then imposes martial law and violently suppresses the revolution. In the aftermath, Kenichi reunites with Shunsaku, but Rock, who exposes Tima as a robot, wounds him. Red disowns Rock and removes him from command of the Marduks for attempting to kill Tima before taking her and Kenichi away to the Ziggurat.
Still determined to eliminate her and regain his father\'s affection, Rock kidnaps and deactivates Tima, who is now confused about her identity. Having tracked Rock, Shunsaku recovers Tima, and following instructions from Laughton\'s notebook, reactivates her. The two discover Kenichi is being held in the Ziggurat, but Duke Red and the Marduks capture them while the pair are en route. They are brought to the top of the Ziggurat, where Tima confronts Duke Red about whether she is a human or a robot. Duke Red tells her she is \"superhuman\" and destined to rule the world from her \'throne\', the control system for the Ziggurat\'s superweapon. Disguised as one of the Ziggurat\'s maids, Rock shoots Tima in the shoulder, exposing her internal circuitry.


# Metropolis (2001 film)
Horrified by her true identity, Tima goes insane, causing her implanted military protocols to take control. She proceeds to physically integrate with the throne and orders a biological and nuclear attack on humanity as punishment for abusing and discriminating against robots. While the others flee, Kenichi tries to reason with Tima. Robots all across Metropolis, drawn by Tima\'s command, assault the Ziggurat and attack Duke Red and his forces. Not wanting \"filthy robots\" to kill his father, Rock triggers an overload in the superweapon, killing himself and Red in a massive explosion. As the Ziggurat starts to collapse around them, Kenichi finally reaches Tima and separates her from the throne. Still in a confused state, Tima tries to kill Kenichi, but falls off the tower in the struggle. Out of love for her, Kenichi tries to save Tima and pull her up using one of the cables still grafted to her arm. As the cable begins to fray, Tima remembers the time Kenichi taught her language and asks Kenichi, \"Who am I?\", before the cable snaps and she falls to her presumed death. The Ziggurat collapses, destroying a large part of Metropolis.
Afterwards, Kenichi searches the ruins and discovers a group of robots have salvaged some of Tima\'s parts in an effort to rebuild her. While Shunsaku and many other human survivors are evacuated, Kenichi chooses to remain behind to help the survivors rebuild. A photograph shown during the end credits reveals Kenichi eventually rebuilt Tima, and has opened a robot workshop.

### Divergence between manga and anime
Tezuka\'s original manga centers around the artificial humanoid Mitchi, who is able to fly and change sex and who is pursued by Duke Red and his Red Party who intend to use Mitchi for destructive purposes. Shunsaku Ban and his nephew Kenichi find Mitchi after her creator, Dr. Charles Laughton, is killed and they protect her as they search for her parents. Unlike Tima\'s desire to be human, the cause for Mitchi\'s destructive rampage in the manga\'s climax is the revelation that, as a robot, she has no parents.


# Metropolis (2001 film)
### Divergence between manga and anime
The 2001 film incorporates more elements from the Fritz Lang film *Metropolis*. When making the original *Metropolis* manga, Tezuka said that the only inspiration he got from Fritz Lang\'s *Metropolis* was a still image from the film where a female robot was being born. In addition to adopting set designs of the original film, the 2001 film has more emphasis on a strong and pervasive theme of class struggle in a dystopian, plutocratic society and expands it to examine the relationship of robots with their human masters. (This relationship was explored by Tezuka in great detail with his popular series *Astro Boy*.) The anime adaptation also removes many of the more fanciful elements out of Tezuka\'s manga, such as a flying, gender swapping humanoid. Here, Mitchi is replaced by \"Tima\", who is permanently female and cannot fly. In this version, Kenichi is an assistant to his uncle and forms a very strong friendship with Tima even though neither know she\'s a robot. Tima and Kenichi seem to care for each other deeply, as seen when Tima is worried about Kenichi when he\'s unconscious. Kenichi even goes so far as to remove Tima from the throne in an effort to save her and not allow her to become a weapon of evil. Tima was taught language by Kenichi and that she was someone unique. She also considered him her only family because he was kind to her and protected her; it seems that she loved Kenichi very much. It can be assumed that Kenichi fell in love with Tima, shown in many scenes when he blushes when he sees her writing his name so she wouldn\'t forget him. Kenichi didn\'t seem to care if Tima was robot or not, showing that he was willing to rescue her because of how much he cared for her. Tima only remembered Kenichi when he tried to save her because of everything he taught her. Tima\'s relationship with Kenichi ends, however, when Tima accepts her identity as a robot over that of a female human, triggering a robot revolution.


# Metropolis (2001 film)
### Divergence between manga and anime
Duke Red is shown to be both a cruel and evil leader and father; it is repeatedly shown that he does not care about Rock or even consider Rock his son despite adopting him; the character Rock also deviates from the manga. He only sees Tima as a weapon to destroy humanity and even considers Tima and Rock inferior to him and anyone who is loyal to him. While his real daughter (also named Tima) died, he only rebuilt her humanoid self just to use her and has no regard or affection for what she needs. He also ignores Tima's questions about her being human or not, showing that he does not care if Tima feels emotions or not.
Rock wasn\'t in the original manga, and according to the writer of the film, he was added to pay homage to Tezuka\'s science fiction adventure style of storytelling, while also adding depth to the story's background and the world around it. Rock is meant to represent humanity's dark side, and the negative emotions associated with those aspects. He also echoes Tima\'s story and can be considered another side of it, as they are both neglected children engineered by their father to be tools of war. In Rock\'s case however, he was cast aside and unwanted by Duke Red. Their stories ultimately converge, coming full circle when they both lead to their father's downfall, with his legacy quite literally collapsing to the ground.
The film\'s Ziggurat combines the New Tower of Babel from Lang\'s original film and the manga's Cathedral.

### Portrayal of robots
The Shinto religion has a delineation between the animate and inanimate. Shinto kami can be spirits, humans, objects, or in this case, robots. Therefore, robots are viewed favorably in both the manga and the film, but especially in the film, where there is a nearly equal number of robot and human characters. Most humans, like Kenichi and Shinsaku Ban, tend to sympathize with robots, causing the audience to view the Marduks and their hostility toward robots as antagonistic.
`Character name`
`Japanese voice actor`
`English dubbing actor`
`Kei Kobayashi `
`Brianne Siddall`
`Yuka Imoto `
`Rebecca Forstadt`
`Kōsei Tomita `
`Tony Pope`
`Hiroaki Okada `
`Michael Reisz`


# Metropolis (2001 film)
### Portrayal of robots
`Tarô Ishida `
`Jamieson Price`
`Norio Wakamoto `
`Dave Mallow `
`Norihiro Inoue `
`Scott Weinger`
`Masaru Ikeda `
`Richard Plantagenet`
`Announcement Voice `
`Mary Elizabeth McGlynn`
`Toshio Furukawa `
`Dan Woren`
`Takeshi Aono `
`Doug Stone`
`Junpei Takiguchi `
`Simon Prescott`
`Shun Yashiro `
`William Frederick Knight`
`Shigeru Chiba `
`Steven Blum`
`Rikako Aikawa`
`Mami Koyama `
`Barbara Goodson`
`Takaya Hashi `
`Peter Spellos`
`Masashi Ebara `
`Robert Axelrod`
Osamu Tezuka had originally derived inspiration from Fritz Lang\'s 1927 German silent science fiction film of the same name, despite not actually having seen it. The manga and the Lang film do not share plot elements. The 2001 film borrowed from Lang\'s 1927 original motion picture more directly and incorporated plot elements from it.
During the days of Mushi Productions, Hayashi asked Tezuka if he wanted to let him make a feature based on the manga, but immediately rejected the idea.
The film took five years to create. It had a production budget of , then equivalent to . This made it the most expensive anime film up until then, surpassing Otomo\'s *Akira* (1988). In turn, its budget record was later surpassed by Otomo\'s *Steamboy* (2004).
The *Metropolis* soundtrack consists mainly of New Orleans-style jazz music and orchestral score composed by Toshiyuki Honda and features Atsuki Kimura\'s cover of \"St. James Infirmary Blues\" and the ending theme \"There\'ll Never Be Good-Bye\" by Minako \"Mooki\" Obata. The soundtrack album is available on King Records.


# Metropolis (2001 film)
### Portrayal of robots
During the film\'s climactic scene, the song \"I Can\'t Stop Loving You\" performed by Ray Charles was used as most of the audio when the Ziggurat was destroyed, with sound effects only audible later on in the scene. Likely due to licensing reasons, the song was not included on the soundtrack album.
The film was first released in Japan on May 26, 2001. When it was released in the US and other foreign countries by TriStar Pictures and Destination Films, it made a total of in overseas territories outside of Japan. In the United States, the film was given a PG-13 rating by the MPAA for \"violence and images of destruction\" and a TV-14-LV rating when it aired on Adult Swim. It was also one of the first anime films to be submitted for consideration for Best Animated Film at the Academy Awards.
Metropolis was first released on VHS, and is now available in North America as both a 2-disc DVD, with the second disc being a MiniDVD (called a \"Pocket DVD\"), and a Blu-ray.
In both the United Kingdom and Ireland, Eureka Entertainment acquired the film\'s distribution rights as a means to release the film on Blu-ray in both countries. The UK and Ireland Blu-rays were released on January 16, 2017.
Toho-Towa Distribution, the foreign film distribution division of the film\'s original Japanese distributor, Toho, also handled the Japanese distribution of the 1927 version of *Metropolis*.
As the license of the German *Metropolis* is held by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation, the film was released under the title *Robotic Angel*.
*Metropolis* received highly positive reviews: based on 65 reviews from Rotten Tomatoes, Metropolis received an overall 86% *Certified Fresh* approval rating. The site\'s critical consensus states that \"A remarkable technical achievement, Metropolis\' eye-popping visuals more than compensate for its relatively routine story.\" Film critic Roger Ebert, writing for the *Chicago Sun-Times*, gave Metropolis a 4/4, calling it \"one of the best animated films I have ever seen.\"
- Osamu Tezuka
- Osamu Tezuka\'s *Star System*


# Hollywood Boulevard (1976 film)
***Hollywood Boulevard*** is a 1976 film directed by Allan Arkush and Joe Dante (the feature film directorial debut of both directors). This film stars Candice Rialson as an aspiring actress who has just arrived in Los Angeles, and was made as a result of a bet between Jon Davison and Roger Corman to make the cheapest ever film for New World Pictures. This was accomplished by extensive use of footage from other New World films.
In a prologue, pompous film director Eric Von Leppe (Paul Bartel) is shooting a skydiving sequence for low-budget Miracle Pictures in which an actress is killed. Candy Wednesday (Candice Rialson) arrives in Los Angeles to make it as an actor. She gets an agent, Walter Paisley (Dick Miller), but struggles to find work until she inadvertently gets involved in a bank robbery as a getaway driver. This gets her a job for Miracle Pictures as a stunt driver. She meets Eric Von Leppe, temperamental starlet Mary McQueen (Mary Woronov), sleazy producer PG (Richard Doran) and friendly scriptwriter, Pat (Jeffrey Kramer). Candy and Pat fall in love and she starts to get work as an actor, becoming friends with fellow starlets Bobbi (Rita George) and Jill (Tara Strohmeier).
Everyone goes to the Philippines to make a movie, *Machete Maidens of Mora Tau*, starring Candy, Mary, Bobbi and Jill. Candy has to play a character who is raped, which upsets her. Later on during the shoot, Jill, Bobbi and PG have a threesome. During the filming of a battle sequence, Jill is shot dead by an unseen attacker.
Back in the US, Candy, Walter and Pat all go to see *Machete Maidens* at a local drive-in where the projectionist tries to rape Candy, but she is rescued by Walter. While shooting a chase scene in a science fiction film, Mary, Candy and Bobbi are almost killed in a car accident. Bobbi is called back to the studio late at night and is stabbed to death.
Candy begins to suspect Patrick is the killer. But it turns out the real culprit is Mary. She tries to kill Candy at the Hollywood Sign but it falls on her and crushes her to death. Candy is reunited with Pat and becomes a film star.


# Hollywood Boulevard (1976 film)
The movie came out of a bet made between producer Jon Davison and Roger Corman that Davison could make a film cheaper than any other that had been made at New World Pictures. Corman granted him a budget of \$60,000 and only allowed ten days of shooting instead of the usual 15. The filmmakers achieved this by coming up with a story about a B-movie studio which could incorporate footage from other movies that Corman owned.
The film was shot in October 1975 on short ends of raw stock left over from other movies. The script was a send up of the \"three girls\" movies New World were making at the time such as *Summer School Teachers*, with the murder plot borrowing heavily from an old Bela Lugosi movie, *The Death Kiss* (1932).
The movie was also known as *The Starlets*, *Hollywood Starlets*, *The Actresses* and *Hello, Hollywood*. Dante says at one stage Corman wanted to call it *Hollywood Hookers* but the directors did not like that \"even though it probably would have made more money if it was called *Hollywood Hookers*\".
According to the audio commentary on the film\'s DVD by Joe Dante, Jon Davison and Allan Arkush, Roger Corman originally wanted Roberta Collins to play the lead, but they fought for Candice Rialson. *Diabolique* magazine argued that \"I\'m a Collins fan, but it was the right decision because Rialson brings not just looks and comic timing, but also a plucky underdog persona that is immensely appealing.\"
Dante, Davison and Arkush also state the part of producer PG was turned down by Barry Gordon and Dwayne Hickman, and that Rita George was dating Dean Martin during filming.
Paul Bartel credits the film with launching his acting career. He later said they were worried the film would not be long enough so they improvised a series of \"TV interviews\" in which each of the major characters sketches in something of his background. Bartel tried to mimic \"the kind of spiel Roger Corman used to feed the press, speaking of the exploitation films which he often loaded with doses of ersatz social consciousness: \"In this film we\'ve taken the myth of Romeo and Juliet, combined it with high speed car action and a sincere plea for nuclear controls in our lifetime.\"


# Hollywood Boulevard (1976 film)
### Films featured
The film uses footage from the following Corman pictures:
- *Battle Beyond the Sun* (1962) -- film seen at drive in
- *The Terror* (1963) -- film seen at drive in
- *The Big Bird Cage* (1972) -- battle sequence
- *Night of the Cobra Woman* (1972) -- shot of a cobra
- *The Hot Box* (1972) -- battle sequence
- *Night Call Nurses* (1972) -- the opening sky diving sequence
- *Unholy Rollers* (1972) -- a rollerderby sequence
- *Savage!* (1973) -- battle sequence
- *Caged Heat* (1974) -- shot of a police car drifting
- *Big Bad Mama* (1974) -- a movie stunt performed by Candy
- *Crazy Mama* (1975) -- the bank robbery sequence involving the red car at the beginning
- *Death Race 2000* (1975) -- car chase film sequence

### In-jokes
The movie features a number of in-jokes:
- Paul Bartel plays Eric Von Leppe, the name of the Boris Karloff character in \'\'The Terror (1963).
- Dick Miller plays Walter Paisley, the name of the character Miller played in *A Bucket of Blood* (1959).
- John Kramer plays Duke Mantee, the name of the Humphrey Bogart character in *The Petrified Forest* (1936).
- Jeffrey Kramer plays Patrick Hobby, the name of the hero of a series of stories by F Scott Fitzgerald (this name was also used as a pseudonym for writer Danny Opatoshu because it was a non-union movie).
- Tara Strohmeier plays Jill McBain, the name of the Claudia Cardinale character in *Once Upon a Time in the West* (1969).
- Dick Miller watches himself in a scene from \'\'The Terror (1963).
- *Machete Maidens of Mora Tau* is a homage to the film *Zombies of Mora Tau* (1957).
- Cameos from directors Charles B. Griffith, Jonathan Kaplan, Joe Dante, Danny Opatoshu and Lewis Teague; along with Forrest J. Ackerman, editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland; film writers Todd McCarthy and Joseph McBride; and Robby the Robot from *Forbidden Planet* (1956).


# Hollywood Boulevard (1976 film)
### In-jokes
The *Los Angeles Times* called the film \"a hilarious, often outrageous spoof of the zany world of low budget exploitation filmmaking.\" \"Definitely not for people who are looking for anything elegant or high tone\", said the *Washington Post*.


# Requiem of Snow
***Requiem of Snow*** is a 2005 film written by Iranian screenwriter Sholeh Shariati and directed by the Kurdish-Iranian director Jamil Rostami. It is a joint production of Iran and Iraq and also the first film to represent Iraq in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars.
In a village stricken by drought, people are praying for rain and a Kurdish girl is trying to escape from an arranged marriage when she runs into a stranger.
1.  Best Director Award, 8th Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People, 2005, Greece.
2.  Crystal Simorgh Award, Best Director, Fajr Film Festival, 2005, Iran.


# I Am Legend (film)
***I Am Legend*** is a 2007 American post-apocalyptic action thriller film loosely based on the 1954 novel of the same name by Richard Matheson. Directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman and Mark Protosevich, the film stars Will Smith as US Army virologist Robert Neville. It is set in New York City after a virus, which was originally created to cure cancer, has wiped out most of mankind, leaving Neville as the last human in New York, other than nocturnal mutants. Neville is immune to the virus, and he works to develop a cure while defending himself against the hostile mutants. It is the third feature-film adaptation of Matheson\'s novel following 1964\'s *The Last Man on Earth* and 1971\'s *The Omega Man*.
Warner Bros. began developing *I Am Legend* in 1994 and various actors and directors were attached to the project, though production was delayed due to budgetary concerns related to the script. Production began in 2006 in New York City, filming mainly on location in the city, including a \$5 million scene at the Brooklyn Bridge.
*I Am Legend* was released on December 14, 2007, in the United States and Canada. It opened to the largest-ever box office (not adjusted for inflation) for a non-Christmas film released in the U.S. in December and was the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2007, earning \$256 million domestically and \$329 million internationally for a total of \$585 million. The film received generally positive reviews, with Smith\'s performance being singled out for praise, while criticism focused on its divergences from the novel, particularly the ending. In 2022, a sequel was revealed to be in development, with Smith set to reprise his role as Neville and co-produce the film with Michael B. Jordan, who will also have a starring role.
An attempt to genetically re-engineer the measles virus to cure cancer becomes lethal, infecting 99% of the world\'s population, turning those it does not kill into vampiric, albino, cannibalistic mutants called Darkseekers, who are extremely vulnerable to sunlight and prey on the few who are left unaffected.


# I Am Legend (film)
Three years after the outbreak, in 2012, U.S. Army virologist LTC Robert Neville lives an isolated life in a deserted Manhattan, unsure if any other uninfected humans are left. Neville\'s daily routine includes experimenting on infected rats to find a cure for the virus, searching for food and supplies, and waiting each day for any survivors who might respond to his continuous recorded radio broadcasts, which instruct them to meet him at midday at the South Street Seaport. Flashbacks reveal his wife, Zoe, and daughter, Marley, died in a helicopter accident during the chaotic evacuation of Manhattan as the military was enforcing a quarantine of the island. Neville himself stayed behind with other military personnel. Neville\'s only companion is his German Shepherd Samantha (Sam) and to cope with his loneliness, he regularly \"talks\" to some mannequins and the characters on film recordings from video stores. At night, he barricades himself with Sam inside his heavily fortified Washington Square Park home to hide from the Darkseekers.
One day as Neville hunts a deer, Sam pursues it into a dark building. Neville cautiously goes in after her and locates the deer\'s corpse along with Sam, but discovers the building is infested with Darkseekers. Both escape unharmed and the attacking Darkseekers are killed by the sunlight.
Neville finds a promising treatment derived from his own blood, so he sets a snare trap and captures a female Darkseeker. A male Darkseeker attempts to pursue them but is halted by the sunlight and returns to the shadows. Back in his laboratory in the basement of his house, Neville treats the female seemingly without success.


# I Am Legend (film)
The next day, Neville notices \"Fred\", a mannequin usually at the local video store, positioned outside Grand Central Terminal and shoots him in confusion. However, Neville realizes he is being watched by the Darkseekers from within nearby buildings. As he approaches Fred\'s body, he is ensnared in a trap similar to the one he used to capture the female and is rendered unconscious after hitting his head. By the time he wakes up the sun is setting and he is attacked by infected dogs. Neville and Sam eliminate them, but Sam is bitten during the fight. Neville injects her with a strand of his serum, but when she shows signs of infection, Neville is forced to strangle her to death as she begins to turn. Heartbroken and driven by rage, Neville ventures out and deliberately attacks a group of Darkseekers the following night, before he is rescued by a pair of immune humans, Anna and a young boy named Ethan, who have traveled from Maryland after hearing his broadcast.
They transport the injured Neville back to his home, where Anna explains they survived the outbreak aboard a Red Cross evacuation ship from São Paulo, and are making their way to a survivors\' camp in Bethel, Vermont. Neville argues no such survivors\' camp exists. As he continues working to cure the female Darkseeker, Neville theorizes by lowering her body temperature with ice, he can increase the treatment\'s potency. The next night, a group of Darkseekers, who tracked Anna and Neville the night before, invade the house. Neville, Anna, and Ethan retreat into the basement laboratory sealing themselves in with the female test subject. Discovering the last treatment was successful, Neville assesses the situation as the Darkseeker alpha male rams himself against a glass door to break in. Neville draws a vial of blood from the woman he cured, and gives it to Anna, before shutting Ethan and her inside a coal chute in the back of the lab. Neville then takes a grenade and kills the Darkseekers at the cost of his own life, saving the cure.
The following day, Anna and Ethan arrive at the survivors\' camp in Bethel, where they are greeted by military officers and other survivors before Anna hands them the cure. Anna narrates how Neville\'s efforts and sacrifices to save humanity ultimately became legend.


# I Am Legend (film)
### Alternate ending
The two-disc special edition DVD, released in 2008, contains an alternate ending which more closely follows the novel.
During the lab attack, the alpha male Darkseeker creates a butterfly shape while attempting to break through the glass to the laboratory. Neville realizes he is referencing the butterfly-shaped tattoo on the female Darkseeker\'s neck, and the alpha male is trying to recover his mate. Neville puts his gun down and returns the female. Neville and the alpha male stare each other down, where Neville apologizes after seeing the latter emotionally breakdown upon his mate\'s return. As the alpha male contemplates killing Neville, he eventually forgives him and departs with the rest of the pack. Once they are gone, a shocked Neville looks over at the many photographs of his test subjects and realizes he has become a monster in the eyes of the infected, showing remorse for the experiments he has undertaken over the years.
The next morning, Neville abandons his research and heads along with Anna and Ethan to Vermont as a changed man, in the hope of finding the survivors\' colony. They cross the George Washington Bridge, while Anna delivers a hopeful monologue ending with the statement: \"You are not alone.\"


# I Am Legend (film)
### Alternate ending
- Will Smith as Dr. Robert Neville: A former U.S. Army virologist before the worldwide plague, he loses his wife and daughter in a helicopter crash shortly after Manhattan is quarantined, and spends the next three years trying to find a cure while defending himself against the Darkseekers. He is immune to the virus and uses vials of his blood to try to create a cure.
- Alice Braga as Anna Montez: A religious survivor from Brazil, she spent days harbored on a Red Cross ship in Baltimore. After the city was overrun, she stayed with Ethan and several other survivors on the ship, but eventually, only Ethan and she survived since they were immune and the others were either infected or killed. She followed Neville\'s broadcasts to track him.
- Charlie Tahan as Ethan: A boy from Baltimore, he spent time on the Red Cross ship with Anna and accompanied her when the ship was overrun.
- Dash Mihok as Alpha Male, the dominant male of the vampire-like mutants, Darkseekers, he is determined to get his mate back from Neville, defying Neville\'s perception of them as mindless and emotionless creatures.
- Emma Thompson as Dr. Alice Krippin: The doctor who creates the cancer cure, she inadvertently brings mankind to the brink of extinction. Neville dubs the virus \"the Krippin virus\". Thompson\'s performance is uncredited.
- Salli Richardson as Zoe Neville, Robert\'s wife
- Willow Smith as Marley Neville, Robert\'s daughter (Willow is the real biological daughter of Will Smith.)
- Joanna Numata as Alpha Female, the Alpha Male\'s mate, she gets taken by Neville and is used as the subject for his cure.
- Darrell Foster as Mike
- Pat Fraley as voice of the President of the United States
- Mike Patton as voices of the Darkseekers


# I Am Legend (film)
### Development
Washington Square on October 31, 2006: The area is being cleaned up before an evening shoot of the movie. In the background is the house where Will Smith\'s character lives.
The science-fiction horror genre reemerged in the late 1990s. In 1995, Warner Bros. began developing the film project, having owned the rights to Richard Matheson\'s 1954 novel *I Am Legend* since 1970 and having already made the 1971 adaptation *The Omega Man*. Mark Protosevich was hired to write the script after the studio was impressed with his spec script of *The Cell*. Protosevich\'s first draft took place in 2000 in San Francisco, and contained many similarities with the finished film, though the Darkseekers (called \'Hemocytes\') were civilized to the point of the creatures in *The Omega Man* and Anna was a lone morphine addict, as well as the fact that a Hemocyte character named Christopher joined forces with Neville. Warner Bros. immediately put the film on the fast track, attaching Neal H. Moritz as producer.
Actors Tom Cruise, Michael Douglas, and Mel Gibson had been considered to star in the film, using a script by Protosevich and with Ridley Scott as director; however, by June 1997, the studio\'s preference was for actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In July, Scott and Schwarzenegger finalized negotiations, with production slated to begin the coming September, using Houston as a stand-in for the film\'s setting of Los Angeles. Scott had Protosevich replaced by a screenwriter of his own choosing, John Logan, with whom he spent months of intensive work on a number of different drafts. The Scott/Logan version of *I Am Legend* was a mix of sci-fi and psychological thriller, without dialogue in the first hour and with a sombre ending. The creatures in Logan\'s version were similar to the Darkseekers of the finished film in their animalistic, barbaric nature. The studio, fearing its lack of commercial appeal and merchandising potential, began to worry about the liberties they had given Scott -- then on a negative streak of box office disappointments -- and urged the production team to reconsider the lack of action in the screenplay. After an \"esoteric\" draft by writer Neal Jimenez, Warner Bros. reassigned Protosevich to the project, reluctantly working with Scott again.


# I Am Legend (film)
### Development
In December 1997, the project was called into question when the projected budget escalated to \$108 million due to media and shareholder scrutiny of the studio in financing a big-budget film. Scott rewrote the script in an attempt to reduce the film\'s budget by \$20 million, but in March 1998, the studio canceled the project due to continued budgetary concerns, and quite possibly to the box office failures of Scott\'s last three films, *1492: Conquest of Paradise*, *White Squall*, and *G.I. Jane*. Likewise, Schwarzenegger\'s recent films at the time (*Eraser* and Warner Bros. own *Batman & Robin*) also underperformed, and the studio\'s latest experiences with big budget sci-fi movies *Sphere* and *The Postman* were negative as well. In August 1998, director Rob Bowman was attached to the project, with Protosevich hired to write a third all-new draft, far more action-oriented than his previous versions, but the director (who reportedly wished for Nicolas Cage to play the lead) moved on to direct *Reign of Fire* and the project did not get off the ground.
In March 2002, Schwarzenegger became the producer of *I Am Legend*, commencing negotiations with Michael Bay to direct and Will Smith to star in the film. Bay and Smith were attracted to the project based on a redraft that would reduce its budget. The project was shelved due to Warner Bros. president Alan F. Horn\'s dislike of the script. In 2004, Akiva Goldsman was asked by head of production Jeff Robinov to produce the film. In September 2005, director Francis Lawrence signed on to helm the project, with production slated to begin in 2006. Guillermo del Toro was originally approached to direct by Smith, but turned it down to direct *Hellboy II: The Golden Army*. Lawrence, whose film *Constantine* was produced by Goldsman, was fascinated by empty urban environments. He said, \"Something\'s always really excited me about that\... to have experienced that much loss, to be without people or any kind of social interaction for that long.\"


# I Am Legend (film)
### Development
Goldsman took on the project, as he admired the second *I Am Legend* film adaptation, *The Omega Man*. A rewrite was done to distance the project from the other zombie films inspired by the novel, as well as from the recently released *28 Days Later,* although Goldsman was inspired by the scenes of a deserted London in the British horror film to create the scenes of a deserted New York City. A 40-page scene-by-scene outline of the film was developed by May 2006. When delays occurred on Smith\'s film *Hancock*, which was scheduled for 2007, it was proposed to switch the actor\'s films. This meant filming would have to begin in 16 weeks; production was given a green light, using Goldsman\'s script and the outline. Elements from Protosevich\'s script were introduced, while the crew consulted with experts on infectious diseases and solitary confinement. Rewrites continued throughout filming, because of Smith\'s improvisational skills and Lawrence\'s preference to keep various scenes silent. The director had watched Jane Campion\'s film *The Piano* with a low volume so as to not disturb his newborn son, and realized that silence could be very effective cinema.


# I Am Legend (film)
### Casting
Will Smith signed on to play Robert Neville in April 2006. He said he took on *I Am Legend* because he felt it could be like \"*Gladiator* or *Forrest Gump*---these are movies with wonderful, audience-pleasing elements, but also uncompromised artistic value. This always felt like it had those possibilities to me.\" The actor found Neville to be his toughest acting challenge since portraying Muhammad Ali in *Ali* (2001). He said that \"when you\'re on your own, it is kind of hard to find conflict.\" The film\'s dark tone and exploration of whether Neville has gone insane during his isolation meant Smith had to restrain himself from falling into a humorous routine during takes. To prepare for his role, Smith visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Georgia. He also met with a person who had been in solitary confinement and a former prisoner of war. Smith compared Neville to Job, who lost his children, livelihood, and health. Like the Book of Job, *I Am Legend* studies the questions, \"Can he find a reason to continue? Can he find the hope or desire to excel and advance in life? Or does the death of everything around him create imminent death for himself?\" He also cited an influence in Tom Hanks\' performance in *Cast Away* (2000).
Abbey and Kona, both three-year-old German Shepherd dogs, played Neville\'s dog Sam. The rest of the supporting cast consists of Salli Richardson as Zoe, Robert\'s wife, and Alice Braga as a survivor named Anna. Willow Smith, Will Smith\'s daughter, makes her film debut as Marley, Neville\'s daughter. Emma Thompson has an uncredited role as Dr. Alice Krippin, who appears on television explaining her cure for cancer that mutates into the virus. Singer Mike Patton provided the guttural screams of the infected \"hemocytes\", and Dash Mihok provided the character animation for the infected \"alpha male\". Several filler characters with uncredited roles were in old news broadcasts and flashbacks, such as the unnamed President\'s voice (Pat Fraley), and the cast of *The Today Show*.


# I Am Legend (film)
### Filming
The Brooklyn Bridge, where a \$5-million scene was filmed
Marcy Avenue Armory
Akiva Goldsman decided to move the story from Los Angeles to New York City to take advantage of locations that would more easily show emptiness. Goldsman explained, \"L.A. looks empty at three o\'clock in the afternoon, but New York is never empty . . . it was a much more interesting way of showing the windswept emptiness of the world.\" Warner Bros. initially rejected this idea because of the logistics, but Francis Lawrence was determined to shoot on location, to give the film a natural feel that would benefit from not shooting on soundstages. Lawrence went to the city with a camcorder, and filmed areas filled with crowds. Then, a special effects test was conducted to remove all those people. The test had a powerful effect on studio executives. Michael Tadross convinced authorities to close busy areas such as the Grand Central Terminal viaduct, several blocks of Fifth Avenue, and Washington Square Park. The film was shot primarily in the anamorphic format, with flashback scenes shot in Super 35.
Filming began on September 23, 2006. The Marcy Avenue Armory in Williamsburg was used for the interior of Neville\'s home, while Greenwich Village was used for the exterior. Other locations include the Tribeca section of lower Manhattan, the aircraft carrier *Intrepid*, the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx, and St. Patrick\'s Cathedral. Weeds were imported from Florida and were strewn across locations to make the city look like it had been overgrown with them. The closure of major streets was controversial with New Yorkers. Will Smith said, \"I don\'t think anyone\'s going to be able to do that in New York again anytime soon. People were not happy. That\'s the most middle fingers I\'ve ever gotten in my career.\"


# I Am Legend (film)
### Filming
A bridge scene was filmed for six consecutive nights in January on the Brooklyn Bridge to serve as a flashback scene in which New York\'s citizens evacuate the city. Shooting the scene consumed \$5 million of the film\'s reported \$150 million budget, which was likely the most expensive shoot in the city to date. The scene, which had to meet requirements from 14 government agencies, involved 250 crew members and 1,000 extras, including 160 National Guard members. Also present were several Humvees, three Strykers, a cutter, a utility boat, and two response boat small craft, as well as other vehicles including taxis, police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. Filming concluded on March 31, 2007. Computer-generated imagery (CGI) was used to depict the main spans of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge collapsing as missiles from passing military jets blew them up to quarantine Manhattan island.
The end of the film was shot in Lambertville, New Jersey.
Reshoots were conducted around November 2007. Lawrence noted, \"We weren\'t seeing fully rendered shots until about a month ago. The movie starts to take on a whole other life. It\'s not until later that you can judge a movie as a whole and go, \'Huh, maybe we should shoot this little piece in the middle, or tweak this a little bit.\' It just so happened that our re-shoots revolved around the end of the movie.\"


# I Am Legend (film)
### Effects
A week into filming, Francis felt the infected (referred to as \"Darkseekers\" or \"hemocytes\" in the script), who were being portrayed by actors wearing prosthetics, were not convincing. His decision to use CGI resulted in an increased budget and extended post-production, although the end results were not always well received. The concept behind the infected was that their adrenal glands were open all of the time and Lawrence explained, \"They needed to have an abandon in their performance that you just can\'t get out of people in the middle of the night when they\'re barefoot. And their metabolisms are really spiked, so they\'re constantly hyperventilating, which you can\'t really get actors to do for a long time or they pass out.\" The actors remained on set to provide motion capture. \"The film\'s producers and sound people wanted the creatures in the movie to sound somewhat human, but not the standard\", so Mike Patton, lead singer of Faith No More, was engaged to provide the screams and howls of the infected.
In addition, CGI was used for the lions and deer in the film, and to erase pedestrians in shots of New York. Workers visible in windows, spectators, and moving cars in the distance were all removed. In his vision of an empty New York, Lawrence cited John Ford as his influence: \"We didn\'t want to make an apocalyptic movie where the landscape felt apocalyptic. A lot of the movie takes place on a beautiful day. There\'s something magical about the empty city as opposed to dark and scary that was the ideal that the cast and crew wanted.\"
The soundtrack for *I Am Legend* was released on January 15, 2008, under the record label Varèse Sarabande. The music was composed by James Newton Howard. The film also features Bob Marley songs \"Redemption Song\" \"Three Little Birds\" and \"I Shot the Sheriff\".

### Theatrical
*I Am Legend* was originally slated for a November 21, 2007, release in the United States and Canada, but was delayed to December 14. The film opened on December 26, 2007, in the United Kingdom, and Ireland, having been originally scheduled for January 4, 2008.


# I Am Legend (film)
### Theatrical
In December 2007, China temporarily suspended the release of all American films in the country, which is believed to have delayed the release of *I Am Legend*. Will Smith spoke to the chairman of China Film Group about securing a release date, later explaining, \"We struggled very, very hard to try to get it to work out, but there are only a certain amount of foreign films that are allowed in.\"
Premieres were held in Tokyo, New York, and London. At the London premiere in Leicester Square, British comedian and actor Neg Dupree was arrested after pushing his way onto the red carpet and running around shouting \"I am Negend!\". The stunt was part of his \"Neg\'s Urban Sports\" section of comedy game show *Balls of Steel*.

### Marketing
The film\'s teaser trailer was attached to the screenings of *Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix*. And a tie-in comic from DC Comics and Vertigo Comics was created, *I Am Legend: Awakening*. The project drew upon collaboration from Bill Sienkiewicz, screenwriter Mark Protosevich, and author Orson Scott Card. The son of the original book\'s author, Richard Christian Matheson, also collaborated on the project. The project advanced from the comic to an online format in which animated featurettes (created by the team from Broken Saints) were shown on the official website.
In October 2007, Warner Bros. Pictures, in conjunction with the Electric Sheep Company, launched the online multiplayer game *I Am Legend: Survival* in the virtual world *Second Life*. The game was the largest launched in the virtual world in support of a film release, permitting people to play against each other as the infected or the uninfected across a replicated of New York City. The studio also hired the ad agency Crew Creative to develop a website that was specifically viewable on the iPhone.


# I Am Legend (film)
### Home media
The film was released on DVD on March 18, 2008, in two editions: a one-disc release, including the movie with four animated comics (\"Death As a Gift\", \"Isolation\", \"Sacrificing the Few for the Many\", and \"Shelter\"), and other DVD-ROM features, and a two-disc special edition that includes all these extras, an alternative theatrical version of the movie with an ending that follows closer to that from the novel, and a digital copy of the film. On the high-definition end, the movie has been released on the Blu-ray Disc format and HD DVD format along with the DVD release, with the HD-DVD version being released later on April 8, 2008. Both HD releases include all the features available in the two-disc DVD edition. A three-disk Ultimate Collector\'s Edition was also released on December 9, 2008.
The film has sold 7.04 million DVDs and earned \$126.2 million in revenue, making it the sixth-best-selling DVD of 2008. However, Warner Bros. was reportedly \"a little disappointed\" with the film\'s performance on the DVD market.

### Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 68% based on 217 reviews with an average rating of 6.34/10. The site\'s critical consensus reads, \"*I Am Legend* overcomes questionable special effects and succeeds largely on the strength of Will Smith\'s mesmerizing performance.\" On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating \"generally favorable reviews\". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of \"B\" on an A+ to F scale.


# I Am Legend (film)
### Critical response
A. O. Scott wrote that Will Smith gave a \"graceful and effortless performance\" and also noted the \"third-act collapse\". He felt that the movie \"does ponder some pretty deep questions about the collapse and persistence of human civilization\". Dana Stevens of *Slate* wrote that the movie lost its way around the hour mark, noting that \"the Infected just aren\'t that scary.\" NPR critic Bob Mondello noted the film\'s subtext concerning global terrorism and that this aspect made the film fit in perfectly with other, more direct cinematic explorations of the subject. Richard Roeper gave the film a positive review on the television program *At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper*, commending Will Smith as being in \"prime form\", also saying there are \"some amazing sequences\" and that there was \"a pretty heavy screenplay for an action film.\" In his review for the *Chicago Sun-Times*, Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, writing, \"Given its setup, *I Am Legend* is well-constructed to involve us with Dr. Neville and his campaign to survive.\" The film has been criticized for diverging from Matheson\'s novel, especially in its portrayal of a specifically Christian theme. Much of the negative criticism concerned the film\'s third act, with some critics favoring the alternative ending in the DVD release.

### Other response
*Popular Mechanics* published an article on December 14, 2007, addressing some of the scientific issues raised by the film:
1.  the rate of deterioration of urban structures, infrastructure, and survival of fauna and flora
2.  the plausibility of a retrovirus spreading out of control as depicted in the film (The measles virus depicted in the film is not a retrovirus, but is in fact a part of the *Paramyxovirus* family.)
3.  the mechanics of the Brooklyn Bridge\'s destruction


# I Am Legend (film)
### Other response
The magazine solicited reactions from Alan Weisman, author of *The World Without Us*, virologist W. Ian Lipkin, MD, and Michel Bruneau, PhD, comparing their predictions with the film\'s depictions. The article raised the most questions regarding the virus\' mutation and the medical results, and pointed out that a suspension bridge like the Brooklyn Bridge would likely completely collapse rather than losing only its middle span. Neville\'s method of producing power using gasoline-powered generators seemed the most credible: \"This part of the tale is possible, if not entirely likely,\" *Popular Mechanics* editor Roy Berendsohn says.
Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek criticized the film politically for, in his view, \"being the most regressive adaptation from the novel.\" He said that while the original novel had a \"progressive multicultural message\" where Neville became a \"legend\" to the new creatures and is subsequently killed by them (much like vampires were legends to humans), the 2007 film finds a cure for the Darkseekers and it is delivered by a survivor through
\"divine intervention.\" For Žižek, this misses the original message and \"openly opts for religious fundamentalism.\"

### Accolades
*I Am Legend* earned four nominations for the Visual Effects Society awards, and was also nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Outstanding Film and Actor at the Image Awards, and Best Sound at the Satellite Awards. In June 2008, Will Smith won a Saturn Award for Best Actor.
Will Smith also won the MTV Movie Awards for Best Male Performance.
After the film\'s release, talks of either a sequel, prequel, or a reboot have occurred.


# I Am Legend (film)
### Accolades
Director Francis Lawrence said in 2008 that there would be a prequel and that Will Smith would be reprising his role. The plot of the film would reveal what happened to Neville before the infected took over New York. D. B. Weiss was hired to write the script, while Lawrence was in negotiations to return as director, contingent on a sufficiently interesting story. Smith later discussed the premise, which would have his character and a team going from New York City to Washington, D.C., as they made their last stand against those infected with the virus. The film would again explore the premise of being alone. Lawrence stated, \"\... the tough thing is, how do we do that again and in a different way?\" In May 2011, Francis Lawrence stated that the prequel was no longer in development saying, \"I don\'t think that\'s ever going to happen.\"
In 2012, Warner Bros. announced that negotiations had begun to produce another installment with the intention of having Will Smith reprise his role. In April 2014, the studio attained a script entitled *A Garden at the End of the World*, described as a post-apocalyptic variation of *The Searchers*. Studio executives found so many similarities to *I Am Legend* in the screenplay, they had the author Gary Graham rewrite it so it could serve as a reboot of the story, hoping to create a franchise with the new film. By 2014, Will Smith, who is known for his reluctance to appear in sequels, had not commented on whether he would appear.
On March 4, 2022, it was announced that a sequel is in development with Will Smith reprising his role and will be joined by Michael B. Jordan. Both actors will also produce and Akiva Goldsman will return to write the screenplay.
On March 27, 2022, Will Smith faced criticism and backlash after slapping Chris Rock on stage at the Academy Awards after he made a comment about his wife. There have been no official updates on the I Am Legend sequel. Will Smith\'s other movies that were in production have been cancelled or put on hold.
- *I Am Legend*, Richard Matheson, Tor Books; Reissue edition (October 30, 2007),
- Survival film: information regarding the genre, with a list of feature films therein.
- Medical-fiction film
- Disaster film


# Seduced by Madness
***Seduced by Madness: The Diane Borchardt Story*** is a 1996 American television film directed by John Patterson and starring Ann-Margret, Peter Coyote, Leslie Hope, Christian Campbell, Hedy Burress, Tobey Maguire, and Freddy Rodríguez. Based roughly on real-life events, the film recounts the story of Wisconsin teacher Diane Borchardt, who hired teen students first to spy on her cheating husband and later to kill him. The film begins with the murder then traces in flashback the events leading up to it, followed by the subsequent police investigation leading to arrests and eventual murder convictions of both Borchardt and the teens.
The film opens with three teenage boys pulling up to the house of Ruben Borchardt (Peter Coyote) early on Easter Sunday in 1994. They break into Ruben\'s house armed with a shotgun, intending to kill Ruben on the promise of payment. Gathering at the top of the basement steps where Ruben sleeps, the boys draw their shotgun and shoot Mr. Borchardt as he makes his way up the stairs. Having carried out their deed, the three boys flee the scene.

### Prologue
The film cuts to seven months before the shooting, during the Fall of 1993. Diane Kay Borchardt (Ann-Margret) is a seemingly ordinary schoolteacher with a normal life. She has a loving husband, three children, and a lovely house. However, it quickly becomes apparent that she harbors deep mental instability and possible psychosis. While she dotes on and spoils her daughter Regan, she is emotionally and physically abusive towards Ruben and his two children, Brook (Hedy Burress) and Chuck (Tobey Maguire). Ruben married Diane fourteen years prior after his beloved wife Susan (Cynthia Lynch) died in a car crash when Brook and Chuck were young. Realizing his children needed a mother figure in their lives, Ruben married to Diane, only to find himself in a loveless marriage in which Diane constantly abuses him.
One day, Ruben goes to a neighbor\'s house to help him remodel his kitchen, as he is a work-at-home carpenter. There, he gets reacquainted with Claire Brown (Leslie Hope), whom he works together with to remodel the kitchen. During the remodeling, Ruben and Claire share their personal stories with each other, becoming increasingly close friends as the project goes on.


# Seduced by Madness
### Prologue
Later that day, Ruben drops by Diane\'s clothes shop on account of the fact that Diane failed to pay for Chuck\'s new glasses, as she had spent it on new shoes for Regan despite previously agreeing to buy the glasses. Diane then accuses Ruben of spoiling his own children and neglecting Regan, and says that he ought to be making more money. Ruben tries to reason with Diane, when suddenly, without provocation, Diane hits him in the head with a label gun. Ruben later admits to Claire that his marriage was a mistake. Claire also reveals that she and her husband have also grown apart in recent years. When the project is finished, Ruben admits his true feelings for Claire, and kisses her on impulse. He then leaves her confused, only to return, and this time, the two proceed to kiss each other passionately. Upon realizing their feelings for each other, Claire and Ruben start meeting each other secretly, and contemplate leaving their spouses in order to marry. Although Ruben is a devout Christian who opposes divorce, his feelings for Claire remain strong and says he believes they can make it work. Claire agrees to make a decision when she is ready.

### The Divorce
Later, Ruben and the family go to the annual Christmas party at the Church. While Diane is away, Ruben runs into Claire at the dance and the two steal the dance floor, and Claire accepts Ruben\'s proposal. Diane witnesses this and confronts her husband at home, where he admits he no longer wishes to be married to Diane. Diane makes excuses for her lack of empathy towards Ruben, but Ruben is convinced that their marriage is irreconcilable. Diane drives him away and vows to get even with him. Ruben tells Chuck and Brook about his decision, and the kids admit to their father that Diane has treated them as badly as she treated him, much to Ruben\'s distress. Ruben goes forth with the divorce proceedings against Diane\'s wishes.


# Seduced by Madness
### The Divorce
Meanwhile at school, Diane feigns sadness in front of her students to gain sympathy from them. It becomes apparent that she maintains a close relationship with her students in order to get them to do her bidding when she feels fit. One of her closest students, Doug Vest (Christian Campbell), comforts her and Diane lies that her husband physically abuses her in front of their children, and is turning them against her. Diane hugs Doug in her drive for sympathy, saying that Ruben would not do this to her if he knew she had him. After school, Doug meets with his friends Josh Yanke (Jonah Blechman), Cory (Michael Scott Campbell), and Elgin (Aeryk Egan) to discuss \"messing up\" Mr. Borchardt. Doug, whose estranged father was physically abusive towards his own mother, says that Ruben\'s behavior is inexcusable.
One day, Ruben invites Claire to his house while Diane is away, and presents her with a necklace as a token of his affections. Unbeknownst to the couple, Cory and Elgin photograph them in the house, and when Diane shows the pictures to Shannon Johnson (Alanna Ubach), another one of her students who assists her in the shop, she declares that she wants Ruben dead. During Christmas break, Diane coaxes Doug into her car, and lets him take it for a spin. She shows him the house and says she\'d be willing to let him have the car. She goes on to explain her situation with Ruben, lying to Doug about the true nature of their divorce. She then says that if she were to have Ruben killed, it would have to be someone she trusted, and to his distress, she refers to him.
Later, Diane\'s lawyer informs her that Ruben is seeking sole custody of the house, much to her outrage, even though he is the original proprietor. In retaliation, Diane informs the pastor of their church that Ruben has strayed from the church and violated the sacredness of their marriage. Ruben is informed by the pastor that he is not to take communion at the church for committing adultery. After New Year\'s Day, Ruben learns that Diane is seeking custody of Chuck as part of her ploy to secure the house, prompting Ruben to confront her. Diane reacts violently and proceeds to physically beat Ruben while Chuck and Brook struggle to stop her.


# Seduced by Madness
### The Divorce
At the divorce proceedings, Ruben gains custody of Chuck and Diane gains sole custody of her shop and Regan. However, to her outrage, Ruben gains custody of the house. Diane is to vacate the property within one month, and silently promises to enact revenge on Ruben.
Later in March, Diane commissions another student, Tim (Johnny Strong), to do away with her husband, telling him that the one person she still trusted let her down. Tim tells this to Doug, who immediately feels guilty for turning his back on Diane. Tim also admits that Diane may be contemplating the murder of her husband. Diane later accuses Ruben of stealing her jewellery, when in reality, she plans on paying it to Doug to kill her husband. She also tries to secure title to Ruben\'s life insurance policy. Later that night, Diane approaches Doug and tells him she wants him to kill Ruben, much to Doug\'s horror. Once again, she makes out Ruben to be the guilty party, claiming that he is taking everything from her. She bribes Doug with her jewellery and cash to carry out the murder, and he gives in to her demands despite his reservations.
Doug later commissions Josh and his cousin Michael Maldonado (Freddy Rodriguez) to help him carry out the murder. Michael rejects the proposal, insisting that he receive higher pay to carry out the deed. Diane begins to harass Claire for stealing Ruben away, going so far as to threaten her with death. Claire becomes uneasy as the harassment persists, and insists Diane is dangerous, but Ruben insists he can handle her. At school, Diane again insists that Doug carry out the murder, and lays out her plan to kill Ruben. Doug refuses to do it, until Diane bribes him with \$20,000 from Ruben\'s life insurance policy. Doug gives in to her demands and agrees to pay Josh and Mike part of it and they agree to help him.


# Seduced by Madness
### The Murder
While Diane is packing, Ruben confides to Brook that he has a stash of emergency cash for her and Chuck should anything happen to him, and Diane listens in. She also picks a fight with Ruben when she intends to sell Susan\'s sewing machine, to which Ruben objects. Diane then punches Ruben and beats him when he refuses to fight back. After grabbing her arm in an attempt to disarm her, Diane uses the marks on her arm to claim to the police that Ruben hit her. Ruben denies this and the police tell the couple to separate temporarily. Having planned on this, Diane agrees to leave the house for Easter, and has made plans to stay at Susan\'s parents\' house with Regan. She also takes the family dog away by force. Before leaving, Diane forces Ruben to kiss her in front of the cops, and whispers to him \"You\'re dead\".
On the eve of Easter morning, Ruben is wary of Diane\'s death threat. He tells Claire that should anything happen to him, she is to find another man to make her happy, while insisting that all will be well. Throughout the night, Shannon contemplates warning Ruben of the impending danger, but fails to make the call. In the early morning hours of Easter Sunday, Doug and his two friends break into the house while Ruben prepares for Easter service. They gather at the top of the stairs, where they face Ruben as he goes to wake his son. Mike pulls out a shotgun and fires two rounds into Ruben, fatally wounding him. The boys then flee the scene and dump the shotgun into a vacant lot. Chuck soon wakes up to find his father bleeding to death on the stairs, and calls 911 while Ruben calls Claire. As Ruben fights for his life, he proclaims his love for her and leaves his children in her care. Ruben is rushed to the hospital where the family gathers to learn of his condition. Claire soon shows up to see Ruben, only to discover that he has died.


# Seduced by Madness
### The Murder
As the family mourns their loss, Diane also learns of the murder, and feigns shock and sadness in front of Sue\'s parents. They become suspicious of her when she fails to ask any questions about the murder. Meanwhile, Detectives Burstyn (Cliff De Young) and Pike (Dean Norris) are assigned to track down Ruben\'s killer. When Diane refuses to talk to the police after the murder, she becomes the primary suspect. In the days that follow, Diane deals further insult to her grieving family by threatening to sue the funeral home for proceeding with Ruben\'s service without her consent, as she had not been present to arrange it. Brook accuses her of killing her father, a charge Diane immediately denies.
The funeral soon takes place and the family pays their final respects to Ruben as he is laid to rest. Once again, Diane feigns sorrow in front of the open casket to preserve her innocence. Claire watches the burial from nearby, and soon collapses from shock.

### The Investigation
The police soon discover that the murder weapon was a shotgun, and deduce that the shooter was an amateur, as the gun was of a cheap design. They are later tipped off about the photographs taken by Cory and Elgin, and question the boys about their activities. They learn that Diane shares her personal problems with her class, and is thus able to manipulate them to do as she pleases.
Meanwhile, Doug struggles to acquire the money promised to him by Diane. Due to her increasingly suspicious behavior in the case, Diane is denied access to Ruben\'s life insurance policy. Having grown impatient with Doug, Mike threatens Diane at knife-point and demands that she pay up. Frantic, Diane searches her husband\'s bedroom for the money he had hidden away, and soon finds a package containing \$6,000. She gives \$1,500 to the boys, who are still not satisfied with their payment.


# Seduced by Madness
### The Investigation
As the case remains at a standstill, Brook meets Claire in the hospital and pleads that she come back to them, as she was more of a mother to them than Diane ever was. Claire blames herself for Ruben\'s death, but Brook tells her that he was more alive with Claire than he had ever been before. Upon hearing this, Claire is soon able to overcome her personal guilt and becomes an adoptive mother to Chuck and Brook. Meanwhile, Brook has moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where she starts over without Diane in her life. Eventually, she meets a boy named Nick at her new job, and the two soon fall in love. After a night in bed, Brook discovers she is pregnant with Nick\'s son, and the two agree to marry each other.
Doug soon realizes that Diane will never be able to pay up, and informs his friends that he cannot obtain any more money. Meanwhile, Mike admits to his best friend Jeb (Andrew Kavovit) that he had a hand in Ruben\'s death, albeit without any noteworthy remorse. Jeb is unable to bring himself to confess to the police.
Five months after the murder, it becomes apparent to Diane that the cops are on to her, and tries to conceal her guilt. Shannon meets with Doug, and forces him to confess his role in the murder so that she can turn in all evidence to the cops before she commits suicide, making herself out to be the killer in an effort to protect Diane. Diane dissuades her from doing this as it will only lead the police back to her regardless. By the time school restarts, the boys are frustrated by their lack of payment, and struggle to conceal the truth about Ruben\'s murder.


# Seduced by Madness
### Arrest and Trial
Six months into the case, Jeb breaks down and admits to his friend Jay that Mike and Doug were responsible for Ruben\'s murder. Rather than force Jeb to turn in his best friend, Jay goes to the cops himself and implicates Doug as an accomplice. Doug is brought in for questioning, where he accidentally lets slip that he was in fact involved in Ruben\'s murder. When Burstyn confronts him on this, Doug makes a full confession, and provides him with the names of his accomplices. Mike and Shannon are arrested, and the two detectives rush to the high school. There, amidst the air of shock and outrage among the students, the police arrest Josh and Diane, with the latter desperately protesting her innocence as she is dragged away in handcuffs.
Six months later, Diane has been set free on bail as the court proceeds with the trials. Doug and Mike are both charged with first-degree murder as adults, and face life imprisonment. Josh pleads guilty to his crime in exchange for his testimony, and Shannon is charged with perjury. Josh admits his role in the conspiracy, as well as Doug\'s role in organizing the attack. Doug reveals the full details of the murder before the trial, and after his testimony, he is sentenced to life imprisonment. Diane is soon rearrested and brought forth to face a series of witnesses, who implicate her as the mastermind of the plot against Ruben. Among these witnesses is Shannon, who feels betrayed by Diane\'s reluctance to come forth to her defense. Doug also testifies against Diane, admitting that she commissioned him to carry out the murder.
After the conclusion of the testimonies, the jury makes its final verdict. To Diane\'s horror, she is found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide, and breaks down in front of the courtroom as her daughter Regan looks on in despair.
Having finally received justice for their father, the Borchardt family, along with Brook\'s husband and newborn son Ruben, visit Ruben\'s grave along with Claire. The family reflects on the better days of Ruben\'s life and welcome Brook\'s son, named in honor of his grandfather, into their family.


# Seduced by Madness
### Arrest and Trial
In the final scene, Diane is interviewed for a True Crime Documentary, from jail. Now having completely lost her mind due to her conviction, she admits not to know what she\'s supposed to have learnt \'from this\' and that her main concern is whether Ruben had \'time to repent or is he lost forever?\'

### Epilogue
The end of the film is followed by an epilogue outlining the sentences faced by the conspirators:
**SHANNON JOHNSON** is found guilty of perjury, and receives an eighty-day jail sentence along with two years probation.
**JOSHUA YANKE** pleaded no contest to second-degree intentional homicide and is sentenced to eighteen years in prison.
**MICHAEL MALDONADO** is found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He will not be eligible for parole until he has served fifty years of his sentence.
**DOUGLAS VEST JR.** is found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He will not be eligible for parole until he has served twenty-five years of his sentence.
**DIANE BORCHARDT** is found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, and will not be eligible for parole until she has served 40 years of her sentence, by that time being no less than eighty-six years of age.
- Ann-Margret as Diane Kay Borchardt
- Peter Coyote as Ruben Borchardt
- Leslie Hope as Claire Brown
- Hedy Burress as Brooke Borchardt
- Tobey Maguire as Chuck Borchardt
- Veronica Lauren as Regan Borchardt
- Christian Campbell as Douglas Vest, Jr.
- Freddy Rodriguez as Michael Maldonado
- Johnny Strong as Tim
- Jonah Blechman as Joshua Yanke
- Alanna Ubach as Shannon Johnson
- Danny Masterson as Seth
- Aeryk Egan as Elgin Thomas
- Scott Michael Campbell as Cory
- Cliff De Young as Detective Burstyn
- Dean Norris as Detective Pike
- Belinda Balaski as Principal
- Rebecca Stein as Sister
Ulysses S. Grant High School in Los Angeles, California was used as the filming location for the external scenes at the high school where Diane Borchardt teaches.
During production, the names of several individuals involved in the case were deliberately changed for their purposes and those of the film.


# CJ7
***CJ7*** () is a 2008 Hong Kong--Chinese comic science fiction film co-written, co-produced, starring, and directed by Stephen Chow. It was released on January 31, 2008, in Hong Kong. It was also released on March 14, 2008, in the United States.
In August 2007 the film was given the title *CJ7*, a play on China\'s successful Shenzhou crewed space missions---Shenzhou 5 and Shenzhou 6. It was previously known by a series of working titles---*Alien*, *Yangtze River VII*, *Long River 7* and most notably, *A Hope*. The title probably refers to the Chinese name of the Yangtze River, which is Changjiang.
*CJ7* was filmed in Ningbo, in the Zhejiang province of China.
Chow Ti is a poor construction worker. He lives in a partially demolished house with his nine-year-old son, Dicky. Ti is eager to save money so he can continue sending his son to private school. Not much is known about Dicky\'s mother, other than the fact she had died when Dicky was young upon Dicky being questioned by Ms. Yuen, Dicky\'s teacher, one morning as to where his parents were.
Dicky is often bullied by other children, in particular by a boy named Johnny. Johnny is the son of a rich family and bosses other students around at school. He also has other students as his henchmen. Dicky is also chided by his teachers at school because he is poor and wears shabby clothes. Ti often helps Dicky to obtain things from the junkyard as they are too poor to afford certain items, such as his shoes that are tattered. During P.E class, Dicky is punished for wearing torn up shoes and is to stand away. He is sad as he really enjoys doing sports, hoping to have a pair of better shoes soon. Maggie, a large girl in his class joins him as she did not want to participate in P.E class. She also develops a crush on Dicky.


# CJ7
One day, while at a department store, Dicky begs his father to buy him a popular robotic toy called CJ1. Ti cannot afford it, and the situation ends badly when Ti smacks the stubborn Dicky in front of other customers. Dicky finds comfort in Ms. Yuen who is passing by. That night, Ti visits the junkyard where he often picks up home appliances and clothes for Dicky. He finds a strange green orb left by a space saucer and takes it home, telling Dicky that it is a new toy. He is hesitant at first, but later accepts it. The next day, Dicky brings the orb to school and gets beaten up by the other children only to get injured and scolded by Ti. The following evening, the green orb transforms into a cute and cuddly dog-like alien creature that befriends Dicky. After playing with the alien, he learns that it is capable of restorative powers after it restores a rotten apple that fell to the ground. Dicky is very thrilled and names the alien \"CJ7\", and then falls asleep dancing in happiness.
That night, Dicky dreams that the alien will help him gain popularity and good grades at school. In his dream, he asks the alien of some tasks. First, CJ7 defeats a fierce stray dog in an alley as requested by Dicky. It also helps him score on his exam (by creating a orange pair of glasses to help him cheat with tiny drones with cameras). During this scene, Johnny swats at the drones and Dicky is temporarily unable to see the answers on his paper. Backup drones fly out and they fly towards Mr. Cao, whose glasses lenses get broken as Johnny and a female classmate both swat at the fly-drones. In P.E class (with dream CJ7 constructing a pair of red boots with special powers), he outdoes his classmates in various sports scenes. Eventually, policemen and teachers including Mr. Cao and Ms. Yuen to try and subdue his superhuman powers. He jumps high into the sky thanks to the springs on his shoes. He then jumps off a flying eagle and sees a big cloud in the shape of CJ7.


# CJ7
Upon waking up, Dicky tries to relive his expectations and demands for CJ7 to carry out the tasks again, but CJ7 is unable to be of help. CJ7 does not understand what Dicky asks of him and defecates on his hand, which Dicky has to deal with during his exam. The class bully jeers at him for holding a stool in his hand and shoves it onto Dicky\'s face. Later, Dicky expresses his anger towards CJ7 and claims he wants to kill it by forcing it to drown in the toilet bowl. He demands CJ7 to help him fix his sports shoes but out of stress and fear it projectile defecates onto Dicky. Then in P.E class, Dicky is being hosed down by the schools\' gardeners in front of his class and his P.E teacher. His teacher says he brings great shame to the school for his dirtied uniform as his classmates laugh at him. After school, Dicky lures CJ7 from behind a tree, telling it how much he loves it until it is coaxed out. He uses a bag to entrap CJ7 and catches it. Dicky pulls CJ7 out and angrily tells it how it is a useless space dog and only caused trouble for him at school. He tosses it into the garbage bin but soon after questioning his own behaviour admits his own faults, rushing back to try and recover CJ7 from the bin. Dicky finds that the trash has been emptied by a garage truck to his dismay and tries to chase after the truck to save CJ7 but is already too late. Going home, he is dejected and sad to have lost CJ7. Dicky cheers up and runs to hug CJ7, apologizing and saying how much he misses it after seeing Ti sitting with it.


# CJ7
Ti is in awe as to how \"high tech\" CJ7 is as a play toy, twisting and pulling it to admire its malleability as Dicky watches in great discomfort, with CJ7 writhing and squealing in pain. Dicky begs his father to stop yanking its body around as he has to return his toy to a classmate, lying that he borrowed it. Later in that same night, as Ti and Dicky are asleep, CJ7 wakes up from the cooking pan it was resting in to repair the electric fan that Ti bought, fixing and turning the fan on with its special antenna. It is exhausted and uses up its energy as the ball inside the antenna becomes red. The next morning, Dicky goes to school with CJ7 in his backpack.
When a group of students see the alien with Dicky they forcibly take it and try to cut it with tools but nothing seems to work. At last they try to use a drill and Dicky jumps on them. CJ7 scurries into some nearby bushes. Dicky tries to hit one of the students but a fat boy stops him who in turn is stopped by Maggie. They are all punished for fighting and demanded to explain the situation. When the teacher, Mr. Cao, leaves, CJ7 comes out from hiding and Dicky gets it to perform tricks for the other students and they are awed. Dicky thanks Johnny for not letting Mr. Cao know about CJ7. They shake hands and agree to not let the adults know about it and buy the group one.
At the construction site Ti shows everyone Dicky\'s test paper in which he scored 100 until his boss tells him that Dicky changed the marks from 0 to 100 and is a cheater. Then Ti threatens his boss that if he continues saying his son cheated he will hit him. This results in a fight that leads to Ti running off while his boss shouts after him that he is fired. Ti meets Dicky at home and gets angry with him for lying. He takes CJ7 from him and shoves it into his messenger bag, saying he does not get to play with CJ7 since he does not work hard. When Dicky tells Ti to leave him alone, he promises he will if Dicky can score more than 60 on his own.


# CJ7
The following day, Ti comes to Dicky\'s school to give him his lunchbox. There he meets Ms. Yuen, who offers to help Dicky study. He shakes her hand gratefully and leaves on his bike as Ms. Yuen watches on before leaving. Ti goes back to his boss and apologizes; his boss apologises for calling his son a cheater in front of the other works. He gives him his job back and his salary as well as a bonus (inside a red packet) so that Ti may buy Dicky new textbooks. Ti remarks of his great luck to the woman operating the lift on his way up to the building he is working on but is shut off with her sliding door. During work, an accident happens with Ti knocking some canisters over, trapping Ti\'s legs with ropes and pulling him close to the edge. Ti attempts to grab onto a bamboo pole for dear life and a worker asks where his safety harness is. Ti is unable to retrieve it and in doing so loses grip on the bamboo, falls down further to grip some mesh netting, suspended by the canister\'s weight. Another worker in a lower floor sees him and tries to help by telling Ti to stretch his free hand out along with other workers. Unfortunately, Ti cannot reach his hand and the netting tears apart. Ti falls to his death from the building\'s scaffolding.
Back at school, Ms. Yuen calls Dicky from his classroom just as he gets his test result in which he scores 65. Dicky is seen sitting at the hospital, clutching onto his paper as he looks on the scene between the doctor, Ti\'s boss and Ms. Yuen in the door window near him. She goes home with Dicky and tearfully breaks the news to him that his father has passed away. Dicky begins to cry; telling her to leave and pushes her out and locks the house door to sob. In his bawling state, Dicky says that Ti will come back tomorrow and apologises to Ms. Yuen, telling her he is going to sleep as she listens on outside, sliding down to a sitting position as she cries with him out of sympathy.


# CJ7
CJ7, still in the messenger bag which is now under the table on which Ti\'s dead body is lying, wriggles out of the bag and uses its repairing powers on Ti\'s body, even though it knows it will take its full power and it will die.
The next morning Dicky finds Ti sleeping next to him. Ti awakes and questions why he is still in his uniform. Dicky rushes to embrace his father and sobs that he will be a good son, repeating Ti\'s words on not cheating, lying and stealing and to do well at school. They share a loving moment. Then, CJ7 crawls out exhaustedly out of Ti\'s messenger bag and lies on the bed, powerless and drained from using all its energy on Ti\'s rejuvenation from the night before. The ball inside his antenna falls and disintegrates, and he transforms into a small doll with cross eyes. They try many ways (using batteries, electric shock and injecting glucose) to get CJ7 back but are unsuccessful.
In the end, it is shown that everything is back to normal. A scene in a park unfolds; the fat boy is in love with Maggie who is in love with Dicky who is in love with another girl who is taken by the bully, Johnny. Ti is in love with Ms. Yuen but is \"not funny enough\" for her. Dicky wears the alien doll as a neck pendant all the time, hoping that it to come back to life when he closes his eyes, counting to three and opens them. He hears a whimpering sound, only to find a small white dog to be the source of the sound. The dog is quickly lifted away by a classmate. Dicky is sad that CJ7 is still not alive.
In the end, Dicky sees a UFO descending onto the bridge in front of him. Many other alien dogs like CJ7 of various colors and patterns emerge, running towards him and he realizes that the CJ7s are headed by his very own toy.
Actor/director Stephen Chow promoting *CJ7* in Malaysia
- Stephen Chow as Chow Ti
- Xu Jiao as Dicky Chow
- Kitty Zhang Yuqi as Ms. Yuen
- Lam Chi Chung as The Boss
- Lee Sheung Ching as Mr. Cao
- Huang Lei as Johnny
- Min Hun Fung as P.E. Teacher


# CJ7
As with the title *CJ7*, the earlier working titles, *A Hope*, *Yangtze River VII*, and *Long River 7*, referred to the Chinese crewed space program. The mission of Shenzhou 6 was completed in 2006 and the real Shenzhou 7 successfully launched in September 2008. The film had a budget of US\$20 million, and heavily uses CG effects. Xu Jiao, the child who plays Dicky, is in fact female. She had to cross-dress to be in the film.
Music tracks featured in *CJ7* include \"Masterpiece\" and \"I Like Chopin\" by Gazebo and \"Sunny\" by Boney M.
References to Chow\'s other films are made during some scenes, particularly during Dicky\'s dream sequence. These references include Dicky using his super sneakers to kick a soccer ball into the goal, which subsequently collapses (referencing *Shaolin Soccer*) and Dicky flying into the sky with his sneakers, jumping from the head of an eagle, seeing CJ7\'s shape as a cloud and using the Buddha\'s Palm, (referencing *Kung Fu Hustle*). The scene where Dicky tosses away his glasses while they self-destruct is a reference to John Woo\'s *Mission: Impossible 2*. On one of the DVD featurettes, Chow cites *E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial* and *Doraemon* as an influence on the film.
During its North American limited release, *CJ7* received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 49% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 81 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3/10. The site\'s critics consensus reads, \"Eccentric and sweet, Stephen Chow\'s latest is charming, but too strangely and slackly plotted to work as a whole.\" The percentage is much lower than Stephen Chow\'s previous films *Shaolin Soccer* (90%) and *Kung Fu Hustle* (90%). Metacritic reported the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100 based on 18 reviews, indicating \"mixed or average reviews\".


# CJ7
The film fared no better with local Hong Kong critics. Perry Lam of *Muse* gave a decidedly negative review of the film: \'We go to see a Stephen Chow movie for its great entertainment value and, occasionally, its terrific cinematic panache. We don\'t need to be told that we are morally superior because we don\'t have much money.\'
`Year`
`Award-Giving Body`
`Category`
`Work`
`Result`
`2009`
`28th Hong Kong Film Awards `
`Best New Performer`
`Xu Jiao`
`Best Film`
`CJ7`
`Best Supporting Actor`
`Stephen Chow`
`Best Visual Effects`
`Eddy Wong, Victor Wong & Ken Law`


# Alraune (1918 film)
***Alraune*** is a 1918 Hungarian science fiction horror film directed by Michael Curtiz and Edmund Fritz and starring Géza Erdélyi. Little is known about this film which is now believed to be lost. It is a variation on the original legend of Alraune in which a Mad Scientist creates a beautiful but demonic child from the forced union between a woman and a mandrake root.
- Gyula Gál \... Professor Brinken
- Rózsi Szöllösi \... Alraune
- Kálmán Körmendy \... Frank Braun
- Böske Malatinszky \... Alma Raune, mother of Alraune
- Géza Erdélyi \... Farkas Gontran
- Andor Kardos \... Sebestyén Gontran, legal adviser
- András Kruppka \... Instructor Petersen (as Andor K. Kovács)
- Károly Árnyai \... Manesse attorney
- Margit Lux
- Violetta Szlatényi
- Jenő Törzs
- Viktor Daniel
- Boleszlav Szobierszki
- Michael Curtiz filmography
- List of lost films


# Trade (film)
***Trade*** is a 2007 drama film directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner and starring Kevin Kline. It was produced by Roland Emmerich and Rosilyn Heller. The film premiered January 23, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and opened in limited release on September 28, 2007. It is based on Peter Landesman\'s article \"The Girls Next Door\" about sex slaves, which was featured as the cover story in the January 24, 2004 issue of *The New York Times Magazine*.
In a poor family in Mexico City, Adriana celebrates her 13th birthday, and is happy about the bicycle her 17-year-old brother Jorge gives her. Their mother suspects Jorge has got the money for the present in a dishonest way, and forbids Adriana to ride it. Indeed, Jorge lures a tourist into a quiet street pretending to bring him to a prostitute, and with two friends rob the man by threatening him with guns. After the tourist complies, the three carry out a mock execution, revealing that the guns are only water guns.
About same time, Veronica, a young woman from Poland, arrives at the airport together with a girlfriend, where they are met by a group who had promised to get them to Los Angeles, but instead they\'re, in fact, being kidnapped, and when they realize this, in a struggle to get away, the friend is hit and killed by a car.
Against her mother\'s order, Adriana sneaks out to ride her new bike. When she notices a car following her, she tries to get away, but is captured and taken to the place where Veronica, several Latin American women, and a young Thai boy are also kept. The gang leader pushes Veronica to bed as his henchman begins to videotape. Veronica tries to fight back but is overpowered. As Veronica is being raped, she flashes back and realizes how the traders had conspired and arranged the entire trip, to sell her into sexual slavery.


# Trade (film)
Jorge sees a boy riding the bicycle he has given to Adriana, suspects that he has stolen it, and stops him. The boy says he has found the bike on the street, and shows the place he found it. Her things still on the street indicate that she was kidnapped. Jorge asks his friends to help him find her, but when an adult adviser tells the boys the kidnappers belong to a powerful globally operating Russian gangster network, they refuse. Jorge finds out that the kidnappers \"sell\" their victims as sex slaves through a connection in New Jersey.
While Jorge asks people if they have seen his sister, he sees her among the other victims as they are hurried into a truck by the kidnappers. He steals his friends\' car and uses it to follow the kidnappers. As he approaches the border, he sees the truck. Two policemen approach the truck and allow them to cross, in exchange for cash and sex. One of the police is allowed to choose a victim to rape, and Veronica is chosen. The gangster evacuates everyone from the truck except for the policeman and Veronica as she is raped again. Jorge manages to follow the van to Juárez, but then loses track of it.
Adriana, Veronica and the Thai boy are smuggled into the US, but the group is caught by the US Border Patrol. The gang members keep the kidnapped people from telling the police that they were kidnapped by threatening to harm their families. The kidnappers and victims are sent back to Mexico, after which they sneak into the US again.
When Jorge finally finds the house where the victims were kept, they are already gone. A car with Texas license plates arrives. While the driver Ray (Kevin Kline) looks through the house, Jorge manages to hide in the trunk of the car. He thereby illegally crosses the border into the USA. Jorge reveals himself and tells about the kidnapping, and Ray, a federal insurance fraud investigator, brings Jorge to a police station to report the kidnapping. However, Jorge, who came along reluctantly, flees, suspicious about police. Ray finds Jorge and decides to help him to rescue his sister, and slowly they become friends. It is learned that Ray was in Juárez to search for his extra-marital daughter, who was also probably sold.


# Trade (film)
Jorge and Ray travel to New Jersey, where the victims are being taken and where an internet auction will be held to sell them to the highest bidder. The Thai boy is drugged by an injection in his neck and delivered to an elderly man who buys him. At a rest-stop diner with Ray, Jorge recognizes the little boy, and Ray frees him and forces the man to tell the password of the internet site of the auction.
Adriana is forced to have oral sex with a customer in a field; the gang members tell the customer that he cannot have intercourse with her, because at the auction she has to be sold as a virgin. At a stop, Adriana and Veronica manage to escape. Veronica sees a policeman and tells Adriana to tell him what is happening, while Veronica herself phones her parents in Poland to tell them, but learns that her little son has already been taken by the criminal organization. Adriana fails to tell the policeman, and during the phone call Adriana and Veronica are recaptured by the kidnappers. At another stop, Veronica commits suicide by jumping from a cliff, telling the kidnapper that he will pay for his sins. The kidnapper arrives with Adriana at a house where his female boss keeps more victims. She scolds him for losing Veronica.


# Trade (film)
Ray and Jorge ask the New Jersey police to free Adriana, but they refuse; it would disrupt their strategy against the larger criminal organization the gang is part of. Ray gets consent by phone from his wife to withdraw a large sum of money from their bank account for a purpose not told to her, and, assisted by Jorge, participates in the auction and buys the girl for \$32,000, to free her. Ray visits the house where she is kept, bringing the money. However, he asks the female boss where she is from, making her suspicious. Due to the intense green eye color and approximate age of the female boss, it is implied that she is Ray\'s long-lost daughter. He has to prove that he is not a cop by having sex with Adriana in a room in the house. He does not do that; instead Adriana on purpose goes in the washroom and comes back with blood on her hand and smears the bedsheet. The kidnapper comes in to check on them, and understands that in spite of the blood on the sheet they have not had sex. Adriana reminds him of what Veronica said before she died, and in his guilty conscience he cooperates and tells his female boss that the defilement did take place. As they leave, Jorge arrives and hits the man on the head with a tire iron, and the police, checking on the house after all, arrest the two kidnappers and free several children they find in the basement. The money Ray brought is returned to him. He gives it to Jorge, and recommends that he stays out of trouble back in Mexico. Jorge puts the money secretly back into Ray\'s car when they say goodbye. Jorge and Adriana are flown to Mexico. Adriana is worried that because she disappeared for so long, with no explanation, her mother will be mad, but in reality she is overjoyed that she is back. Jorge finds the leader of the kidnappers and kills him, only to discover that the man had a young son.


# Trade (film)
- Kevin Kline as Ray Sheridan, a fraud investigator who helps Jorge search for his sister when he finds him.
- Cesar Ramos as Jorge, the trouble making 17-year-old brother of Adriana.
- Alicja Bachleda as Veronica, a Polish tourist who is kidnapped.
- Paulina Gaitán as Adriana, Jorge\'s younger sister who is also kidnapped.
- Marco Pérez as Manuelo
- Linda Emond as Patty Sheridan
- Zack Ward as Alex Green
- Kate del Castillo as Laura
- Tim Reid as Hank Jefferson
- Pasha D. Lychnikoff as Vadim Youchenko
- Natalia Traven as Lupe
- Leland Pascual as Thai Boy, a ten-year-old boy who is also kidnapped. He is the only boy that was kidnapped.
*Trade* received mixed to negative reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 34% approval rating, based on 73 reviews with an average rating of 5/10. The website\'s critics consensus reads: \"With an exploitative style that seems more suited for TV shows like *CSI*, *Trade*s message about the reality of child exploitation is easily lost\". On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 42 out of 100, based on 22 reviews indicating \"mixed or average reviews\".
Robert Koehler of *Variety* said that \"With all of the earmarks of being a serious and thoughtful drama written and based on Peter Landesman\'s investigative work on the international sex slave trade network, it comes as something of a shock to discover that the final film is little more than a exploitative thriller\".
Jeannette Catsoulis of *The New York Times* called *Trade* \"an eagerly prurient dip into the sex-trafficking trough\", adding that \"it teeters between earnest exposé and salacious melodrama, but criticizing film\'s \"near-visible weight of conscience\", which if not for it, would have guaranteed a success in the second category.
The film opened in limited release in the United States and Canada on September 28, 2007 and grossed an estimated \$114,000 in 90 theaters, an average of \$1,266 per theater.
- Abduction of Chloe Ayling


# The Invasion (film)
***The Invasion*** is a 2007 American science fiction horror film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, with additional scenes written by The Wachowskis and directed by James McTeigue, and starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. The plot follows a psychiatrist (Kidman) in Washington, D.C. who finds those around her turning into emotionless beings shortly after a major space shuttle crash.
Development of the film began in 2004. Warner Bros. hired David Kajganich to write what was intended to be a remake of the 1956 film *Invasion of the Body Snatchers*, but Kajganich crafted a different story as an original conception and to reflect contemporary times. Principal photography began in September 2005. The film was released on August 17, 2007, and grossed \$40.2 million against a \$65--80 million budget.
*The Invasion* is the fourth film adaptation of the 1955 novel *The Body Snatchers* by Jack Finney, following Don Siegel\'s 1956 film, Philip Kaufman\'s 1978 film, and Abel Ferrara\'s 1993 *Body Snatchers.*
After a Space Shuttle crashes on Earth, a fungus-like alien lifeform is discovered on the remaining parts scattered widely over the United States. Once people are infected by the organism, and REM sleep occurs, the organism takes control. One of the first people infected is Tucker Kaufman, a CDC director investigating the crash.
Tucker\'s ex-wife, psychiatrist Carol Bennell, begins to feel something is amiss when people seem to have \"changed\". Her patient, Wendy Lenk (played by Veronica Cartwright, who appeared in the 1978 film version as Nancy Bellicec), describes how her husband \"is not (her) husband\", and one of Carol\'s son\'s friends acts detached and emotionless.


# The Invasion (film)
At a neighborhood Halloween party, Carol\'s son Oliver finds an unusual patch of \"skin\" on a partier, which is initially believed to be costume makeup. Carol speculates that the skin may be connected to reports of a fast-spreading flu. Carol takes the sample to her doctor friend Ben Driscoll to have it analyzed. Carol and Oliver later witness a car accident where a troubled woman is killed. Carol approaches the crash scene to give a witness statement, but an emotionless cop takes down her plates and orders her back to her car. Afterwards, Carol drops Oliver off at Tucker\'s house for the weekend.
Later, that night, Ben and Carol attend a friendly dinner meeting between Russian diplomat Yorish and Czech diplomat Belicec (along with his wife Luddie). Carol and Yorish debate the violent nature of humans over caviar and champagne. Meanwhile, Tucker uses the CDC to spread the disease further, disguising the spores as flu vaccine and Carol, upon returning home, is attacked by a \"census department\" worker who tries to break into her house.
Ben and Dr. Stephen Galeano, a biologist, discover how the spore takes over the brain during REM sleep. During this investigation, Luddie calls Ben, worried about Yorish\'s behavior. Driscoll and Galeano also find that people who had brain-affecting illnesses, such as encephalitis or ADEM, are immune to the spore because their previous illnesses prevent the spore from \"latching on\" to the brain matter. Oliver is immune to the spore because of the ADEM he had as a young child. Carol decides to get her son, who might show a way to a cure, back from Tucker. Before she drives to Tucker\'s house, she joins Ben\'s team who is called to the house of the Belicecs, the Czech ambassador and his wife, in a case of emergency. There they witness the transformation of Yorish (the Russian ambassador) and the Belicecs\' friend.