Ruby Sparks

Calvin, former 'boy wonder' in literary circles, has not been writing anything measuring up to his successful debut novel. He spends his days talking to his shrink, working out with his brother Harry and walking his dog Scotty, who he only got in order to meet people (preferably girls) that will come up to pet the dog. But Scotty is far too scared of other people.

He has dreams of the same girl that he cannot quite remember. Until one day he does and he starts writing about her on his old typewriter, his dream girl, and calls her Ruby Sparks. Over the next few days, he is writing in a frenzy and Scotty starts bringing him random things, clearly belonging to a woman.

Then one day, Ruby appears. He first thinks that she is a figment of his imagination until he realizes that other people can see her as well. He has created his dream girl. His brother Harry does not believe him, of course, until Calvin introduces her to Ruby and the brothers decide to try out what Calvin is able to change about her by simply writing it down. He makes her speak French as prove that this is actually happening.

At first, everything is fine and Calvin decides to never write about her again so that he can keep her forever. But soon after Ruby meets Calvin's family, their relationship turns into something less magical and more normal. After a while, Ruby wants to spend a little time without Calvin and suggest that she spent one day per week at her place. So Calvin is lonely again and does - contrary to his earlier decision - write about Ruby again. He makes her clingy. This does not work for him and when she gets really desperate about him having let go of her hand to answer the phone, he writes her happy.

When things finally come to blows (and of course, they would) and Ruby wants to leave him, he shows her what he has written about her and to prove to her that he can make her do whatever he wants, he does just that. She runs against an innocent wall, she starts speaking French, she snaps her finger, she sings and strips, she jumps and yells compliments at Calvin....until the letters on the old typewriter slam up and she falls to the floor.

Then he finishes the story, writing her out of his life and retiring his old typewriter.

He rewrites the story again as fiction (on a a laptop). And then, just for that magical ending, he meets her in real life.

7/10

Capricorn One

In the 1970's everything was a conspiracy.

One of the classic conspiracy theories and one of the more persistent ones is that the moon landing was a hoax, a film directed by Stanley Kubrick. French director William Karel took this story and made the mockumentary Opération Lune (Dark Side of the Moon) in 2002. Of course, as many people do not understand satire, many a conspiracy theorist thought this only proved them right.

Capricorn One was inspired by all of the moon landing hoax stories. The destination this time is planet Mars. Mere seconds before a crew of three astronauts it to take off, they are led from their aircraft Capricorn One and brought before Dr. Kelloway, who explains to them that the life support system installed in Capricorn One is faulty and the flight would be too big a risk for them. However, blowing off the mission is not an option, as the funding for the space program is in jeopardy and the general interest in space travel has been waning for some time now. So, everyone is led to believe that the mission went ahead as planned.

Even ground control is unaware of what is happening. One technician reports wrong readings with his terminal. He became suspicious when the TV feed reached his station before the feed from the aircraft, which is of course impossible. He discusses this with his reporter friend Caulfield (Elliot Gould, appearing to replay his role of Philip Marlowe) and when Caulfield tries to follow up with him, the technician has simply disappeared.

The astronauts are kept in hiding for months until the originally scheduled landing of Capricorn One. The plan is to have the capsule land off course to give the people in the know an excuse for not having a live feed and time enough to retrieve the trio. Unfortunately, the aircraft loses its heat protecting shield on re-entry and burns up. This means that officially the astronauts must have died during the incident. When the three realize what has happened and consequently fear for their lives during the extended cover up scheme, they hi-jack a plane and take off, due to lack of fuel in the middle of the desert. To increase their chances of making it back to civilization before being found by the puppet masters of the operation, they take off into different directions, while unmarked helicopters comb the desert in search of them.

Meanwhile, their families mourn their losses and attend memorial services. And Caulfield is the only one, who believes that something is not quite right and goes off into the desert to search for the astronauts himself. He hires a small airplane with pilot and actually finds one of them, Chales Brubaker, the only one who managed to avoid being captured.

Their only chance of survival at this point is to make a very public appearance. They do so by showing up at a very public memorial service, skipping in slo-mo.

7/10