Tim Guinee

In 1840s Maryland, a slave state, Araminta "Minty" Ross (Cynthia Erivo) is newly married to a freedman, John Tubman (Zackary Momoh), but still a slave herself on the Brodess farm, along with her mother and sister, while two other sisters had been sold to another slave owner in the South. Her father, also a freedman, approaches Mr. Brodess about her freedom, as Brodess's own great-grandfather had agreed to free Minty's mother, Harriet "Rit" Ross, and her family when she turned 45. Even though Rit is now 57, Mr. Brodess insists they will always be slaves, and tears up the letter from a lawyer John had hired. Brodess's adult son Gideon (Joe Alwyn) catches Minty praying for God to take Mr. Brodess and mocks her, saying God does not care about the prayers of slaves. Mr. Brodess dies shortly afterward, alarming Gideon, who decides to sell Minty as punishment. Minty, who suffers "spells" since being struck in the head as a girl, has a vision of herself escaping to freedom, and she decides to run. Minty tells John to stay behind, as he would lose his own freedom if caught escaping with her, but plans to meet up with him later. Gideon pursues her to a bridge over a river, where he promises not to sell her, but she jumps anyway, saying she will live free or die. Minty is presumed drowned but successfully makes it to Philadelphia via the Underground Railroad assisted by Quakers and other abolitionists. In Philadelphia, she meets Marie Buchanon (Janelle Monáe), the fashionable daughter of a freed slave who was born free and is now a boarding-house proprietor, and William Still (Leslie Odom Jr.), an abolitionist and writer. William encourages her to take a new free name, and she calls herself Harriet after her mother. After a few months in Philadelphia, against the advice of Marie and William, Harriet decides to go back for John. She successfully makes it to John's homestead only to find he has remarried, believing she was dead, and is expecting a baby with his new wife. Devastated, Harriet decides to free her family, but her sister refuses to leave her two children. Harriet continues to return, guiding dozens of slaves to freedom as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and a myth begins to grow about the person responsible, who is dubbed Moses. Harriet has managed to free many of her family and friends, yet still yearns to free her own sister from the Brodess household. William forbids it, saying it is too dangerous. However, when the Fugitive Slave Act passes, the escaped slaves are in jeopardy of being brought back even from free states. Gideon is livid when he discovers that she is "Moses" as his fellow slave owners demand he compensate them Harriet freeing their own slaves. Gideon pursues her to Philadelphia along with the slave hunter Bigger Long (Omar Dorsey), who kills Marie. Harriet flees to Canada. In Canada, Harriet insists that the Underground Railroad must continue. She continues to help runaway slaves flee all the way to Canada, though her sister dies before she can save her. Over time, the Brodess farm falls into financial ruin. Mrs. Brodess (Jennifer Nettles) vows to catch Harriet, using her sister's children as bait. But Harriet's team overwhelms Gideon's siblings and retrieves the last remaining Brodess slaves. In a final confrontation, Bigger Long winds up shot to death, but Harriet lets Gideon live, telling him of her vision of Gideon's cause defeated by war. An epilogue states she personally freed more than 70 slaves on the Underground Railroad and returned as a Union spy during the Civil War, leading 150 colored soldiers, who freed over 750 slaves.

Filmed in 20 countries and 20 years in the making - A stunningly filmed portrait of life. Richard Wawman's unique film mesmerizes and transports us to the most remote areas of the world untouched by civilization, exploring the deep and intimate relationships between gender and sex, family, death, food, rituals and the rhythm of life that is universal.

In the year 2079, planet Earth has been at war for the last 45 years after it was attacked by a hostile and implacable alien civilization from the Alpha Centauri system. Force shield domes are put in place to protect cities from frequent and incoming meteors from the aliens, and a totalitarian global military government is established to effect the war and the survival of human race. The enemy aliens, called Centaurians, have never been physically seen (nor are they ever seen on camera). Spencer Olham (Gary Sinese), a designer of top-secret government weapons, goes to work for a typical Monday. He is arrested by Major D.H. Hathaway (Vincent D'Onofrio) of the Earth Security Administration (ESA), after somehow being identified as a replicant created by the aliens. The ESA intercepted an alien transmission which cryptanalysts decoded as programming Olham's target to be the Chancellor (Lindsay Crouse), whom he was scheduled to meet later that day. Such replicants are perfect biological copies of existing humans, complete with transplanted memories, and do not know they are replicants. Each has a powerful "U-bomb" in their chest in the shape and appearance of a human heart, which is programmed to detonate only when the android replicant is close to its target. The alien-made bomb is undetectable with standard X-ray and ultra-sound scanners. The bomb can only be detected by physical dissection... thus killing the replicant. Major Hathaway begins interrogating Olham. As he's about to drill out his chest to find the bomb, Olham breaks loose and escapes from the facility, accidentally killing his friend Nelson (Tony Shalhoub) in the process. With the help of underground scavenger Cale (Mekhi Phifer), Olham avoids capture and becomes a fugitive from the law as well as all the persons and neighbors he thought he trusted over the next 12 hours. With the help of Cale, Olham must find a way to prove his innocence and that he is not an alien replicant. That evening, with the help of Cale, Olham sneaks into the hospital where his wife Maya (Madeleine Stowe), who works as an administrator, to get a high-tech scan of his entire body in order to prove he's not a replicant. Cale helps Olham in order to get medical supplies for his people whom live in a shantytown slum of the city. But the scan is interrupted by security forces before it can deliver the answer with his chest scan incomplete. Never the less, Cale helps Olham escape from the hospital, while he and Olham go their separate ways with Cale having gotten the medical supplies and medicine needed for the people in the shantytown. Olham and his wife are eventually captured by Hathaway's troops in a forest outside the city near an alien crash site, close to the spot where they sneaked out of the city where they spent a romantic weekend just one week before Olham's arrest. Inside the ship they discover the corpse of the real Maya, and Hathaway shoots the replicant before she can detonate. Hathaway thinks he has killed the true impostor, but as his men move debris away from the Centauri ship, the real Spencer's body is revealed. At that moment, the shocked Olham realizes aloud that he really is an alien replicant all along, as well as his wife. But before Hathaway can react, Olham's secondary trigger (his awareness of what he truly is) detonates his U-bomb, destroying himself, Hathaway, his troops, and everything else in a wide area... in a large and fiery nuclear explosion. In the final scene, the news announces that Hathaway and the Olhams were killed in an alien attack, as if the government was covering up the truth, or didn't know what actually happened. Cale wonders if he ever really knew Olham's true identity.

The Tamil dubbed version of the English film with the same name, ``Blade`` is the story of a half-vampire, half-human, who uses his powers and privileges by saving mankind. While giving birth to Blade, Blade`s mother was bitten by a Vampire, making him immune to them. As and when Blade realizes the powers he has, he begins hunting down vampires, in a quest to wipe the Earth clean of their kind.

Jack Crow (James Woods) is a professional and Vatican-funded vampire slayer. He and his team of slayers have just rooted out a nest of nine vampires in the New Mexico desert but, disappointingly, the master vampire--Jan Valek--was not there. Still, the team is partying at the Sun God Motel, rejoicing in their victory. Unbeknown to the slayers, Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith) is in the adjoining room, seducing and biting Katrina (Sheryl Lee), a hooker hired for the party. Before Jack is even aware of Valek's presence, Valek has viciously slain his entire team as well as all the hookers. During the battle, Valek says Jack's name, which takes the slayer by surprise. Only Jack, Katrina, and Jack's partner Montoya (Daniel Baldwin) manage to escape. After beheading and burning the bodies of his team (to make sure they don't turn into vampires), Jack goes directly to Cardinal Alba (Maximilian Schell) for further instructions. Alba has more bad news. Their European team was also wiped out three days ago near Cologne, Germany, and a portrait of Jan Valek was found there. According to archivist, Father Adam Guiteau (Tim Guinee), Valek was a 14th century priest who turned against the church and was burned at the stake for heresy. After his death, however, Valek became a vampire, the first of his kind. The Vatican wants Jack to rebuild his team, and they give him Guiteau as his first replacement. Jack wants nothing to do with the milquetoast bookworm, especially because he suspects the team's slaying was a setup, and it could just as easily have been Guiteau as anyone else in the church. After physically abusing Guiteau a few times, Jack levels with him. He shows him a map of where nests of vampires have been killed in the Southwest since the 1800s. It shows a pattern of an ever-widening circle, and Jack thinks that they're searching for something. Furthermore, he thinks they might be searching for a black cross that he heard of when he was young. Meanwhile, Montoya and Katrina are holed up in a hotel. Katrina hasn't turned yet and, when she finds out that she's been bitten by a vampire. Montoya wants to keep her around because of her telepathic link to Valek. She tries to commit suicide by jumping off a ledge but Montoya manages to pull her back through the window, but he cuts his arm while doing so, and Katrina grabs it and starts sucking. Montoya knocks her out and then burns the bite with a lighter, hoping to sterilize it from the sickness that will convert him. When Katrina awakens, she starts having visions. The first one is of Valek in a church in San Miguel County. The next vision shows Valek looking at a map and then killing a priest. Guiteau offers to get a list of all the churches in the county, a clue that leads them to Father Molina, whose body was found decapitated and laying alongside a dirt road. After further brutal interrogation by Jack, Guiteau finally confesses that Molina was the only one in the world who knew the whereabouts of the black Bersier cross, an ancient relic from the Old World (Europe) that was used in the exorcism meant to drive the demons from Valek's body. Unfortunately, the exorcism resulted in turning him into a vampire was never completed, leaving Valek vulnerable to the sun. He needs the cross now to finish the ritual. If he succeeds, he will be able to live in the daytime. A master vampire able to walk in the sun would be unstoppable. It's sundown and Valek with a new group of vampires are rising from the ground where they sleep. Through her telepathic connection to Valek, Katrina can tell that he is accompanied by seven other master vampires. She can see them headed into a small Spanish mission. She can see the vampires brutally slaying the mission clerics. And she can see Valek taking down the black cross. "He's got it!" she smiles. The next day Katrina leads Jack and Montoya to the small, deserted town of Santiago where she says Valek is hiding in the best-constructed building in town -- the jailhouse. With only three slayers and as many as 30 vampires, Jack, Montoya, and Guiteau have their work cut out for them. As the day wears on, Guiteau lures out the vampires, Jack shoots stakes into their chests from his crossbow, and Montoya drives the winch that pulls the vampires out into the sun where they burn up. With the sun setting rapidly, it is time to end the day's work before the other vampires wake up. Montoya and Katrina escape in the jeep, Guiteau hides behind a counter in a restaurant, finding a shotgun, but Valek catches Jack and ties him up. Jack wonders why Valek just doesn't kill him. Suddenly, Cardinal Alba steps out of the shadows. Admitting he was the one who betrayed the slayers, he says he's struck a deal with Valek to give him immortality for finishing the ritual that will complete Valek's transformation. Meanwhile, Katrina has completed her change. She bites Montoya's neck, drinks some of his blood, and then leaves him for dead in the jeep and rejoins Valek and his vampires. Montoya shoots off a few rounds with his gun and then places the hot barrel to his neck, hoping to sterilize the bite. The ceremony is beginning, and Jack discovers that he is to part of it, because the ceremony requires a ritual sacrifice by crucifixion of a slayer at the moment of dawn. The vampires tie Jack to a cross and Alba begins by slicing Jack's leg, collecting the blood, and passing it to Valek to drink. As the sun begins to rise, Guiteau (who has been listening to everything from his hiding place in the restaurant) shoots Alba. With no priest to finish the ritual, Valek tries to force Guiteau to do it, but Guiteau turns the gun on himself. Just when it looks like Guiteau might have to shoot himself, Montoya appears in the jeep. He fires a stake into the cross and, using the winch, pulls it down. Guiteau leaps forward and cuts Jack free. As the sun continues to rise, the vampires run for cover, with Jack and Guiteau following. They trap Valek, who leaps at Jack. Jack holds up the Bersier cross and Valek lands on it, impaling himself. As Valek attempts to pull out the cross, Jack pulls down the dilapidated ceiling. The sunlight streams in, and Valek bursts into flames. In the final scene, knowing that they have more vampires to kill, Montoya finally admits to Jack that he's been bitten twice by Katrina, who is lying in the back of the truck in order to stay out of the sun. He also says that he can no longer function as a slayer and that he intends to take Katrina south where he can take care of her. Guiteau tries to kill Montoya, but Jack steps between them. Knowing that Montoya was first bitten two days ago but still saved his life in the fight with the vampires, Jack figures he owes Montoya two days. However, he promises that, when those two days are up, he will hunt down Montoya and Katrina and kill both of them. The soon-to-be-turned vamp Montoya and the vampire Katrina drive away while Jack and Guiteau stay behind to clean up the town of the surviving vampires before pursing them. [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.]

Brian, painter Ellen and chef Sam timeshare an apartment on different days. A shift on Mon/Wednesdays causes mistaken identity as Ellen and Sam have never met but leave notes, food etc. behind for each other. Sam has a problem with his roommates: they are disgusting, and don't seem to share his views on responsibility, privacy, and basic hygiene. Such is his discomfort with his living arrangements that he agrees to share the occupancy of another flat: he gets two nights a week, the owner (a sleazy frat-boy yuppie named Brian, soon to be married) and Ellen (a would-be painter seeking relief from her boring marriage) each get their separate nights in the flat. Things go extremely well until Sam and Brian swap nights without telling Ellen, who attributes the "nice" things that happen around the place to the slob Brian, while berating the responsible Sam for his hedonistic lifestyle. —Murray Chapman <muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au>