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Million Dollar Hotel, The

The Million Dollar Hotel is a story of friendship, betrayal and the overwhelming power of unconditional love. A gang of unique outcasts and misfits live in a downtown Los Angeles fleapit, known locally as the "Million Dollar Hotel". Their story is seen through the eyes of Tom Tom, a young man who serves them all like some sort of "Beggar's Butler". He has a childlike, innocent mind. Tom Tom has fallen head over heels for the tarnished street angel Eloise. As their relationship develops, the Million Dollar Hotel becomes the focus of a police investigation: one of its residents, the engaging junkie Izzy, has come to a grisly end. He fell off the roof. Or was he pushed? To the amazement of his neighbors, he is revealed to have been son of a billionaire media magnate. Every inhabitant of the Million Dollar Hotel falls under suspicion in the enquiry led by FBI hardliner, Detective Skinner. As Skinner's investigation proceeds, the lines between murder and suicide, sane and deranged, become very blurred indeed.

Wim Wenders was born in Düsseldorf in 1945. He abandoned studies in Medicine and Philosophy to become a painter, but in Paris he discovered cinema instead. He attended film school in Munich from 1967-1970, and then started to direct and produce his own films. He has received numerous international awards, including the Golden Lion (1982), the Golden Palm (1984), the European Film Award (1988), and a Silver Bear (2000). He is a professor at the Hamburg Academy of Arts, and lives partly in America, partly in Berlin. A selection of his acclaimed films includes: THE GOALKEEPER'S FEAR OF THE PENALTY (1971), ALICE IN THE CITIES (1973), IN THE COURSE OF TIME (1976), THE AMERICAN FRIEND (1977), HAMMETT (1982), THE STATE OF THINGS (1982), PARIS, TEXAS (1984), WINGS OF DESIRE (1987), UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD (1991), FARAWAY, SO CLOSE! (1993), LISBON STORY (1994), THE END OF VIOLENCE (1997), BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB (1998), THE MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL (2000), THE SOUL OF A MAN (2003), LAND OF PLENTY (2004), DON'T COME KNOCKING (2005), PALERMO SHOOTING (2008), and PINA (2011), among others.

Genre Drama
Category Feature
Year of Production 1999
Director Wim Wenders
Screenplay Nicholas Klein
Director of Photography Phedon Papamichael
Editor Tatiana S. Riegel
Music by Jon Hassell, Bono, Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno
Cast Jeremy Davies, Milla Jovovich, Jimmy Smits, Peter Stormare, Amanda Plummer, Gloria Stuart, Tom Bower, Donal Logue, Harris Yulin, Mel Gibson
Producers Ulrich Felsberg, Wim Wenders, Nicholas Klein, Bono, Deepak Nayar, Bruce Davey
Production Company Road Movies Filmproduktion/Berlin
Length 122 min
Format 35 mm, color
Dubbed Versions German, French, Italian
Original Version English
Subtitled Version German
Sound Technology Dolby SRD
Sound Technology Dolby SRD, Dolby
Festivals Berlin 2000 (opening film, in competition)
German Distributor Concorde Filmverleih/Munich

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