Abel Ferrara

An exploration into the language of dreams. Clint is a dead man who lives alone in a frozen tundra. However, this isolation cannot bring either evasion or peace. One night, he begins a journey where he must confront his dreams, memories, and visions, crossing the darkness into the light.

The story of an American artist living in Rome with his young European wife Nikki and their 3-year-old daughter, Dee Dee.

Marti Malone (Gabrielle Anwar) is a teenager alienated from her newly remarried father, an agent from the Environmental Protection Agency (Terry Kinney) and her new stepmother (Meg Tilly), and her 10-year-old brother Andy. Marti's father has been assigned to this remote military base on an assignment to check for contaminates which may be the cause of a recent outburst of mass hysteria on the base. Before arriving, the family stops at a rural gas station where Marti encounters a wild-eyed serviceman who tells her that "they are everywhere." When Marti runs to tell her father, the serviceman is gone. Upon arrival, Marti attempts to fit in with her new enviroment, hanging around with the base commander's rebellious daughter, and by flirting with a handsome attack helicopter pilot, Tim Young (Wirth). While examining a soil specimen, Marti's father is approached by a man named Major Collins (Forrest Whitaker), who asks him about psychological effects particularly narcophobia (the fear of sleep), saying that many people on the base are now frightened of sleep and are paranoid and suspicious. Marti's father doesn't take the Major very seriously. He is forced to take it seriously, however after extremely high levels of toxicity and mutant plant life are discovered on the base. That night, Marti Malone's step-brother approaches his sleeping mother, but she crumbles to dust as her soulless and egotistical pod double exits from the closet. Donning a nightgown, the pod-woman engages in an attempt to convince her husband that the pod invasion is a good thing, claiming it will cause the death of confusion and anger. She also claims that there's no place at all to go, as the invasion is not an isolated incident. He is almost shocked and saddened into compliance, but Marti and her step-brother arrive and drag her father out the door. His pod-wife dashes to the door and emits a shrill and mechanical scream that alerts her comrades to the danger of a human being. For the rest of the movie, Marti and her father and Andy are chased across the base by the taken over soldiers and civilians on the base, where they encounter a few remaining humans who join them and are also are chased by the pods. Searchlights go on, and the pod clones swarm over the base. Hiding Marti and Andy in a warehouse filled with barrels of poisonous waste, Marti's father promises to find help. He sneaks up to the window of Major Collins' office and enters by smashing a window. Inside, he finds the hysterical Major attempting to call for help, but gets blocked on the other end of the line by the bureaucratic pod-people. At first, he suspects Marti's father of being a pod-man, but when he realizes he isn't, he explains while wolfing down sleep-prevention pills that it is too late for running; all they can do is fight. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the fearsome pod-people, led by the base commander. Marti's father hides. Instead of shooting all of the pod-people with his gun, the Major allows them to try to convince him that the individual is never important, and that only mindlessness and heartlessness can solve problems. He shoots himself rather than live in such a world. Marti's father returns to Marti and Andy, and asks them to follow him, claiming to have found a way out. They drive aimlessly through the military base, as loudspeakers shout out instructions for spreading the invasion by carrying out pods in trucks. Frightened by all this, Marti asks her father where exactly they're going. He never gives her a straight answer, instead replying. "I know what I'm doing. Don't worry...I know exactly what I'm doing." Realizing that her father was "podded" while he was away, she swerves the car to the side and tries to escape with her brother, but her father tries to keep her in the van. Adding to all this is the helicopter pilot, Tim Young, who still hasn't figured out what has been going on, stepping onto the scene, and Marti takes his gun and shoots her pod-father dead. The pilot is horrified to see him shrink into a mass of seething and bloody goo. Marti, Tim, and Andy hide out in a nearby hanger where Tim tells them that it's too dangerous to be spotted in the open, so he'll go alone. As soon as he goes in, he is approached by the Pod-people, and pretends to be a pod-man, and although the pod-people suspect strongly that he's a human, they can't find any evidence and let him go. While he's starting up the helicopter, several of the pod-people approach Marti and Andy. Tim sees this from the air and follows them to a building on the base where humans are being duplicated. Tim lands the helicopter and enters the building to look for Marti, and finds her, nearly taken over by her pod clone on the bed next to her. Tim manages to revive her before the transformation is complete. Marti and Tim leave the building, pretending to be emotionless so they can get to Tim's helicopter to escape. However, they are spotted and confronted by the commander's daughter, whom gets suspicious and tells Marti that she saw Andy somewhere, and when Marti reacts, the game is up. Marti and Tim are forced to run to the helicopter and are joined at the last minute by Andy who runs up to them. However after taking off, Any attacks Tim, and Marti is forced to throw her taken-over brother out of the helicopter to his death on the ground far below. At dawn, Marti and Tim return to the military base and attack with with rockets and bombs from the helicopter's armaments, and destroy the pod-making facility and most of the pods and their clones with it. The final scene has Marti and Tim flying away in their helicopter and landing at a military base near the city of Atlanta where the ending of the film is an ambiguous one, quoting Marti's infected stepmother earlier in the film, suggesting that the phenomenon has already spread far beyond the army base, and nowhere, or nobody, is really safe: "Where are you gonna go, where are you gonna run, where are you gonna hide? Nowhere... 'cause there's no one like you left." The End

In a New York City dance club, a teenage Chinese girl, named Tyan "Tye" Hwa (Sari Chang), meets and dances with a teenage Italian boy, Tony Monte (Richard Panebianco), much to the consternation of the many other Chinese and Italians in the club. Tye's protective older brother, Yung Gan (Russell Wong), and his friends chase Tony out of the club and through the streets. Tony makes it to Canal Street, the dividing line between Little Italy and Chinatown, and thinks he is safe. After some hesitation, the Chinese gang crosses the border and chases Tony through Little Italy. When Tony runs into an alley and finds a locked gate, it looks like he is about to be beaten with bats and chains. Just then, Tony's older brother, Alberto "Alby" Monte (James Russo), and his friends show up. A fight ensues, but police arrive and everyone runs away. The next day, Tye's girl friends encourage her to go back to the club to see if Tony is there. However, Yung Gan tells her to socialize in their own neighborhood or stay home. Meanwhile, Alby comes into the pizzeria where Tony works and tells his brother to stay out of Chinatown. A Chinese restaurant, the Canton Garden, has just opened in Little Italy, replacing an Italian trattoria. A Chinese gang, led by Yung Gan, comes into the restaurant demanding weekly protection money, telling the owner that being in Little Italy does not mean he can avoid the paying the gang. They steal the $150 in the cash register and tell the owner to bring the remainder owed in the morning. However, when they get back to their car, an Italian gang arrives and starts beating them up. An older Chinese man, named Gung Tu (James Hong), tells Yung Gan that he must be patient. Twenty years ago, the Italians "owned" forty blocks north of Chinatown, but now they only "own" three. Gung Tu predicts that in five years, the Italians will be completely gone, but in the meantime, he advises that peace is good for the neighborhood and bloodshed is bad. Yung Gan heeds the advice and tells the other gang members not to fight the Italians or give the Canton Garden owners any problems. That night, as Tye sits on the fire escape outside her family's apartment, Tony comes into the alley and properly introduces himself. He invites Tye to meet him the next night at the 13th street subway station. Tye and Tony go to the Midtown Cat Club (where no one knows them) where they spend the entire night dancing together. The next day, Alby visits Enrico Perito (Robert Miano), a middle-aged businessman, in Little Italy. Perito tells him that the problem with the Chinese will be handled and to stay out of it. That night, a group of Chinese youth throws a bomb into the Canton Garden restaurant. Upset over the damage to people and stores on the block, Alby gets a gun and goes to Chinatown to retaliate. Also angry about the bombing, Yung Gan and the Chinese gang confront the rogue gang members who threw the bomb. The two factions of the Chinese gang get into a knife fight just as Alby and his friends drive up, firing a machine gun. When the Chinese run away, the Italians give chase. Alby gets cut by a Chinese teenager with a knife. Alby's friend, Johnny Mercury (David Caruso), fires his machine gun into all the buildings in the area. The wise elder Gung Tu meets with Enrico Perito, saying they must control their youth. Later, Yung Gan stabs the young man who threw the bomb into Canton Garden. When the man pulls the knife out of his stomach, Alby and a group of Italians come up from behind and stab him in the back, killing him. They hang his body from power lines over the intersection. The next day, Tony and Tye meet for dinner. She worries what will happen if people find out about the two of them. He tells her nothing matters but the two of them and they cannot let others run their lives. That night, they make love for the first time. The next day, Johnny Mercury begins harassing the owner of the Canton Garden, who has a food booth at an Italian street fair. Tony tells Mercury that the Chinese do not deserve to be harassed. Mercury wonders why Tony is suddenly defending the Chinese. Tye and Tony meet in an alley, but Yung Gan and other gang members catch them together and pull a knife on Tony. Two policemen on horseback arrive, telling them to go their separate ways. As they walk back home, Yung Gan slaps Tye in the face. Some Chinese gang members stab Alby in the stomach and he dies in the hallway of his apartment building. At Alby's funeral, Enrico Perito promises vengeance for Alby's death. Tony questions how killing someone else will bring his brother back. After the funeral, Tony stands in front of Tye's apartment building, yelling for her to come to him. She rushes outside into his arms. Yung Gan confronts her, but Tye says she loves Tony. Yung Gan orders her back inside, saying they are going back to Hong Kong, but she refuses. Yung Gan tells Tye she is no longer Chinese. Tye and Tony walk through the streets together, openly showing affection for each other. One of the rogue Chinese gang members shoots both Tye and Tony in the middle of the street, killing both of them.