Blanche Baker

When their leader crawls into a box to escape their realm, 5 wildy different men and women go through a post-bohemian quantum moment of clarity, attempting to crush and bend the rules dictated by their omnipresent creator and ultimately escape their predetermined fate.

In a quiet suburban town in the summer of 1958, two recently orphaned sisters are placed in the care of their mentally unstable Aunt Ruth. But Ruth's depraved sense of discipline will soon lead to unspeakable acts of abuse and torture. In a quiet suburban town in the summer of 1958, two recently orphaned sisters are placed in the care of their mentally unstable Aunt Ruth (Emmy winner Blanche Baker of Holocaust). But Ruth's depraved sense of discipline will soon lead to unspeakable acts of abuse and torture that involve her young sons, the neighborhood children, and one 12-year-old boy whose life will be changed forever. William Atherton (Die Hard), Catherine Mary Stewart (Night of the Comet) and Grant Show (Melrose Place) co-star in this devastating drama adapted from the controversial best seller by Jack Ketchum that Rue Morgue Magazine called "one of the most disturbing reads in the history of horror literature."

Under a dystopian religious tyranny, most women cannot conceive children. Those young women who can live in a form of sexual slavery to provide children for influential families. In a future dystopian land (formerly the United States of America), the story tells of Kate, a "handmaid". Kate is a criminal, guilty of the crime of trying to escape and sentenced to become a Handmaid. Handmaids' sole function is to bear the children of influential men whose wives (like most women) have been rendered infertile due to pollution. After rigorous group training by "Aunt" Lydia ("Aunts" train and discipline handmaids) in the proper way to behave, Kate is assigned as Handmaid to the Commander. Kate is attracted to Nick, the Commander's chauffeur. At the same time, a resistance movement begins to challenge the regime. —Reid Gagle (updated by R.M. Sieger) In the not-too-distant future, the USA has become the Republic of Gilead. It is a tyrannically run state that brutally suppresses all opposition, whose policies are based primarily on the Old Testament and which downgrades women in particular to mere child bearers and deprives them of all rights. Former librarian Kate therefore tries to flee Gilead with her husband and their daughter. However, she is intercepted at the border and ends up as a "servant" of the state in the household of Commander Fred, one of the leading military officers in Gilead, and his wife Serena. They need Kate primarily for the purpose of procreation and henceforth call her "Offred". However, when she learns that Fred is incapable of procreating, Kate sees her position in jeopardy, as her predecessors have also been solely blamed for her failure to conceive. In her situation, Kate believes the best strategy is to maintain a good relationship with both the commander and his wife, especially as they both have ways of finding out where their daughter is. Through the commander's chauffeur, Nick, Kate hopes to escape, but must continue to be obedient. Her situation becomes untenable over time, and when she sees how her friends treat servants who do not fulfill their duties, she wants to act as quickly as possible. —Arte Following a coup, America is a country still at war with itself and ruled by a repressive Bible-inspired regime. Past pollution means only 1% of women can bear children, and anyone committing a crime and found to be a potential mother is put into an institution run by "Aunts" to be indoctrinated. One such young woman is Kate, who is turned over to Fred, a high ranking member of the security forces, to attempt to procreate. Kate then becomes known as "Offred" (for property "of Fred"). Serena, Fred's wife, is jealous and vicious. The state's grip seems to be tightening but Kate still has her own mind and she finds some other people who are prepared to resist. —Jeremy Perkins {J-26} (updated by R.M. Sieger)

Awkward high school sophomore Samantha "Sam" Baker (Molly Ringwald) struggles to get through her 16th birthday, which her entire family forgets because her older sister, Ginny (Blanche Baker), is getting married the next day to a sleazy guy whose father may be involved in organized crime. Sam is also plagued by her ongoing infatuation with popular and attractive senior Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling). Her day at school fares no better when only one of her friends acknowledges her birthday, she finds out that her completed "sex quiz," which she surreptitiously slipped to her friend, never reached her (and, unbeknownst to either of them, was intercepted by Jake Ryan himself). Sam panics, as the quiz contains personal information, including the fact that she is a virgin and is saving herself for Jake. At the same time, she doesn't know that Jake has the hots for her as well, but is too insecure to even talk to her. Samantha has a whole new set of problems when she arrives home to find that both sets of grandparents are staying there for the duration of the wedding visit. On top of it all, one set of grandparents is occupying her room and have brought along their bizarre Chinese exchange student Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe). Sam's grandparents force her to take him along to her school dance that night and, to Sam's amazement, it takes "The Donger" only five minutes to find an unlikely girlfriend: the tallish, large-breasted jock, Marlene, promptly nicknamed "Lumberjack." A running subplot involves a geeky freshman, (Anthony Michael Hall) who continually (and unsuccessfully) tries to bed his love interest, Sam, to satisfy a bet with his friends. The character is referred to on several occasions in the movie as either "Ted" or "Farmer Ted", but he is credited solely as "the Geek." On the dance floor, he boldly confronts Sam and does a wild bit of dancing in front of her friends and she runs out of the gymnasium embarrassed and in tears. In the auto-shop room during the dance, Sam, who'd retreated there to hide, and Ted begin talking, and Sam confesses her love for Jake. Upon hearing this, Ted tells her that Jake has been asking about her at the dance, and they agree that Sam should just go and talk to him. As she's leaving, Ted reveals the wager to Sam, who, in her excited state, agrees to loan him her panties to help him win a dozen floppy disks. She goes to confront Jake and though he appears happy to see her, she freezes up and runs away. Later (after a peepshow of Sam's panties for $1 admission, which she does not find out about until the next day), Ted and his equally unwelcome friends, Cliff (Darren Harris) and Bryce (John Cusack), crash the senior after-party at Jake's house during which the entire house is completely trashed. A small group of beer-chugging jocks pin Farmer Ted under a glass table, abduct his two geek friends, and take them for a joyride in the trunk of their car before releasing them unharmed at their home. At night's end, Jake finds Ted trapped under the table and they begin to talk. Jake inquires further about Sam, and Ted explains the situation. Jake makes a deal with Ted: If Ted lets Jake keep Sam's panties, then he will let Ted drive home his inebriated, stuck-up, prom queen girlfriend, Carolyn Mulford (Haviland Morris), in Jake's father's Rolls Royce. They never get home because the very drunk Carolyn makes moves on Ted while he's driving before passing out. Ted the Geek takes the opportunity to drive over to Cliff and Bryce's house to ask them to take a photo of him with Carolyn together in the back seat of the car. The inept duo snap a picture but only half of Ted's face is visible. Back at Sam's home, her father, having a short bout of insomnia over the chaos of the wedding, talks to Sam, who's stuck sleeping on the couch. He apologizes for forgetting her birthday. Her father still senses that Sam is upset over something and gently presses her to talk to him. Embarrassed at first, she admits that's she's sad because of her crush on Jake, feeling he wouldn't ever want her. Her father boosts her spirits by telling her that if Jake isn't interested in her, then he's worthy of her, mentioning that she's smart, pretty and should feel more secure about herself. Sam seems to feel a great deal of relief. The next morning, during the ensuing madness with all her obnoxious relatives, Sam's mother apologizes for forgetting her birthday. When Sam's mother tells her rude and obnoxious little brother to wish Sam a happy birthday, drops a rude comment and walks away, leaving the two to laugh over his ignorance. The family drive to the church, after taking care of a passed out Dong, whom they find passed out on the front lawn, drunk and bruised up after his evening with Marlene somehow went south. At the church the very nervous Ginny, who'd taken a few too many tranquilizers because her period had come early and left her miserable, causes a scene throughout the wedding ceremony. Meanwhile, Jake goes on a search for Samantha at her house, only to find Dong there getting over his hangover. Dong tells him where Sam went. Jake finds Carolyn and Ted the Geek passed out in the back seat of the Rolls in a nearby parking lot, where he uses the excuse of finding them together to break up with Carolyn (who had surprisingly fallen for Ted, and thus doesn't mind the breakup very much). Afterward, Jake drives to the church just in time to meet an incredulous Sam after her sister's wedding. Jake admits his attraction to her and invites her over to his house rather than to Ginny's wedding reception. Sam accepts and the story concludes with Jake and Samantha sitting in front of a birthday cake. Jake tells her to make a wish. She replies that it already came true and they kiss.

The believable, fresh-faced characters are naive American college students; armed with their French-English dictionaries they compulsively seek out hundreds of monuments, romanticize the nomadic artist's life, and look for grown-up love. A group of American exchange students comes to Paris to study the language and culture for a year. The film depicts the various interactions between the students and the instructors, including the pretty female director of the institute where they are enrolled. —Ari Herzog <ari@ici.net>