Theresa Russell

In the final installment of the series, Peter Parker unwittingly bonds with an extraterrestrial symbiote, bringing out his dark side as he battles more enemies than ever before.

Passionada is a romantic comedy about a Portuguese widow whose husband, a fisherman, died at sea. The widow's naive teenage daughter wants to be a professional gambler and she convinces her mother to date a British man who's new in town. The widow falls for the Brit, a professional gambler who pretends to be in the fishing business. —Anonymous Passionada is the story of three generations of Portuguese women in the fishing community of New Bedford, MA. The protagonist, Sally Amonte, is still mourning the loss of her deceased husband and though she is young and beautiful, has resigned herself to working in the textile mill, caring for her elderly mother-in-law, and worrying about her rebellious teenage daughter. Her husband was the love of her life and she does not expect to find another. Charlie Beck is a handsome British charmer, he arrives in a vintage sports car and woos Sally until he sweeps her off her feet. Unfortunately, he neglects to mention that he is a professional gambler with bad instincts and that the Jaguar is borrowed. Sally's daughter, Vicky, is aware of Beck's chosen profession and threatens to tell her Mom (who Beck has fallen in love with) about it unless he tutors her in the art of card counting. —Anonymous

In the upscale Miami suburb of Blue Bay, wealthy student Kelly Van Ryan (Denise Richards) accuses her high school guidance counselor, Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon), of sexually assaulting her. It was a Friday and Lombardo had just returned from a yacht class, late in the evening, while Kelly had completed her cheer-leading training. Kelly offers to wash Lombardo's car as part of the senior car wash program. Kelly arrives at Lombardo's place on Sunday with her friend Nicole (Toi Svane Stepp). Lombardo loves to take his air-boat to explore the Florida Everglades alone. Lombardo had been gone all Saturday and on Sunday the car was nice and dirty for the girls. Lombardo was dating Barbara (Jennifer Taylor). After the wash, Kelly asks Nicole to leave, and enters Lombardo's home. Barbara was already at the club. A short while later, Kelly exits the home looking livid. Kelly misses school on Monday and her mother Sandra talks to her, where she admits to Lombadro assaulting her. Sandra immediately lodges a complaint with the police. Kelly gives her testimony to the police and says that Lombardo did not ejaculate inside her. Detective Gloria Perez (Daphne Rubin-Vega) believes that Kelly is acting, but cannot get her to take a lie detector test as in Blue Bay Sandra is too powerful. Following the accusation, her outcast classmate Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell), who comes from a poor family in the Everglades, makes a similar accusation. Sam hires attorney Kenneth Bowden (Bill Murray) to defend him. Based on Suzie's testimony, specifically when she utters a phrase that apparently Lombardo said to her, which matched exactly to Kelly's testimony, Lombardo is arrested. Bowden is the only attorney in the Bay area who would go up against the Van Ryans. Barbara breaks up with Lombardo and he is expelled from the local club. At trial, Suzie succumbs to pressure during cross-examination and admits that she and Kelly concocted the false allegations to get revenge on Sam. Suzie was seeking revenge for Sam's failure to bail her out of jail on a minor drug charge, and Kelly was seeking revenge for Sam's affair with her mother, real estate heiress Sandra Van Ryan (Theresa Russell). Sam and Kenneth negotiate an $8.5 million settlement for defamation, which Sandra pays out using funds from a trust Kelly would receive only upon Sandra's death. After the payout, it is revealed that Sam and the two girls were accomplices, using the trial to extort money from Sandra. It is revealed that the three had been working and sleeping together and planned to split the money. Police detective Ray Duquette suspects the trio is working on a scam. Against the wishes of the district attorney's office, he continues investigating Sam. Ray (Kevin Bacon) tells both Kelly and Suzie that Lombardo transferred the money to an offshore account. Suzie starts to panic and goes to Kelly for help. Kelly assures Suzie that they can trust each other but separately tells Lombardo over the phone that they may have to get rid of her. Suzie overhears this and attacks Kelly in the pool. Both girls fight but eventually end up having sex in the pool. A few nights later, Kelly and Lombardo take an intoxicated Suzie to the beach. Lombardo is seen raising a bottle, and then Suzie is heard screaming. After wrapping the body in plastic, they throw it in the trunk of the car and drive out to the swamp, where Lombardo disposes of it. Suzie is reported missing by her family the next day and Duquette and his partner, Gloria (Daphne Rubin-Vega), are called in. Suzie's blood and teeth are later found on the beach and her car is found at the bus terminal. After seeing his continued investigation, his superior insists that he drop the case. Sam shows Gloria his files from the school on Kelly, which suggests she is troubled and violent. Regardless, he goes to Kelly's house to confront her. When he arrives, Kelly tries to seduce him and then she appears to attack him, shooting him in the arm, leaving him no choice but to kill her in self-defense. No charges are filed against Duquette, but he is fired and loses his pension. Later, it is revealed that Lombardo and Duquette had been working together the entire time. Although Lombardo is not pleased that Duquette killed Kelly instead of framing her as originally planned, Duquette insists that it leaves fewer loose ends. The two agree to go fishing on Lombardo's sailboat the following day. Once they are at sea, Lombardo knocks Duquette overboard, but he is able to climb back aboard and attack Lombardo. However, he is shot in the leg with a spear by Suzie, who is still alive. She shoots and kills Duquette as revenge for killing her friend, Davie, years before. Suzie then poisons Lombardo with a drink she poured for him and knocks him overboard, leaving him to drown. It is then revealed that Suzie had planned the whole thing in order to get all the money and revenge on both Lombardo and Duquette: Lombardo for leaving her in jail for a minor crime of possession for which she was imprisoned for 6 months, and Duquette for killing her friend Davie. Upon finding that Sam and Kelly were in a sexual relationship, Suzie blackmailed Sam with photographs of the two using drugs during sex, convincing him to help with her scheme. Suzie subsequently orchestrated the meeting between Sam and Ray at a local bar. During her staged murder on the beach, Suzie pulled out her own teeth with pliers to make her death appear legitimate. Ray shot Kelly first before shooting himself in the shoulder to pretend he killed her in self-defense. As for Kelly's death, she had not attacked Duquette as he had claimed. In reality, when she tried to escape the guest house when he entered, he punched her to incapacitate her then broke into the gun case and shot her twice with his gun. He then used her hand to shoot himself in the shoulder with her gun. Finally, with Kelly, Ray, and Sam all dead, Suzie is met by Kenneth, who gives her a briefcase full of cash that he describes as "just walking around money" and a check for millions of dollars. As she leaves, he tells her to "be good" before taking her drink.

This is an anthology film featuring 10 different segments told entirely in the song of opera. "Un ballo in maschera" A fictionalized account of a 1931 assassination attempt on King Zog of Albania (Theresa Russell) in Vienna, Austria during his visit to an opera house. It is notable for his shooting back at his three would-be assassins and surviving. Directed by Nicolas Roeg (14 minutes) "La vergine degli angeli" from La forza del destino (Filmed in black and white) Three London teenagers named Marie (Nicola Swain), Travis (Jackson Kyle), and Kate (Marianne McLaughlin) skip school and steal a car. They go for a joyride around North London until the police give chase. They wreck the car and flee on foot after setting it on fire and get away with no one the wiser. Directed by Charles Sturridge (5 minutes) "Armide" Two cleaning women (Marion Peterson and Valérie Allain) try to attract the attention of oblivious bodybuilders at a local gym in Paris. But the bodybuilders are too focused on their workouts then pay attention to the two young women... even when they strip off all of their clothes and pose completely naked. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard (11 minutes) "Rigoletto" A hilarious bedroom farce set in San Luis Obispo's famous Madonna Inn, in which a Hollywood movie producer named Preston (Buck Henry) cheats on his wife Phoebe (Anita Morris) with a fashion model Gilda (Beverly D'Angelo), unaware that Phoebe, too, is there with a clandestine lover of her own named Jake (Gary Kasper). Despite never running into each other, Preston and Phoebe return home and watch a lovemaking tape of their adventure, only to discover that the motel valet switched tapes with them by accident and Preston and Phoebe's infidelity is exposed. (This is one of the few segments with actual dialogue.) Directed by Julien Temple (14 minutes) "Glück, das mir verblieb" from Die tote Stadt" A look at the seemingly-dead city of Bruges, Belgium. Scenic footage of the empty streets and cemeteries is inter-cut with a opera duet of two lovers, as a beautiful virgin named Mariette (Elizabeth Hurley) is stripped naked by her lover Paul (Peter Birch) and, after she expresses her affection for him, she loses her virginity to him. Directed by Bruce Beresford (5 minutes) "Les Boréades" A re-creation of opening night at Paris's Théâtre Le Ranelagh in 1734. The audience is filled with a raffish assortment of inmates from an insane asylum. Featuring Julie Hagerty, Geneviève Page, Sandrine Dumas, and Chris Campion as some of the inmates. Directed by Robert Altman (7 minutes) "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde Two young teenage lovers (Bridget Fonda and James Mathers) arrive in Las Vegas. After driving down Fremont Street, they check into a hotel room where they have very hot and passionate sex. Afterwords, while taking a bath, they both kill themselves in a suicide pact by slashing their wrists and die holding one another in the bathtub. Directed by Franc Roddam (7 minutes) "Nessun dorma" from Turandot After a car crash, a lovely young woman (Linzi Drew) has a near-death experience where she imagines her body is being adorned by jewels mirroring her injuries, in a tribal ritual parallel to the procedures of the surgical team treating her, until she wakes up in the operating room after resuscitation. Directed by Ken Russell (7 minutes) "Depuis le jour" from Louise A veteran opera singer (Amy Johnson) gives her final performance, inter-cut by 8mm home movies of an early love affair between her younger self (Tila Swinton) and a guy (Spencer Leigh). Directed by Derek Jarman (6 minutes) "Vesti la giubba" from Pagliacci A has-been actor (John Hurt) remembers his happier days while arriving at an opera house, visiting the dressing room to put on his clown makeup, and performing the aria for his audience of one; a young woman (Sophie Ward) who sits in the only occupied box in the theater. (This story provides a vague framing narrative to link together the other segments.) Directed by Bill Bryden (4 minutes)

He had everything and wanted nothing. He learned that he had nothing and wanted everything. He saved the world and then it shattered. The path to enlightenment is as sharp and narrow as a razor's edge. Larry Darrell returns from the battlefields of World War I to America a different person. His fiance (Isabel) resigns herself to a delay in the wedding plans when Larry heads off to Paris. There he finds he prefers a simpler existence and begins to read. One book inspires him to visit India and on to Nepal where he finds spiritual help from a lama. On returning to Paris he finds Isabel and some old friends. Everyone has changed. —Rob Hartill Second filming of W. Somerset Maughan's classic novel about a World War 1 veteran (played by Bill Murray) who travels the world from Tibet to Paris in an attempt to find some meaning in his life. —Jonathan Broxton <j.w.broxton@sheffield.ac.uk>

The difficulties of a career burglar to reinsert himself after being released on parole. After 6 years in prison, career criminal Max Dembo is released on parole. He wants to go straight, but doesn't like the restrictions of parole, much to his parole officer Earl Frank's chagrin. Some conditions--living in a halfway house, not associating with past friends and associates, no driving, and no drugs--could be more difficult than he imagines especially as his encounters with Earl become increasingly tense. Max deals with Earl the same way he deals with everything: his way or no way. Through his life in the outside world, he embarks on a relationship with Jenny Mercer, an employment-agency clerk he meets while looking for a job. Jenny knows about his past criminal history, but he ends up only telling her so much of his current life if only to protect her, just in case.