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A Man, a Woman and a Killer
A MAN, A WOMAN, AND A KILLER is the story of a small-time gangster (Dick Richardson) writing his journal in a Mendocino, California, farmhouse, as he awaits a hit man who is coming to kill him. In this first part of a trilogy, realities continue to shift between the story, and the actual making of the film, as seen through unscripted scenes, real-life narrations by lead actors, and the real relationship that developed on the set between Richardson and the actress (Carolyn Zaremba) who played his girlfriend. A bumbling, local librarian (played by Ed Nylund) is mistaken for the "killer" and plays along with the game.
Wayne Wang
Wayne Wang
Rick Schmidt
Rick Schmidt
Dick Richardson
Casts & Crew
Also Directed by Wayne Wang
Marisa Ventura is a struggling single mom who works at a posh Manhattan hotel and dreams of a better life for her and her young son. One fateful day, hotel guest and senatorial candidate Christopher Marshall meets Marisa and mistakes her for a wealthy socialite. After an enchanting evening together, the two fall madly in love. But when Marisa's true identity is revealed, issues of class and social status threaten to separate them. Can two people from very different worlds overcome their differences and live happily ever after?
A girl, abandoned by her mother when she was three, moves to a small town in Florida with her father. There, she adopts an orphaned dog she names Winn-Dixie. The bond between the girl and her special companion brings together the people in a small Florida town and heals her own troubled relationship with her father.
In this adaptation of the Mona Simpson novel, single mother Adele August is bad with money, and even worse when it comes to making decisions. Her straight-laced daughter, Ann, is a successful high school student with Ivy League aspirations. When Adele decides to pack up and move the two of them from the Midwest to Beverly Hills, Calif., to pursue her dreams of Hollywood success, Ann grows frustrated with her mother's irresponsible and impulsive ways.
The story about a Korean-American man who cares for his ailing mother and tries to master her traditional Korean dishes.
Two cabbies search San Francisco's Chinatown for a mysterious character who has disappeared with their $4000. Their quest leads them on a humorous, if mundane, journey which illuminates the many problems experienced by Chinese-Americans trying to assimilate into contemporary American society.
In San Francisco, an immigrant Chinese widow welcomes the new year with some unhappiness: she's 62 now, she wants to make a trip to China to pay last respects to her ancestors, a fortune teller has told her this is the year she'll die, and a daughter, Geraldine, remains unmarried. Geraldine does have a boyfriend, but she's not sure she's ready for marriage, and, anyway, he lives in Los Angeles and Geraldine doesn't want to leave her mother alone in her declining years. Mrs. Tan's cheerful brother-in-law tries to help out. Is there any solution that will enable Mrs. Tan to hold onto her culturally-influenced and deep-seated hopes, yet keep those hopes from suffocating Geraldine?
The story of Hong Kong, from New Year's Day to June 30th, 1997, when the British left their colony and turned it over to the People's Republic of China.
Kenji and Aya spend their summer days in a Hotel. While she is doing her own thing, he tries to work on his novel. But then a few strange hotel guest arouse the curiosity of the couple...
The film follows Mr. Shi, a retired widower from Beijing. When his only daughter, Yilan, who lives in Spokane, Washington and works as a librarian, gets divorced, he decides to visit her to help her heal. However, Yilan is not interested. She tries keeping an emotional distance but when this finally fails she begins physically avoiding her father. He confronts her about an affair with a married Russian man and she, in turn, lets loose about all the gossip she'd heard as a young girl about his alleged affair with a female colleague back in China.
A couple checks into a suite in Las Vegas. In flashbacks we see that he's a computer whiz on the verge of becoming a dot.com millionaire, she's a lap dancer at a club. He's depressed, withdrawing from work, missing meetings with investors. He wants a connection, so he offers her $10,000 to spend three nights with him in Vegas, and she accepts with conditions. Is mutual attraction stirring?
Also Directed by Rick Schmidt
LONELINESS IS SOUL features two young women, Meeka and Jessica who rent an Oakland apartment where an itinerate musician occasionally crashes. His presence in the household acts like a truth serum, somehow suddenly prompting everyone, including a strange "gift-giver" and prying landlord to tell their strangest real-life stories. His own hilarious tale about taking magic mushrooms on the beach helps convince the viewer that the only really "safe" path in life is to go directly for one's dream "full out," holding nothing back.
story about obsessions & letting go
When a corporate movie chain invades Brunswick, Maine, tries to put the tiny Eveningstar Cinema (100 seats) out of business, they are confronted by a secret and fervent, mallet-wielding Women-Only Croquet Club, which protests them at every turn.
TEARS OF BANKERS follows the mortgage meltdown of Mr. Barry Norman's B&B, owned and operated by himself and his wife Brittany (Brittany Hannah) in the small town of Rome, Georgia. At the beginning, Norman states his distain for bankers; they will rule soon on his loan and prospects for the future ('ten words that decides basically the rest of my life'). Since Norman has kept his present financial problems secret from Brittany, she's remained confused by her husband's increasingly erratic behavior. As the loan deadline approaches, Norman wonders if he will again lose a house AND a wife (his second) to the machinations of the banking industry. Only a miracle can save him, as the money men move in for the kill.
CRASH MY FUNERAL is a surreal comedy about a scriptwriter's block. In an attempt to pull his movie back on track he employs drastic measures; trying out impossible dialogue on a pizza delivery man, wandering around the neighborhood to scare up new characters and scenes, hoping for inspiration from every pretty girl that passes his way. In the end he realizes that the creation of art, for him, isn't fictional at all, but merely a collage of real-life moments in which he finds meaning and delight. Produced as part of Rick Schmidt Workshop.
Barry's about to make a few changes in his life...
A Type-A woman, Maya, hitchhikes her way through Death Valley after a fatal car crash. She is frustrated while waiting for her car to be repaired, she talks to the town's many residents (mostly childless women and a roaming ghost named Robbie). Finally she mellows and decides to stay there for eternity.
Thrown out of his crash pad after traveling the West Coast, a young man, David, hits the streets without money or direction. Fortunately a little girl, points him to a rooftop where other homeless people have crashed.
MIRAGE is about a old man, Jefe, who has a cult-like hold on his household of wayward, homeless new-age women, whoever Mike, his 20 year old henchman, can pick up at local bars and cafés in Santa Fe, NM and bring back to the adobe. Homelife starts disintegrating when a Native American woman, Lisa, falls in love with a Native American drifter, Freddie. Music from underground Chicago (Ill Ben, .org, Murlot, Jo-Fixxx-it, Saykay), Memphis (David Rookings, Olga, and Bluff City Backslides/Don MacGregor), and Santa Fe (Alex Maryol, Jonathan Grossman, Blood Drained Cows) supplies an energy pack, propelling the lovers forth toward their breakout finale.
A single mother (Jody Esther) forms a bond beyond death with her young daughter in a coastal Washington town. Made as an homage to Jean Cocteau's Orphée (1950).