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SLEEPWALKER A feature length screenplay by David Eyre and Douglas Snider GENRE: Thriller The year is 1969. Top-secret U.S. intelligence agencies -- faced with widespread anti-government uprisings on America's college campuses -- set out to recruit patriotic students to infiltrate and spy on the campus anti-war activists. These informants' tuition and expenses will be secretly paid for by the U.S. taxpayers. When first approached, 18-year-old Forest Service smoke-jumper David O'Brien is seduced by the offer of a free college education. Concurrently, a paranoid U.S. government - in full Cold War, Viet Nam era mode - has begun to secretly conduct mind-altering experiments on its soldiers - and appallingly - sometimes on groups of unsuspecting, ordinary citizens. In just such a program, David and his on-campus spying operation cohorts are unwittingly made into clandestine government research guinea pigs. Thirty years pass. In present day, the residual effects of these covert programs go horribly awry. David suddenly finds himself at the center of a deadly maelstrom. The former co-members of his college era spy program are - one by one - being brutally murdered. David must discover why, before he becomes the next unfortunate casualty. David seeks out Jessica, an original member of the program and the first woman he ever loved; and Randy, a solid, resourceful friend from his old smoke-jumping days. With their help, David hunts for the killer - all the while, he too is being hunted. SLEEPWALKER is a taut thriller, a cleverly twisted contemporary "Manchurian Candidate," guaranteed to keep audiences at the edge of their seat until its fast-paced, dramatic conclusion. SWEET HOME
CHICAGO
SYNOPSIS
AMERICAN PHARAOH Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Fight for Chicago and the Nation Book for Cable Biopic by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor Book Description "This is Chicago, this is America." With those words, Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley famously defended his brutal crackdown on protestors at the 1968 Democratic convention. Profoundly divided racially, economically and socially, Chicago was indeed a microcosm of America, and for more than two decades Daley ruled it with an iron fist. The last of the big city bosses, Daley ran an unbeatable political machine that controlled over one million votes. From 1955 until his death in 1976, every decision of any importance - from distributing patronage jobs to picking Congressional candidates - went through his office. He was a major player in national politics as well. Kennedy and Johnson owed their presidencies to his control of the Illinois vote, and he made sure they never forgot it. In a city legendary for its corruption and backroom politics, Daley's power was unrivaled. Daley transformed Chicago - then a dying city - into a modern metropolis of skyscrapers, freeways and a thriving downtown. But he also made Chicago America's most segregated city. A man of profound prejudices and a deep authoritarian streak, he constructed the nation's largest and worst ghettoes, sidestepped national civil rights laws, and successfully thwarted Martin Luther King's campaign to desegregate Northern cities. A quarter-century after his death, Daley's outsize presence continues to influence American urban life, and a reassessment of his career is long overdue. Now, veteran journalists Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor present the definitive biography of Richard J. Daley, drawn from newly uncovered material and dozens of interviews with his contemporaries. In today's era of poll-tested, polished politicians, Daley's rough-and-tumble story is remarkable. From the working-class Irish neighborhood of his childhood, to his steady rise through Chicago's corrupt political hierarchy, to his role as national powerbroker, American Pharaoh is a riveting account of the life and times of one of the most important figures in twentieth-century domestic politics. In the tradition of Robert Caro's classic The Power Broker, this is a compelling life story of a towering individual whose complex legacy is still with us today." Editorial Reviews You might say it took a village to raise this child. Richard Daley and Chicago are inseparable, and it's impossible to discuss one without at least mentioning the other. Consequently, American Pharaoh includes far more material than your average biography; this is as much the story of the city as it is of the man. Covering the years between 1902 and 1976 (that is, between Daley's birth and death), authors Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor show us a life that in some ways symbolizes the American dream: a boy from a poor neighborhood grows up to wield unimaginable power, yet never forgets his roots. But Daley's was a complicated legacy. While filling Chicago with modern architecture and affecting national politics, he was also held responsible for the segregation and police brutality that tore the city apart during thee late '60s and early '70s. Throughout the book, Cohen and Taylor remind readers that Daley's real influence came from the powerful political machine he created. When he didn't like guidelines from national agencies, for example, he went directly to the presidents he helped get elected. When he got bad local press, people lost their jobs and his neighbors marched in his support. When Martin Luther King Jr. came to town, he was greeted by a handpicked organization of African American leaders with strong ties to Daley's machine. It's startling to remember that this was simply a local office; the mayor's loyalties and prejudices affected the entire country. American Pharaoh shows politics at its deepest level, and each chapter brings new insights into a complex man and the system he created in order to rule the city that mad him. - Jill Lightner The New York Times Book Review, Alan Ehrenhalt San Francisco Chronicle, 7/16/00-7/22/00 Publishers Weekly, 5/1/00 Business Week, 5/29/00 " meticulously researched likely the definitive biography compelling " From Booklist Kirkus, 4/15/00 "A monumental biography of Chicago's six-term mayor that elevates the coarse and cunning political boss to the status of American icon breathlessly engrossing " Studs Terkel, author of Working and My American Century Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here and The Other
Side of the River Douglas Brinkley, Director of the Eisenhower Center and Professor
of History, University of New Orleans William Julius Wilson, author of When Work Disappears: The World
of the New Urban Poor ALA Booklist, 4/1/00 Kirkus, 4/15/00 Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent Douglas Brinkley, Director of the Eisenhower Center and Professor
of History, University of New Orleans Chicago Tribune, 5/19/00 About the Authors Caveman Robot Greetings from Jason Robert Bell. Caveman Robot is perhaps something very profound or just an inside joke, maybe both. Ever since his creation over a telephone call with Shoshanna Weinberger, he has been floating around in my mind, standing there at my side! St. Ignatius Loyola said he imaged that Jesus Christ was always standing at his side, urging him to endeavor to be on his constant best behavior. I have come to think of Caveman Robot in a similar way, always there ready to leap from my pen onto paper, a bombastic id force that dispatches obstructions with extreme overkill. The fun thing about the clockwork Neanderthal is his ubiquitous nature, the rather open-ended template he is for anyone to access. Those who have been willing to give me their "take" on him have always returned with something that adds another facet to "the Concept." Some see him as a superhero, an action figure (literary) that kicks ass and cracks skulls with remorseless brutal might. Others see him as a comedic oaf combining the most negative aspects of his two names. Others have seen him as an oxymoron, a visual puzzle to design, or dissect into parts that are more straightforward. Still others see him as a kind of Everyhuman, as we are all robotic primitives, viewing technology as an Arthur C. Clarke kind of magic. We howl and holler in front of the TV instead of the communal fire. We gaze longingly at the image of those most wanted consumer goods instead of the image of a beast to hunt. Personally, I see Caveman Robot, as an omnibusic idea. He is quite the rare Alchemical being, that can simultaneously be many different things to many different people. Right now he is the master of my notebook, standing there always changing form and mood. Collaborators that I have shared him with have also become infected with his image. What red-blooded artist does not love to draw robots and for that matter, visit the lands that time forgot? An enigmatic wonder he is powered by Enrico Tesla's tower station somewhere outside of our timeline. Upright is his form, bolts and metallic limbs covered with the hide of some fearsome prehistoric spotted beast. Standing there in a dark primordial jungle, his electronic optical input devices blinking a bright red light, processing the entire visual spectrum. Then as the fast hum of his mini rockets ignite and blue flames burst from below his massive feet, he leaps over your head to take on a giant predator face to face. Perhaps he is the star of a some Saturday morning cartoon, he and his gang of well meaning young hipster friends travelling around the world on the hi-ways and BI-ways solving mysteries and playing in their Rock n' Roll band. He is a cuddly cute stuffed toy that wiggles when you squeeze him, and the toy store only has a few of 'em remaining on the shelves. He is a go-project; the big guys in Hollywood have given the green light, the merchandising possibilities alone sold them! Badly made rushed botched job of live action fiasco will fill the silver screen with Caveman Robot's visage. The bright young unknown actor that plays the lead will be forever typecast, his life ending in suicide. Nevertheless, the film will be an underground "cult classic," its viewing a rite of passage for every misunderstood suburban youngster. Years later every watered down nostalgia hound will comb backwoods thrift shops for Caveman Robot items. Finding them will fill them briefly with that sense of fulfillment we all seek when we momentary recover the long yearned for irrecoverable artifacts of the fleeting past. Everywhere you go he will be there - comic books, beach towels, instant tattoos, T-shirts, plastic Halloween costumes, mouse pads, screen savers and candy bars. The giant Caveman Robot Balloon will fill the skies of New York on Thanksgiving Day. The Caveman Blimp over the Super Bowl. Knockoff hackjobs of the likeness of Caveman Robot will adorn the signs and windows of lower class day-care centers. The nationally syndicated newspaper comic strip produced by a legion of ghost artists will be right below those dreadful littlefoot affairs - Rex Morgan MD, Apartment 3-G, Steve Canyon. Little children in Bangladesh will learn their first words of English, and those words will be: "Caveman Robot" All these events will come to pass, or the skies will blacken with the unholy hellfire of Caveman Robot's wraith. The great cities of humankind will fall, societies will crumble, and the concepts of love and mercy will become mere fantasy. The term apocalypse will become a shinning daydream in contrast to the scattered wastelands of this once green earth. The tiny handful of unlucky survivors will meekly hide within the ruins of metal and plastic that was once our mighty skyscrapers. This is it, the end of all illusions, you had better get out when the gettin' is good, and one reality will be at the hub of our crossroads, its name: "Caveman Robot!" Only He can save us, only if, He will spare us. Caveman Robot © Jason Robert Bell and Shoshanna Weinberger To see more, click here. |
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