Mike Bell
When a restless young married woman is granted a wish by a Christmas Angel to be single again, she soon discovers her new life isn’t what she bargained for, and embarks on a quest to win her husband back.
JONAH, an unemployed gambler, takes his estranged pot-smoking teen-aged daughter AURORA on a dangerous road trip to Churchill, Manitoba to show her the magnificent Northern Lights – before her vision disorder renders her completely blind.
Starring Hilarie Burton, Gabriel Hogan and Tim Matheson, “Last Chance Christmas” is about when Prancer injures his hoof, and Santa’s stable hand, John, must find a fill in to ensure Christmas deliveries go off without a hitch. His mission gets complicated when he discovers that Frankie, the perfect substitute reindeer, belongs to a precocious 8-year-old girl and her mother Annie. As he races to get Frankie up to the North Pole, he realizes that he’s actually falling in love with Annie and has to find a way to win her over and save Christmas at the same time.
A hyper-repressed and schlubby accountant (Jonas Chernick) strikes a deal with a worldly but disorganized stripper (Emily Hampshire): he’ll help her with her crushing debt if she helps him become a better lover. Sharp direction by the versatile Sean Garrity and a very funny script by Chernick ensure for an uproarious — and surprisingly educational — sex comedy. (TIFF)
The tight-knit neighbors on Arthur Avenue have proudly lit Christmas luminaries for 40 years, but that long-standing tradition is cancelled this year when Matt Norman (Ty Wood), a teenage boy in the neighborhood, is hospitalized in desperate need of a heart transplant. As his parents Ann (Teri Polo) and Mike (Paul Essiembre) anxiously pray by his bedside, a donor is found, while in Detroit, a mother (Tess Harper) is in anguish at her own son’s bedside. When Matt’s neighbors decide to honor him in the best way they know how, they just might help save his life.
Lucky Christmas is the story of Holly Ceroni, a single mom trying to get back on her feet, but who is crushed to learn her winning lottery ticket is in the glove compartment of her recently stolen car. Mike Ronowski, the construction worker behind Holly’s missing property, goes along with a master plan to befriend Holly and coerce her into giving him half of her winnings. Mike unexpectedly falls in love with Holly and learns there are more important things in life than quick money in time for the holidays.
Po is now living his dream as The Dragon Warrior, protecting the Valley of Peace alongside his friends and fellow kung fu masters, The Furious Five – Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey. But Po’s new life of awesomeness is threatened by the emergence of a formidable villain, who plans to use a secret, unstoppable weapon to conquer China and destroy kung fu. It is up to Po and The Furious Five to journey across China to face this threat and vanquish it. But how can Po stop a weapon that can stop kung fu? He must look to his past and uncover the secrets of his mysterious origins; only then will he be able to unlock the strength he needs to succeed.
In America, we define ourselves in the superlative: we are the biggest, strongest, fastest country in the world. Is it any wonder that so many of our heroes are on performance enhancing drugs? Director Christopher Bell explores America’s win-at-all-cost culture by examining how his two brothers became members of the steroid-subculture in an effort to realize their American dream.
The setting is Detroit in 1995. The city is divided by 8 Mile, a road that splits the town in half along racial lines. A young white rapper, Jimmy “B-Rabbit” Smith Jr summons strength within himself to cross over these arbitrary boundaries to fulfill his dream of success in hip hop. With future and the three one third all he has to do is not choke.
